After researching outlining software for awhile, I'm convinced the Mac has several products I'd love to try. I don't have a Mac though. Does anyone have experience running applications like Tinderbox, OmniOutliner, etc. on a Mac emulator ? If they'd work, that might be the way to go for me. Thanks,

Speaking of the Mac, my son gave up on PCs and bought one. He says he still has to use a Vista PC at work and HATES it. He says that any DVD created on a Vista PC, such as one onto which documents have been copied, cannot be read on any non-Vista machine. Has anyone else had this problem or has a solution? Please let me know.

Speaking of my son, he's in charge of the development of a horror video game. He says, "Who would have thought that my obsession with horror movies and comics as a kid would have led to a job as an adult?"

-c

There's no Mac emulator, but if you're willing to hunt around on the seedier side of the internet, through hacks you can install OS X on generic PCs:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/
See also:
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php

The problem with these setups is generally finding drivers... and most of the various hardware niceties don't work, but it's a decent solution if you want to play around with things. An easier solution is probably just to hang around a local Apple store for a few hours if there's one near you.

-- Chris

ndodge wrote:

After researching outlining software for awhile, I'm convinced the Mac has several
products I'd love to try. I don't have a Mac though. Does anyone have experience
running applications like Tinderbox, OmniOutliner, etc. on a Mac emulator ? If
they'd work, that might be the way to go for me. Thanks,

Hi.

As Chris pointed out: There is no Mac emulator for PCs, only (illegal) hacks.

What you can do: Go buy a used Mac (e.g. a pre-Intel Mac Mini - these are comparatively cheap). Download the trial versions of the software you are interested in and give them a try. When you don't like the Mac and/or the software: Sell the machine on eBay.

Two more hints:

1. Used machines are overly expensive on eBay (at least here in Germany). I'd go to a Mac user community (on the Web) or to a Mac-specific website and look for a used machine in the second-hand market there. For selling, eBay may be the better place though. :-)

2. You said you were interested in Tinderbox. It will take a while to get the hang of TB - don't expect to "get it" when you play around with it for an hour or two. Better have a look at the screencasts on eastgate.com/tinderbox first and check out the pages on "Using Tinderbox" and the TB articles on http://markbernstein.org/Tinderbox.html If you write fiction, also go to the TB forum (http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/forum and read the thread "Notes for a Novel" in the "Tinderbox applications" section.

Franz

Actually, there are legal mac emulators. The only thing is that they emulate only Macs that are running up to OS 7.5. One of my favorites is Mini Vmac. See http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/ It's really fast and it will run older mac outliners.

The other one is Basilisk II (which is a bit more sophisticated).

You need (for both of them) a Mac ROM file (which may or may not be legal, depending on how you obtain it).

Manfred

It almost doesn't count... that's like emulating Windows 3.1 ;) The only outliner you can run in those emulators is the old, but still feature rich, MORE.

-- Chris

Manfred wrote:

Actually, there are legal mac emulators. The only thing is that they emulate only Macs
that are running up to OS 7.5. One of my favorites is Mini Vmac. See
http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/ It's really fast and it will run older mac
outliners.

The other one is Basilisk II (which is a bit more sophisticated).

You
need (for both of them) a Mac ROM file (which may or may not be legal, depending on how you
obtain it).

Manfred

I agree :) said it just for completeness sake ...

Manfred

Chris Thompson wrote:

It almost doesn't count... that's like emulating Windows 3.1 ;) The only outliner you
can run in those emulators is the old, but still feature rich, MORE.
..........................

From what I've seen, GV's outlining capabilities and More's are quite similar.

-c

Yup, they were practically siblings. GrandView was generally a bit more powerful. I can't remember if it had clones though. MORE did for sure. It was the golden age of outliners.

-- Chris

Cassius wrote:

From what I've seen, GV's outlining
capabilities and More's are quite similar.

-c

Chris Thompson wrote:

Yup, they were practically siblings. GrandView was generally a bit more powerful. I
can't remember if it had clones though. MORE did for sure. It was the golden age of
outliners.
---------------------------

Yes, GV has clones.

-c

Chris Thompson wrote:

It almost doesn't count... that's like emulating Windows 3.1 ;) The only outliner you
can run in those emulators is the old, but still feature rich, MORE.

Um, what about Acta? http://a-sharp.com/opal/acta.html

Chris commented:

There’s no Mac emulator, but if you’re willing to hunt around on the seedier side of the internet, through hacks you can install OS X on generic PCs.

Coincidentally, I'd been doing exactly the same thing, motivated by the desire to try out Scrivener. All pretty illegal, IMHO. For a procedure that verges on the legal - but probably isn't - have a look at:

http://pcwizcomputer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=32

It uses a legal (i.e. bought and unhacked) MAC OS X, and VMWare's Workstation 6. From comments elsewhere on the web, however, it looks as though, while OS X can be purchased separate from MAC hardware, it can only legally be run on such hardware. Workarounds - like putting an Apple sticker on your PC - don't qualify...

All the same, if it can be done - and it looks as though it can - it's probably only a question of time before it can be done legally. Given that XP and Vista can be run on MAC's running OS X, pressure is going to build for some reciprocity - I hope.

Derek

I don't think the technique you posted in that link works with an unhacked copy of OS X. They're using "JaS Mac OS X 10.4.8 Intel/AMD SSE2 SSE3 PPF1+PPF2", a hacked copy of the 10.4.8 kernel. I was under the impression unhacked versions of OS X cannot be virtualized.

-- Chris

Chris commented:

http://pcwizcomputer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=32
It uses a legal (i.e. bought and unhacked) MAC OS X, and VMWare’s Workstation 6. From comments elsewhere on the web, >however, it looks as though, while OS X can be purchased separate from MAC hardware, it can only legally be run on such >hardware.

Posted by Chris Thompson
Mar 13, 2008 at 06:15 PM

I don’t think the technique you posted in that link works with an unhacked copy of OS X. They’re using “JaS Mac OS X > 10.4.8 Intel/AMD SSE2 SSE3 PPF1+PPF2”, a hacked copy of the 10.4.8 kernel. I was under the impression unhacked > versions of OS X cannot be virtualized.

Yes, you're right. From the author's write-up I had assumed that he was only using the hacked copy for convenience, but in fact the original OS X DVD just won't work in that scenario. Of course, there are practicable but tortuous ways of patching one's own legally-bought copy of OS X, but that's another matter (though it still wouldn't be legal!). Thanks for pointing this out.

Derek

Manfred -

Doesn't the PearPC emulator count? http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/01/18/PearPC.html

This seems to be able to run Tiger (and possibly Leopard) - and from original MAC OS DVDs without the hacking needed when using the virtualization method (see elsewhere on this thread).

Again, mentioned only for sake of completeness. The original developer seems to have stopped working on it, although others are building on it.

Derek