Mac OS 9 Lives! Universal 9.2.2 Installation ported to pre-made QEMU Drive Image

[DieHard]

I have been working in High Sierra and creating several "pre-made" QEMU Drive images for those who want to try QEMU on Modern Mac OS X systems and emulate our beloved Mac OS 9.2.2

I have focused on a few configurations and will be posting all the drive images to our downloads within the next few weeks.

An Image of what's coming...


1) "Initial" Mac OS 9 Lives! Drive Image
This drive image for QEMU will be our 9.2.2 universal CD image installed fresh as a QEMU drive image;
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html
Basically a no frills, ready to go image, so that the user does not have to create a raw HD image file and install Mac OS 9.2.2,
simply copy the pre-made drive image and immediately boot to a fresh Mac OS 9.2.2 Virtual machine with our CD/ISO already installed

2) "Basic" Mac OS 9 Lives! Drive Image
This drive image for QEMU will be our 9.2.2 universal CD image installed fresh as a QEMU drive image with some basic apps pre-installed;
Aladdin StuffIt Deluxe 7.0.3, Norton Utilities 6.0.3, FileType (File Association Repair, Creator Fix), Greg’s (File) Browser
USB Overdrive v1.4 (Use 2 Button Mouse w/ Right Mouse click), Mac Bench v3.0, QuickBench v1.5, Classilla 9.3.4b
simply copy the image and immediately boot to Mac OS 9.2.2 via QEMU and apps are installed and ready to go

3) "Loaded" Mac OS 9 Lives! Drive Image
This is the "Basic" image with tons more apps and bells and whistles including Office Suites & Menu Systems to Launch each app, kinda like a DieHard Instant OS 9 Machine all contained in a singe file

4) Lastly, the Mac OS 9 Lives! "Software Library" Drive Image
This drive image for QEMU will contain tons of Mac OS 9 Software Installations and will be for those who want to pick and choose what they want to install, start with your own QEMU drive image (or my Initial Install one), hook this baby up as a 2nd hard drive in your QEMU command file with "-drive file=SoftwareLibrary.img,format=raw,media=disk \" and BAM, you'll have a new volume with all the software install files at your fingertips !

[Greystash]

Looking forward to it!! 

[DieHard]

Mas OS 9 Lives! QEMU pre-built drive images are now available for download in a few flavors

Get a full working QEMU emulation system without the setup hassle...

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/board,62.0.html

[FBz]

Seems that our fearless leader is a…
bona fide QEMU Madman!

(Checked the Forum last night ‘round 2:00 a.m.
and he was still up, uploading QEMU packages.)
While some OS 9 purists might view this as utter blasphemy,
it extends the life of MacOS 9 on… and into the future.

Certainly, I will continue to run Quicksilvers, MDDs, etc., yet
this work bridges the past with (and on) more current hardware.
(To say nothing of the support-ability of original OS 9 machines.)

Absolutely marvelous. Hats off to DieHard!

I envy those of you that might try this all out immediately.
It’ll be next week for me, when time & temperature allows.
*There are two 27” iMacs here (High Sierra) just waiting.

Understand there’s a “Sound” caveat that needs attention
but maybe the M-Audio Transit (or other similar USB device)
may eventually be implemented as a viable working solution?

There’s a challenge for you lucky early birds!

I’ll likely go with the “Initial” Drive Image first and then when
the “Software Library” image becomes available… BOOM!

Thanks DieHard.

[DieHard]

Thank you sir for the kind words...

Truth be told, it has always been convenient for most software testing and installs to use the emulator, for DAW stuff, I power up the MDD for testing.

Sheepshaver peaks out at 9.0.4, so it was basically useless for me since many apps required 9.1 or better, so I have been on the QEMU band wagon for a while now.

Understand there’s a “Sound” caveat that needs attention
but maybe the M-Audio Transit (or other similar USB device)
may eventually be implemented as a viable working solution?

The real challenge for our DAW members is to get QEMU for work with a USB Audio/MIDI device, I have not been successful
There are several "USB pass-thru" commands that will send USB device info into the emulator, then in theory, you could load the Mac OS 9 drivers, for the device and launch Logic, Cubase, or PT with sound !

I tried to get the M-Audio transit to work... it was recognized in OS9, but still did not function, I am hoping a member will find a usable USB audio device than we can port thru the emulator; for now QEMU is a silent world

There is a "screamer" version of QEMU that has system sound, but I have not found a working version of that either

[IIO]

what about an image with no apps but with the "required" files (prefs, key auths) for various sw?

[DieHard]

what about an image with no apps but with the "required" files (prefs, key auths) for various sw?

That's what the "Software Library" image is about, it can be connected as a 2nd volume and used to installs and keygens; place the image in the same folder as a working QEMU setup and add the line ...
-drive file=SoftwareLibrary.img,format=raw,media=disk \
to your qemu.command file

[kode54]

Posting in this topic from the above featured OS image, using UTM as the host Qemu on my M1 Mac mini, where the PPC / Mac99 hardware configuration uses TinyCodeGen to recompile to arm64 natively. Also, the qemu-system-ppc it uses has the Screamer patch applied, so that works, too.

Needs a little getting used to the capture/uncapture of the mouse/keyboard: You have to click the cursor capture button in the toolbar to hook the mouse and keyboard into the emulator, and press ctrl+option to release them. And sometimes, cmd+tabbing away after releasing wants to leave the cmd key pressed as far as the guest OS sees it.

Otherwise, this is a fine experience for testing really old software as far as I'm concerned. There's probably even some classic games that haven't been modernized enough with new ports and such to work on newer machines. Prior to ScummVM supporting it, Pegasus Prime would have been a candidate for me for sure.

[Protools5LEGuy]

[youtube]AKiQPz6Paxs[/youtube]

[Cashed]

Found more, regarding "Screamer"

"This video breaks down installing QEMU and also how to build QEMU "Screamer" which emulates sound. It's more complex but at the same time not a whole lot more work than just running QEMU."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzTyl5Ss8nA

The all important instructions!
http://blog.greggant.com/posts/2021/12/18/ppc-qemu-mac-os-9-with-sound-on-apple-silicon-intel-mac.html

[Roman323]

Mas OS 9 Lives! QEMU pre-built drive images are now available for download in a few flavors

Get a full working QEMU emulation system without the setup hassle...

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/board,62.0.html

Can this be used on a PowerPC machine, as this seems to have a lot of good items which can be made useful for everyday working under OS 9 on a PowerPC machine, as I don't have QEMU.

[FBz]

I don't think so (not in current form).

BUT Someone was working on something very similar (without QEMU)
featuring a pre-loaded installer with various software pkgs. pre-installed.

[IIO]

why would you want to install something built for ARM on a G5 when there is s PPC version of it?

[macarone]

Roman323 asked:
>Can this be used on a PowerPC machine

No, it only works on RECENT Intel computers. Won't even work on early Intel Macs.

For PPC try Sheepshaver 2.4 and OS 9.0.4.  I can confirm that combination works on G5 PPCs.

https://ronaldpr.home.xs4all.nl/sheepshaverforum/SheepShaver_UB_20140201.zip

[DieHard]

I don't think so (not in current form).

BUT Someone was working on something very similar (without QEMU)
featuring a pre-loaded installer with various software pkgs. pre-installed.

Ha ha, guess that was a hint, yes FBz has been testing the new "2022" "Complete production machine" image, the goal, which is 70% there, is a DVD ISO that will install Mac OS9, complete with apps (like 3rd party System/File Utilities, Appleworks, Photoshop, and more) and also an easily switchable set of pre-made extension sets (for nVidia, ATI) and lastly a complete menu system.  Kinda like and "Instant OS9 PPC Workstation" image.

Stay Tuned !

Hopefully soon... I am getting older and slower

This will greatly help the beginners who don't have time to build an "a la carte" system... they can focus on just the GUI and API experience and really see the power and simplicity of Mac OS 9 without all the research.

[adespoton]

Sorry guys; guess it's been a while since I swung by here

Aside from my OS9-in-an-app QEMU-PPC-Screamer builds I've had around since we got QEMU-PPC booting OS 9, last year I also got some configs set up for UTM so you can boot every OS from 9.0.4* through macOS 12 under it.  They're available here:
https://github.com/adespoton/utmconfigs
I didn't include the OSes themselves, but I did include instructions and working configurations.
UTM is a wrapper around QEMU and the Apple Virtualization environment, and is available here https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/releases/ for running on iOS 11-15 and macOS 10.15 - macOS 12.

They also include a 9.2.1 pre-installed configuration you can download and deploy out of the box.

[teroyk]

Aside from my OS9-in-an-app QEMU-PPC-Screamer builds I've had around since we got QEMU-PPC booting OS 9, last year I also got some configs set up for UTM so you can boot every OS from 9.0.4* through macOS 12 under it.  They're available here:

I give hint to try Mac OS 8.1 with it...try Powerbook G3 PDQ system CD:
PBG3CD_81.ZIP from
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-system-81-mac-os-81
it has extra enablers to boot with late 1998 and early 1999 Macs...so can it also help with QEMU?

[NigelNowhere]

Sorry guys; guess it's been a while since I swung by here

Aside from my OS9-in-an-app QEMU-PPC-Screamer builds I've had around since we got QEMU-PPC booting OS 9, last year I also got some configs set up for UTM so you can boot every OS from 9.0.4* through macOS 12 under it.  They're available here:
https://github.com/adespoton/utmconfigs
I didn't include the OSes themselves, but I did include instructions and working configurations.

It would be great if we could have full install links as I don't see a way to convert other drive images easily. Seams we have to have an install iso to make it work.