I've run into a few Mac games that require 16 colors or B&W. Considering my eMac can only go as low as 256 colors and I dislike Mini vMac's B&W only display, are there any older Macintoshes that would fill in this gap? I'm mainly wondering how far back in time I have to go to find a Mac that can display 16 colors and still uses a PPC (preferably).
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2010, November 17 - 10:27pm
#1
What older Macintosh would work for me?
Comments
2010, November 18 - 2:51am
#2
Probably early PPC computers, I suppose. Pre-G3, I reckon.
2010, November 18 - 7:29am
#3
If your eMac is running some flavour of OSX 10.2 or later, and it's fairly fast (most eMacs were), you could try an older version of Basillisk, emulating a System 7 Mac.
I used this on my MDD and now on my dual G5, to play Patton Strikes Back whenever I need a "fix".
2010, November 18 - 8:37am
#4
I have a mac performa 6116 with power pc at 60 mhz (but i have installed a sonnet nubus g3 at 500 mhz). I was able to change the colors from black and white to 16, 256 and thousands until recently where i installed a pds video card with 1 mb ram. Now i can have at least 256 colors and up.
2010, November 18 - 11:35am
#5
I dislike Mini vMac's B&W only display
If your only trouble with Mini vMac is it's B&W screen, it can be compiled with color support.
I may do it for you if you tell me what computer (your eMac ?) and OS (OS X ?) it would run on.
2010, November 18 - 3:46pm
#6
Get your time-machine and go back 1995 to get something like the Performa 5200CD - PPC 603... i think is the oldest ppc i know... I used to play pararena 1 at some performa 6320Cd and it was way fast to be a b&w game... some games,like Vette, didnt work and crach inmediatly. Most of games on black & white must run better on Motorola 68xxxx chipsets than PPCs.
2010, November 18 - 5:20pm
#7
The Performa 5200/5300/6200/6300 machines (except for the 6360) were some of the worst PPC machines Apple produced. I have one, and they run OK, but a fast Quadra (68040) outperforms them easily.
2010, November 19 - 4:28am
#8
I agree... and confess that i rip out the re useable pieces and throw away my Performa 6320CD with a big kick and it ¨perform¨a parabolic flight to the trash can... paf! crash! crash! 
2010, November 19 - 5:42am
#9
mathieudel said: If your only trouble with Mini vMac is it's B&W screen, it can be compiled with color support.
I may do it for you if you tell me what computer (your eMac ?) and OS (OS X ?) it would run on.
---
That would be fantastic actually! My eMac is the "ATi Graphics" version with USB 1.1. It's also designated by it's code name "Northern Lights". I use both Mac OS 9.2.2 and 10.4.11, so pick whichever you prefer. 
2010, November 19 - 11:39am
#10
Done : grab your file here : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VD7164PX
It's a G4 optimized build of Mini vMac v3.2.1 for a IIx Mac with 8MB Ram and 4bits color support on a 640x480 screen.
I've built it using XCode 3.2.4 on MacOS X 10.6 so I'm not sure it will launch properly on MacOS X 10.4. Tell me if that's the case, I will then try to build it with an older system.
Be aware that the IIx is not completly supported right now by Mini vMac so you might encouter some troubles. I choose to build this Mac anyway because it's the newest one that is supported, and it has a 68030. Here again and if you need, I can easily build a safer version.
2010, November 19 - 5:09pm
#11
@mathieudel:
Did you disable sound when compiling? If you didn't, there may be issues.
IIx is perfectly safe, the FDHD ROM for the Mac II is the same as the IIx ROM. But if you compile with sound, a lot of things will break. No sound is less broken, and Mac II sound isn't implemented at all.
MESS has working sound support for the Mac IIcx.
2010, November 19 - 7:34pm
#12
@mathieudel:
Thanks a bunch! Seems to work just fine on 10.4.11, though it's a little slow. However, I'm not sure how to get color support with this thing. I tried using my 7.5.5 hard disk and it's still B&W. Do I need Mac OS 7.6 or something? I've never gotten the Appearance Manager to work with 7.5.5 and below so I suppose that's contributing to it...
2010, November 19 - 7:35pm
#13
Try using the Monitors control panel?
2010, November 19 - 8:24pm
#14
There is no monitor control panel. As far as I know, the 7.5.3 installer I used is the standard one, but for some weird reason it's really limited.
Again, do I need a more recent Mac OS version? 7.6, 8.1 or something?
2010, November 19 - 9:03pm
#15
Which Mac ROM are you using ? One from a colour Mac ?
2010, November 19 - 9:14pm
#16
@epicMac : I forgot to mention I compiled the application so that it defaults to running at a real IIx's speed, ie. very slowly . You can change this setting by pressing ctrl-s while running it, and then to follow on screen instructions to choose another speed factor.
Concerning the system, you should install the one that is now freely available from Apple (MacOS 7.5.3). It definitely contains everything needed, including a monitor control panel. Aren't you just using a rescue system (single boot disk) ? Those ones are very limited due to the small capacity of FDDs...
@Balrog : when saying safe, I was thinking from an emulated system's point of view, not from the eumlating system's one. So yes, its completly safe to use it. Only, there are a bunch of things that do not work properly with Mini vMac when emulating a IIx. Unfortunately the web site is not up to date concerning known limitations : the one that are mentionned are for the latest stable version, while I compiled a WIP one.
Also, I'm not aware of latest MESS's capabilities, but it seems hard for a new commer to install it porperly, so I choose the simple, less reliable solution of Mini vMac.
2010, November 19 - 9:22pm
#17
I should add that using MESS on such a computer as nearly no chance to give reasonnable speeds. But you may try anyway, just for the fun of it.
2010, November 19 - 10:54pm
#18
@bertyboy:
Yes I tracked down a MacIIcx ROM file. Since math said the MacIIx runs slow, I figured I had the right one.
@mathieudel:
Okay, I'll try the 7.5.3 disk on Apple's website. Concerning boot disks, I used a bunch of 7.5 disk images to install it. I can't remember how many exactly, but it certainly wasn't 1 disk like System 6.
Oh yeah, on a similar note I grabbed Basilisk II as well but I can't even get it to start (using 10.4.11 still). I pointed the emulator to my ROM file and my disk image and all it says is:
"Could not start /BasiliskII.app/contents/MacOS/BasiliskII (no such file or directory)"
But I opened the app file and everything described in that error is inside the app. All the folders and applications, everything.
2010, November 20 - 12:42am
#19
Since math said the MacIIx runs slow, I figured I had the right one.
The ROM is not responsible for compter's speed. But Mini vMac tries to reproduce actual computer's speed based on known specs, or can be forced to different speed factors (1x, 2x, ..., unlimited). Just do a ctrl-s-a for example, and you'll get full speed.
I grabbed Basilisk II as well
If you can manage to start it (by following instructions that can be found on emaculation's forums for example), it definitely can do 4bits colors. I've just tried and it appears SheepShaver also can do 4bits colors, plus it's a PPC emulator, thus way slower than Basilisk II.
2010, November 20 - 5:05pm
#20
Wow,
this thread got way too technical,
I lost track of the whole thing...