Running Apeiron - Macintosh Garden

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2018, November 11 - 12:06am

Temporary Joe

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Joined: 2009 Nov 14

Running Apeiron

I have both SheepShaver and Basilisk II on my computers (Basilisk II only on my Macs, never bothered setting up a PC version since SheepShaver seemed to cover everything but System 7 nostalgia).

On SheepShaver, it loads but I can't move my ship around, and on Basilisk II it claims I don't have an ADB device plugged in. The MECS chart says there's a "More complete ADB mouse emulation" option in the Basilisk II GUI app under Mouse, but when I use said app I don't see an option for it (only information on keycodes and how Basilisk II responds to a mouse wheel. I'm using Basilisk II (and the Basilisk II GUI) on a Mac, so all that is from it. Does the Basilisk II GUI have an option that the Mac version doesn't?

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2018, November 11 - 2:06am

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

In reference to Basilisk II; In my Basilisk II "JIT builds" on Mac and Windows, the mouse configs are the same as what you report.

However, the MECS chart you refer to, indicates the Basilisk II build used for the chart was "Basilisk II build 142" on Windows.

Basilisk II build 142 is a Windows PC only, earlier, highly configurable version of B2. It's user GUI is the complete opposite to the dumbed-down GUI available for the modern JIT builds of B2 that we use on Mac OS's, etc.

The Basilisk II build 142 prefs window (User's GUI):

Basilisk II build 142 prefs window (user's GUI)

This old Windows build has other niceties such as, physical floppy & SCSI HD support. Unique static IP address, multiple Macintosh model emulation to choose from, etc.

I still prefer using this build over the newer JIT builds, as I find it's WAY more stable than later JIT builds of either B2 or SheepShaver and it has full built-in Ethernet support and can use a unique static IP. But I also keep an old 32bit Windows OS to run it on, as it will never be updated.

With that said, I don't know if this build and choosing the "More complete ADB mouse emulation" option, would improve your chances of playing Apeiron. The report in the MECS chart indicates that it works with that switched on in the build 142 version of B2. As it doesn't work in SheepShaver which is a JIT build, maybe B2 JIT builds are also out.

The author of the MECS chart, Kataetheweirdo, sometimes posts in here and may be able to comment further.

2018, November 11 - 6:09am

kataetheweirdo

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Joined: 2009 Apr 10

As someone aspiring to write my own emulator, I recall having difficulty moving the ship even on real Macs, like the iMac G3. It seems like it actually is trying to access the ADB registers in order for the ship to work when going into gameplay, which is a bizarre way of doing it.

Needless to say, yes, Basilisk II 0.8 build 142 is definitely the only way Apeiron is playable, as that allows one to turn on the better mouse emulation. When I wrote that list, I used a 32-bit version of Windows Vista, but I don't think it works much differently on newer hardware.

I have no idea why the GUI was cut down so much for the newer versions. And I wanted to modify the GUI precisely to add those features back in, but BII and especially Sheepshaver are a bit too antiquated for my tastes.

2018, November 11 - 3:36pm

(Reply to #3) #4

Temporary Joe

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Joined: 2009 Nov 14

I had no idea that SheepShaver was a more "antiquated" emulator than BII was, I thought it was the other way around. After all, SheepShaver is the one is that actually opens Apeiron, and personally, the one that runs most of my classic apps that I actually like to run. The one thing that SheepShaver doesn't do sell well is the keycodes, which makes running games that use the command, control, and option a pain, specifically, Harry the Handsome Executive. (I have since disabled the Windows key on my computer for this reason, the other reason is I don't like the menu popping up when playing games...but I can't blame MS too much for this because the Apple non-extended ADB keyboard had an awful layout that put the backslash and tilde keys next to the space bar).

2018, November 13 - 5:16pm

(Reply to #4) #5

adespoton

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Joined: 2015 Feb 15

SheepShaver is built on top of Basilisk II with an added PPC emulation and newer virtualized hardware. You could try running Apeiron under QEMU / OS 9 if you want more control.

2018, November 13 - 7:02pm

(Reply to #5) #6

Temporary Joe

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Joined: 2009 Nov 14

I'd like to look into QEMU sometime since I've read that they've managed to crack things like OpenGL support, and I hope it's the ultimate for everything that can run on, say, 9.1.

2018, November 15 - 2:31am

(Reply to #6) #7

adespoton

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Joined: 2015 Feb 15

There’s still no ATi Rage virtualization, so anything that depends on that card like Bugdom and Nanosaur won’t work.

2018, November 17 - 6:30am

(Reply to #4) #8

kataetheweirdo

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Joined: 2009 Apr 10

Keep in mind that Sheepshaver was originally coded for the BeOS and lot of the hacks it uses to run at all were made for that in mind. That's also why Sheepshaver's requirements were so low. However, it does a number of things that newer OSes don't like, like segfaulting for video and writing to 0x0 in memory.