I've been thinking of getting a PowerBook 540c which was the last 68k PowerBook, and I was wondering if I could run old Mac Plus and Mac II games on it. Like Quarterstaff for example.
Edit: Replaced 'xxx 7' by 'SSW 7' - IIGS User
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2013, December 15 - 7:39pm
#1
How compatible is SSW 7 with old Mac games?
Comments
2013, December 15 - 7:49pm
#2
Most of those sorts of games should run fine on a 540c
2013, December 16 - 8:19am
#3
If this machine cannot be set to 512 x 384 pixels, lake all the later 68k models, Mac Plus games requires the 68k version of Mini vMac on this machine, mostly.
2013, December 16 - 3:49pm
#4
Quarterstaff worked great on my S*stem 7 setup on Basilisk. IIRC, a lot of games designed for System 6 worked great on it too. Be warned--many work but often glitch (like no sound)
2013, December 17 - 3:48pm
#5
Why did you change the title? The name of the operating system is S*stem 7. Do you enjoy obfusticating things? Nobody knows what "SSW 7" means.
"S*stem 7", nice written by Temporary Joe - IIGS User
2013, December 17 - 4:11pm
#6
Sorry, I should mention that we need to fight against Muso TNT. If they find this word, they'll close this site.
Apple uses "SSW" itself, later in the life of Mac OS.
2013, December 17 - 8:52pm
#7
we need to fight against Muso TNT. If they find this word, they'll close this site.
What amuses me about the now 1yr old Muso TNT thread is the liberal sprinkling of the unmangled "S*stem 7" term throughout, beginning with MCP's 1st post 
2013, December 17 - 6:56pm
#8
Lol I see. The admin should make a word filter that changes the words automatically.
I decided I want to get a Powerbook 170 because it is the only book to support System 6 (japanese version only) while still having color through VGA. I want to play my games like Space Quest III that are glitchy on OS 7.
2013, December 17 - 9:22pm
#9
I decided I want to get a Powerbook 170 because it is the only book to support System 6 (japanese version only) while still having color through VGA.
No, there is no color support for this Mac. Its display is 1 bit mono and it has no external VGA support. It also can accept only a maximum of 8 MB of RAM, compared to the 540c's max of 36 MB.
See this Forever Mac entry, scroll down page to the chapter headed "Video & Graphics".
2013, December 17 - 11:52pm
#10
What??? I was looking at the specs sheet and I could've sworn it said mini-15 out... but rechecking it now it says there's no video out. I must be losing my mind... ugggh, I don't want to buy a desktop. If I had to get a desktop to play old games in color I'd rather just get a 486!
2013, December 18 - 12:25am
#11
Yes, I thought you were doing better with plans on getting the 540c, which offered more expandability...
There is a slightly better specced '040 book to get, which is the 550c, but this model was sold only in Japan. It featured a full 68040 cpu and shipped with a 500 MB HD as standard.
There's also another newer '040 book, which shipped after the 540/550. This was the 190cs/66, it has similar specs to the 540c but shipped with an internal IDE hard drive (which could be an easier to locate upgrade).
2013, December 18 - 1:26am
#12
Expandability is not that important to me, I already have a PowerBook G4 with OS9 and OSX, but I have a bunch of old disks (mostly Sierra games) that lock up on it. What I want to have is compatibility with my old Sierra disks, and from what I read they don't work that well under OS7 either, Sierra was very bad when it came to porting from PC, and there's other games that have no sound under OS7, etc. Now that I know that there's no Powerbooks that will play them under System 6 in color, I think the safest option would just be to get a Mac II.
2013, December 18 - 2:20am
#13
Of the color capable Macs that can also run SSW 6.x, as well as the '020 Mac II, there are also the Macintosh models; IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, IIsi & LC to consider as an option.
The IIsi is a nice 32bit clean '030 model, not as expandable as others in the Mac II family range, such as my favorite the IIci. Some good pics of the IIsi here and the IIci here.
2013, December 18 - 8:41am
#14
but I have a bunch of old disks (mostly Sierra games)
Extract the files out of the disks and try to run the games using ScummVM, works well for old AGI games, and also the Mac versions.
2013, December 18 - 2:27pm
#15
I've been looking into ScummVM, but apparently the Mac support isn't so great, so I'm not going to bother.
2013, December 18 - 8:35am
#16
I have a bunch of old disks (mostly Sierra games) that lock up on it
Wow, you still got some working floppies of the games ? We are still missing floppy archives of some of the games.
Are you willing to make images from them and provide them for the Macintosh Garden archives ? If you have some problems with them, surely someone could technically assist you (grawlix.computing has much experience with making images from old floppies, to name one).
2013, December 18 - 2:24pm
#17
Sorry, I don't have any games that aren't on the website already 
2013, December 18 - 3:15pm
#18
KQ1,2,3, SQ1,2 Mac versions should be recognized by ScummVM very well. 
2013, December 18 - 7:44pm
#19
I don't have those, I have Space Quest 3 & 4, Freddy Pharkas, and Castle Of Dr Brain. Also I have Uninvited, Deja Vu II, and Enchanted Scepters. Those are all the old games I own that for some reason or other don't work correctly on my G4.
I do have Space Quest 1 & 2 but they are the Apple II versions. That's another reason I want an old Mac, so I can copy ProDOS disks for whenever I get a new IIGS (old one broke a long time ago.)
2013, December 19 - 2:46pm
#20
I do have Space Quest 1 & 2 but they are the Apple II versions. That's another reason I want an old Mac, so I can copy ProDOS disks for whenever I get a new IIGS (old one broke a long time ago.)
This is where my nickname came from. But at its time on the classic Mac, I've installed the shareware "IIe" by Victor Tan, which emulates an Apple IIe.
Unfortunately, ScummVM supports only PC version of Freddy Pharkas:
http://www.scummvm.org/compatibility/DEV/freddypharkas/
ScummVM supports some IIGS games as well.
2013, December 18 - 9:23pm
#21
Did you try to apply the Sierra patch utility already ?