Mac games and Windows
 

Here's a dummy's question for you: I've only ever had Windows but the other day I picked up an old Mac game for my retro collection. I looked online to find out whether I'd be able to play it on XP and found many giving the answer 'Yes'. One reply said "Of course you can play your Mac games on Windows", the respondent going on to point out that it was a question of your computer's performance, not the platform.

So I popped the DVD into the tray on two different desktops, both running XP. The first just blanked it... showed absolutely nothing in the drive... wouldn't open. The second at least had the kindness to tell me that "Windows cannot read from this disc... it may be corrupted etc. etc."

So... can I play this on XP?

You can start a Mac in a kind of PC boot mode, but for the other way round you need at least an emulation program, if this exists at all :hmmm:

Depending on the game, there are ROM's of Mac games that can be played on an Emulator if you can find the ROM's - there may be a ROM of the retro Mac game that you just got on DVD.

Emulators are fairly easy to find, ROM's (the games) are more difficult because many games are being re-issued for use on 'Smart Phones' iPhones etc.

.... and, as stated above, there may be a Windows Emulator that will play the Mac DVD.


Good luck. I enjoy retro-gaming.

I'm not sure which file system the game's required Mac OS may be using.


But Mac operating systems are based on UNIX/BSD.
I doubt that XP, even with an emulator, can read the disk.
Unless the emulator has support for the file system, you may have to get it onto the PC using a Linux/BSD "Live" CD/DVD/USB-drive, and then try using an emulator.
("Live" = boots and runs the OS from a "ram drive" and gone after reboot, won't touch the installed XP OS.)

Assuming an emulator can be found...


An emulators performance is directly related to the total computational power of your PC.


For example, running DOSBOX, a Dos emulator that mimics "REAL MODE" hardware (i.e. the faster the hardware the faster the game plays, not just "More FPS").
If you need to mimic faster hardware, a 486 SX/25 instead of a 386 SX/16 for example, you would have to increase the "cycles" that DOSBOX emulates.
The higher the 'cycles', the faster your machine had to be.
(It even does the 'Adlib' and old 'Sound Blaster' sound cards! New sound cards REALLY screw up old MIDI music.)

My 2500XP (32 bit 1.83ghz) could do just fine "faking" a 386 SX/25 for "EarthSiege", but to mimic a 486 DX/2 66mhz for something like MechWarrior 2, would have my Athlon X2 5600 (dual 2.8ghz) running at a pretty high CPU usage.
As the CPU was "emulating" everything, CPU, OS, Sound, Video, EVERYTHING!


Would be the same with a Mac Emulator.


Barraucda


P.S. By contrast something like "WINE", which allows Windows games in Linux, "redirects" the Windows/DirectX "API calls" to the Linux/OpenGL equivalents, doesn't require the same amount of "oomph" since you aren't "faking hardware".
I'm not sure if such a program exist... :hmmm:

Thanks for that, guys. None of these other answers I found online said anything anout emulators... they implied you simply loaded the disc to play. It's no big deal anyway... not a 'must have' game just "Sid Meier's Pirates!"

Sid Meiers's Pirates was good, as was Pirates 'Gold'. But i thought those were all DOS versions, not Mac?

Imho the best of those older games was 'Sea legends' though, it kind of revolutionised this genre wih its Voxel engine while still running on DOS, and had a real plot and story.. though you did not need to follow it.

You start your career as a young navy captain on an english frigate, being deployed to the caribbean sea. However there is a betrayal and a trap, and you will be sunk by an overwhelming spanish fleet. This is how it was supposed to work to let the story unfold... i would not accept that though, reloaded some thirty times and finally managed to get through with my ship being shot up to 4 percent hull integrity, but making it.
You can equip your ship(s), trade with them, throw things overboard when you get stuck on a sand bank.. you learn a bit about sailing and the advantages of schooner type ships.. one of the best PC games i ever played.

You can read about and download it (and others) here:
http://www.old-games.com/download/5542/sea-legends
Also a hint how to run those older games on new PCs..

You ought to say something about this in the General Games Discussion sub-forum Pirates And Sailing Ships... I don't know whether you've visited that before?

On my 'Pirates!' box it just says "Mac" on the front, then "intel Macs, Mac mini, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro" on the reverse. Underneath this it says "PowerPC Users: This game will run on all Macintosh PowerPCs with a CPU speed of 1.6 Ghz or faster."

I only picked it up because Ramius was raving about it on the Pirates forum

Apple has sharp teeth for anyone cloning or emulating their OS for computers. Now that all computers are PCs the only thing that separates Apple products from Windows products is software and the sharp price increase you pay for an Apple product. Well, that and the significantly lame Apple service after the sale.


Apple still manufactures MacBooks, but on the new MacBook Pro, if you want a VESA mount, you have to buy it as a separate $80 purchase for this $5,000 machine.



It's a little hunk of aluminum with five holes drilled in it and pot metal screws that won't remove without breaking them off in the holes. You literally cannot remove a loosely installed screw without breaking it and rendering the VESA mount inoperative. This piece of trash costs you $80 and when the screw breaks, Apple says that this 50 cent hunk of aluminum that you bought for $80 is a third-party product and they won't warranty it.


Including stainless steel screws would cost Apple less than a dollar, which would reduce their $79.00 profit to $78.00, probably bankrupting the company.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rcms7V3VmI


And all the Apple drones said "whatever...."

It is right here on archive.org and plays in DOSBox. FREE + LEGAL

Robbins you get so excited over nothing.

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Si...s_Pirates_1987

Quote:


Be sure to download all the PDF's, txt files and the map to be able to play. Keep the CD for your Retro collection!