Tag Archives: 2001

Mac OS X Puma (10.1)

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Windows XP caught us off guard…

Cheetah wasn’t well-received in terms of performance and compatibility and understandably so, given that this was a completely new OS environment with steep hardware requirements compared to OS9. With this in mind, Apple continued to improve OS X and released Puma a few months later.
System requirements were still the same, you still required 128MB for adequate performance (despite the iMac G3 shipping with 32MB as standard a few years before), for most users installing OS X necessitated a few hardware upgrades.

Install

Here we installed over Mac OS 9.2 as an upgrade which would have given us compatibility with the classic applications by using the classic environment. Compared to OS X Cheetah, more languages and print drivers are included. Again like Cheetah we miss out on the graphics acceleration and sound support.

Setup Assistant

Mostly is the same as the Cheetah version, a lot of the forums are compulsory like the address and contact details which is pointless in this version can no longer connect to Apple

Login Screen

Login screen

Desktop

Most improvements are made under the hood, the user appearance resembling the same as Cheetah.
Many of the existing applications that shipped with Cheetah were included in Puma, being slightly updated versions of Internet Explorer and QuickTime.

Browsing the filesystem using the Finder. Seemingly it has issues displaying the filename on CD/FAT filesystems

iTunes

iTunes makes its Mac OS debut in Puma. This version functions as a media player that is capable of importing CD’s and managing a CD library. A basic internet radio station is supported here, but the servers are no longer functional. I’m not sure if this build can sync with an iPod since it was released before the first iPod was released.

Mail

iMovie

Create and edit moves imported from a digital video camera, typically used on Mac with built-in Firewire. iMovie would later be included in the iLife suite.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has been slightly upgraded compared to the previous release and is running a later build

Acrobat Reader

Acrobat reader is included with the operating system. One of the early features of OS X was the use of PDF rendering embedded into the operating system. A separate version is provided here since it includes features the embedded version lacks.

iDVD

For Macs with DVD drives and an MPEG2 accelerator, a DVD player is offered which was once offered in Mac OS 9. Since QEMU does not emulate an MPEG2 decoder and there is no graphics acceleration we are unable to access the interface.

System Preferences

The system preferences panel has been redesigned and applets are sorted into groups for easier navigation.

Imageviewer

Classic / Start up

Changing the startup mode, on an actual Mac will change which operating system boots the machine, but on QEMU it will brick your install. The classic environment will still work as normal

Screensavers

A nice selection of screensavers that take advantage of the new graphics engine.

System Profiler

Gives much more detailed information on your system, including the software components and the hardware installed in your Mac

Applications & Games

We had better luck getting apps to run in this version compared to Cheetah

The Sims

We were finally able to run The Sims, which we had failed to do previously. This was a Carbon-based app which was an API that allowed for use for Mac OS Classic and OS X. OpenGL is the main rendering engine used here, and this is integrated into OS X.

3D titles however are more of a problem with the emulator, which lacks 3D acceleration which means we have to rely on software rendering, and many games of the time were starting to require hardware T&L

Microsoft Office X

Microsoft’s popular productivity suite had a version specifically for OS X and takes advantage of the user interface elements. Functionality is similar to Office XP which was released at the time.

Norton

Norton had released their Utilities for OS X, which is a collection of software typically geared towards maintenance. Here you can run tasks that can check your mac’s hard disk, and access Norton AntiVirus if it’s installed.

PageSpinner

An HTML text editor for OS X and one of the first to be carbonized for OS X.

Windows Media Player

Opera

One of the other alternative browsers for OS X, If Internet Explorer or Netscape isn’t your thing. Curiously I did try Netscape navigator 6 but this required classic environment and wasn’t a native OS X application.

Mac OS 9.2

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This was the last release of the classic Mac OS operating system, before it was discontinued in favour of Mac OS X. The emulator used here is a custom build of QEMU that has sound support.

QEMU config file, remove the ^ and collapse everything onto one line

qemu-system-ppc-screamer-fpu.exe ^
-L pc-bios ^
-M mac99,via=pmu ^
-m 256 ^
-sdl ^
-boot c ^
-drive file=quicktime.img,format=raw,media=cdrom ^ //CD-ROM Drive
-drive file=MacOS9.2.img,format=raw,media=disk ^ //IDE Master HDD
-drive file=Software.img,format=raw,media=disk //IDE Slave HDD

Up to four disk drives can be accepted by QEMU?OS 9.2, five if you use USB

Install

Mac systems will boot into a live cd like environment where the hard disk can be partitioned and formatted. In some circumstances, the Mac firmware can be upgraded here, which may be required to install.

The setup assistant that runs after you reboot following the install. It mainly helps with connecting to the internet or a network and configures sharing options

Applications

OS9.2 comes with plenty of bundled applications, many of which can be configured from the installer. This allows for you to pick and choose applications to install, and to disable un-needed applications

Apple Extras

A folder on the CD-ROM that has additional applications, similar to the VALUEADD folder on Windows discs that contain various optional utilities.

Apple Video Player

Plays back MPEG video and works best with an MPEG addon expansion card.

AppleCD Audio Player

The CD player of which QEMU does not pass the audio data to the virtual machine, so it wasn’t possible to test the CD Player functionality.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer Mac OS

Internet Explorer 5 shipped with Mac OS 9.2 and was the default browser on default installations. Unlike the desktop version, the Mac version used the Tasman rendering engine rather than the Trident engine the PC versions used. The interface is remarkably different with sidebars being used for favourites and history

Netscape Communicator

Netscape was the other popular browser of the time and was bundled with the operating system. This was the precursor to the Gecko rendering engine used in Mozilla Firefox

Outlook Express

Microsoft’s mail client for Mac OS, which was replaced by the Mail client for OS X

QuickTime

A view of sample channels in QuickTime, these would provide links to online video content such as trailers and previews. Similar to what modern YouTube is like now

Sherlock2

Sherlock was an integrated search engine for both local files and online websites. Various different categories could be used to find a certain website like in the shopping category you would find links to Amazon and eBay.

SimpleText

A basic text editor, like Notepad for Windows

Sound Support

A build of QEMU exists that enabled basic sound support using the Apple Screamer chipset which was used in the early Power Mac G3 (Minitower, not the blue/white version). By installing the latest QuickTime version for this operating system (QuickTime 5) it’s now possible to have basic sound support and acceleration.

Games and Third Party Applications

OS9 was compatible with many of the existing software for OS 8 and below

SimCity MacOS

Simcity 3000: Works well but lacks content in comparison to the later unlimited release. Has a different intro and some music was changed compared to the later release which I’m more familiar with. All base cities and scenarios are present.

Duke Nukem 3D Atomic: Tested the PowerPC build, seems to work fine but the desktop seems to have issues after exiting the game

Driver: You Are the Wheelman: Did not work as it failed to start in software rendering mode, the game thinks there is a glide capable card upon startup but fails to load. Since OS9.2 came out around the same time as Driver I would assume this game would have worked as intended.

Unreal Tournament: Possible to run under software rendering, adequate performance at 640×480. Whish we had some 3DFX emulation in QEMU though. The master server for this game went offline a while back after GameSpy had shut down, but new master servers have been hosted and can be accessed by amending the unrealtournament.ini file

The Sims: Worked just fine but had to change to mac99-pmu as the mouse wasn’t being picked up correctly in-game, and would randomly recenter in the middle or off-screen which made it cumbersome to play

Microsoft Office: Office 98 was released around the same time and was the popular office utility suite back then, which had full compatibility with its PC counterpart

Uh Oh

The Sims House Party

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The second expansion pack for The Sims that allows them to party (or Partay)

Objects

Some of the objects that come with House party, there are other items like chairs and tables that are not listed here since they have a similar function to the base game objects.
Granny Raymond’s Holiday Cookies: A plate of cookies you can buy direct from buy mode. If you leave them on a table next to the fireplace, along with a Christmas tree from Livin It Up, Santa will appear.
Birthday Cake: Another buyable food item, kids can choose to blow out the candles, although this does not age them up (You need a charm in Makin Magic for that)
SimFarm Turkey Dinner: A piece of turkey sims can buy and carve up
Punchucopia Extraordinaria Punchbowl: sims or their cater can refill to keep guests satisfied at parties
The Elegant Chef Buffet Table: Used to serve a starter, main meal and desert from one table, excellent for parties or for large gatherings.
Fancy Feet Cake Treat: Spawns a male or female dancer (Stripper), or if it’s a kids party, a giant bear. Give a boost to the fun motive.
KampRite Instant Campfire: Sims can sit round the camp fire and sing songs, tell stories or roast marshmallows
Spazmatronic Plasmatronic Go-Go Cage: A Dancing cage, boosts fun. Best place with the dance floor and the DJ booth
Turntablitz DJ Booth: Used for the dance floor but can also function as a radio, has access to all radio stations in the game.
Jukebox: Two versions of this seem to exist, the first is just labelled as the Jukebox and has access to only the fault radio stations in the game. An updated version comes with Hot Date that can select all music tracks House party has to offer.
Bounce My Booty Dance Floor: The dance floor where sims can get their groove on. It’s a 2×2 tile than can be combined together in various patterns. When sims are dancing, the floor will light up in various different patterns and colours.
Porta-Parody Costume Trunk: A costume trunk that can be used to give your party a fancy dress theme. When one sim changes their costume, all sims will change to that costume theme.

Screenshots

Sims carving some turkey, which is buyable from buymode. When carving, sims will stand round and clap until its served.

The dance floor, in the front of someone’s living room. Puts Dance Central to shame

The costume trunk is ideal for theme parties. Available themes are Western, Disco, Toga

Here sims are rocking the disco theme

The buffet tables and the hireable caterer, sims can restock the table themselves at a cost of §20. A punchbowl can also be restocked.

The campfire, sims can tell a ghost story, roast marshmallows or sing a folk song.

Neighborhoods

The expansion pack adds support for multiple neighborhoods if you’ve not installed Livin It Up, Neighbourhoods 6-8 are added since the game assumes Livin it Up has been installed and takes the place of 2-5. It’s easy to add custom hoods. More hoods can be added by going into the games directory in the Program Files folder and adding a new UsedataX folder, where X will be the new number (since the game creates 8 hoods, you would start at 9) and can support up to 99 unique hoods.

NPCs

The Mime: Appears when you are throwing a shit party, and sometimes tries to steal your items. Leaves automatically once your party score has increased
Party Crashers: Appear when you are throwing a good party, these two (Pete and Pauline Dropinsky) will arrive and will try to wreck anything in the party, including breaking objects as they use them. Best to get rid of them as soon as possible.
The Caterer: Can be hired through the phone, the main purpose is to restock the buffet table and the punch bowl. He will also socialize with the guests if he has nothing to do. You must have a buffet table or a punch bowel or he will leave.
Drew Carey: Some American celebrity who appears when you have thrown a great party, arrives in a limo of which sims will rush to it upon arrival. For those who don’t know who Drew Carey, he was a popular late-night show host, like Jimmy Kimmel back when late-night talk shows weren’t biased towards a specific political party.

Some new NPCs have additional roles:
Police Officer: If you throw a party after 8pm, Officer meddling will appear regarding a complaint by one of your neighbors regarding the noise. You are supposed to disband and end the party by asking the guests to leave. Should you fail to do so she will reappear after 2 hours (10pm) and will find you.

Install

The game’s installer will pick up from the previous install, and will automatically install the game patch.

Disc read error upon install, caused by a scratched CD.

HTML view of The Sims House Party, listing sims that are currently moved into the neighborhood. Sims could be viewed here before they were uploaded onto the Sims exchange, which was a place where families and houses could be downloaded.

Mac OS Version

The expansion pack was made avaliable for the Mac OS platform, which a Carbon patch being released later for OS X compatability.