SheepShaver 2.3-0.20060514 review

SheepShaver is an Open Source PowerPC MacOS run-time environment

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: Christian Bauer

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SheepShaver is an Open Source PowerPC MacOS run-time environment. SheepShaver enables you to run PowerPC Classic MacOS software on your computer, even if you are using a different operating system.

However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMacintosh ROM image to use this program. SheepShaver is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

If you are using a PowerPC-based system, applications will run at native speeds (i.e. without any emulation involved). On other systems, SheepShaver provides the first PowerPC G4 emulator, though without MMU, to enable the execution of MacOS Classic.

Performance with the current CPU emulator using basic just-in-time (JIT) translation techniques is roughly 1/8-th of native speeds.

The following platforms are currently supported: Linux (i386, ppc, x86_64), MacOS X for ppc, Darwin, NetBSD 2.0, FreeBSD 5.3 and Windows for x86. Please note that I am pretty careless of the Windows version since I am not a Windows developer. You are heartly invited to join the effort!

NOTE: This webspace contains precompiled binaries and sources snapshots extracted from development CVS to ease testing until a formal release is available.

Here are some key features of "SheepShaver":
SheepShaver runs MacOS 7.5.2 thru MacOS 9.0.4
PowerPC G4 emulation on non-PowerPC platforms, direct execution otherwise
Copy and paste of text between MacOS and the host OS
File exchange with the host OS via a Unix icon on the Mac desktop
Color video display with support for run-time resolution switching
Run-time depth switching from 1 bpp to current host depth settings
Native QuickDraw 2D acceleration for BitBlt and FillRect operations
CD-quality stereo sound output
Networking: SheepShaver supports Internet and LAN networking via Ethernet and PPP with all Open Transport compatible MacOS applications

What's New in This Release:
The emulator now supports up to 1 GB of Mac memory.
SLiRP network emulation performance was improved.
A minor bug in Native QuickDraw acceleration has been fixed.
A crash during MacOS 9 installation has been fixed.
A crash with the AppleShare extension has been fixed.
Support for MacOS 7.5.3 Revision 2.2 was improved.
The program was ported to Mac OS X for Intel.
Ports to certain non-Free platforms were improved.