Mac Emulation on Windows 7

Not feeling up to working so what's a guy to do? Obviously since i got rid of the last G4 OS9 machine 2 weeks ago it's time for a CIV II fix. This means emulating a classic mac on some OS. Since the work desktop is now Windows 7 we decide to try that out. We used to run Basilisk on windows xp many years ago so we decide to go that route as the minimum requirements for Civilization II are an 040 mac and a few megabytes of ram.

First is to download and install the GTK runtime environment for Windows that enables us to run software written for the X windows environment. GTK (otherwise known as the GIMP toolkit) provides widgets (on screen controls) and tools to build graphical windowed applications. We go to install verion 2.10.13

The install finds that C:\Windows\system32\iconv.dll may conflict with programs that rely on GTK+ 2. To prevent such conflicts, it can automatically rename the file. If you choose to rename these files, their extension will be changed to .dll.off.

We decide to mess with the windows system files, recognizing the problems inherent in window's reliance on DLL's but no liking having to modify the system. Ok, installed so next we download BasiliskII and extract to a folder. We search the old mac backups and find a quadra 650 rom file and extract it and place it in the Basilisk II folder. We also get a system 7 book disk and put it in the Basilisk II folder and then download the system 7.5.3 files from apple's ftp site. Next we copy the file cdenably.sys from the Basilisk II cd-rom drivers folder to c:\windows\system32\drivers. This driver allows your windows optical disc to read mac disc, pretty well essential for installing software.

Next is to create a fake blank hard drive (which is really a file that looks like a drive). The included HSF Explorer windows utility is used to create a mac formatted 'hard drive'. We select File, Format New Volume and we give it a name of mac with a whopping 1gig of space and select the Basilisk II folder as the location of the 'hard disk' file. Click OK and it is created.
Now that we have a 'hard disk' we copy the system 7.5.3 files to the blank disk image. We go to drag the system 753 folder but it is not in downloads. Where is it. We actually go back to apple's web site! and right click as firefox will remember where the files were saved to. We find the folder and go to drag it to downloads but windows makes a shortcut - we don't want a frickin' shortcut we want to move the files you stupid OS. So we delete the shortcut and now the folder has disappeared! Searching the local hard disk finds nothing. We actually have to restore the shortcut to examine it's properties to find out the folder is actually located at "F:\bin\Dell precision 470\docs\system 753". Arghh. We make sure to CUT and PASTE this time.

Ok back on track, we drag the system 753 folder to the mac 'drive' and it seems to work OK.


We can now exit the utility and run the Basilisk II GUI application which allows you to set the preferences. First our optical drive is D: and we also set the windows size to 1024 x 768 and the ram size to 256mb and the rom file to use our quadra650.rom file. We decide to leave off the network as it is not needed. In the Volumes tab we click ADD and select the system70 book.dsk image and the disk image file we created with the HFV utility. For now the model id is a IIC 030 but later we will change this to a 68040 with a quadra 900 model id.


We click the START button and get the black screen of death...run the windows task manager and kill the application. Must say the OSX way of killing apps is so much less work. It appears and older .exe file may solve the problem, we need the one in the 27-08-2008 build. Ok we do that. Now the older exe is in the Basilisk II folder. We re-run the GUI and click START.

Ah the mac 'boing' and a grey screen. Error message about no Appletalk connection (because we did not turn on networking) and a moment later the old system 7 desktop appears.


Now we click on the mac hard disk and open the system 753 folder we copied there earlier. Double-clicking the 01 of 19.smi icon extracts the files and builds a sys 7.53 cd isntaller icon on the desktop. Double- clicking that brings up a folder with the installer software icon. We click it to start the install.

First we choose a Custom Install and select under System, Universal System for any Mac. Then under Networking we choose Open Transport and Network Software Selector. This will allow our 'mac' to go online if we decide to let it. Hey we could run Netscape 2 for the mac...Finally we click Switch Disk and select the giant 1gig mac 'drive' as the target and click INSTALL.

Off it goes. When the install is finished we shut down the Basilisk mac (Special, Shutdown) and rerun the Basilisk GUI to set our final preferences.

First is remove the system 70 boot disk. We don't need it anymore. Next let' set the cpu and the id and turn on networking. We also decide to check the Enable my Computer box on the GUI which should allow us to drag files from windows to the mac without using the HFV uitility. So we could download mac files and copy over? Will have to test.

Ok we click START and it works but one problem, the CIV II original cd is a dual disc with an audio cd portion and a data cd part and only the audio cd gets mounted. I have a burned backup copy but cdrw's do not seem to get read and cause basilisk to crash with an exception. Ok so we will have to use the macbook to read the discs and then copy the files to the win7 machine and then drag them to the mac and install. I'll do it tomorrow....


ToDo list

1. install Stuffit Expander
2. upgrade to system 7.5.5 (last free one) - should have kept my retail 7.61 and 8.1 cds!
3. install CIV II

2 of out 3 done. I may create a larger 8 machine and see if i can get 8.6 running. Stability is a problem right now with exception crashes quite frequent. But here is what it looks like now.