Are there any third-party programs to run MacOS 9/Classic applications on Intel Macs?

When Apple made the decision to no longer support MacOS 9/Classic applications, EveryMac.com was hopeful that an easy to install and use commercial application would become available and allow use of legacy applications and documents on the Intel-based Macs.

As the market for MacOS 9/Classic compatibility solutions is not growing, and as it has been quite some time since the switch to Intel processors was announced, it seems doubtful that a commercial solution will become available. Software like Parallels Desktop for Mac makes it easy to run Windows on Intel-based Macs, but no such equivalent for MacOS 9 exists.

Where the commercial market has failed, the open-source community has made an effort to respond with the oddly titled "SheepShaver". SheepShaver began life as a MacOS "run-time environment" that made it possible to run MacOS applications within the BeOS. The name itself is a play on "ShapeShifter", a 68k Mac emulator for the AmigaOS.

The hardworking open-source programmers behind the SheepShaver project explain that:

It enables you to run PowerPC Classic MacOS software on your computer, even if you are using a different operating system [like MacOS X for Intel]. However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a Power Macintosh ROM image to use this program. . . SheepShaver provides the first PowerPC G4 emulator, though without MMU, to enable the execution of MacOS Classic. Performance with the current CPU emulator using basic just-in-time (JIT) translation techniques is roughly 1/8-th of native speeds.

Compared to average MacOS X applications, which generally are installed with "drag and drop" simplicity, installing SheepShaver is complicated, as it requires one to know basic UNIX commands as well as extract a software ROM.

The Apple Blog has provided a nice walkthrough of the process of extracting MacOS ROM 1.6 with TomeViewer and installing and configuring SheepShaver with MacOS 9.0.4 (the last version supported by SheepShaver). This blogger reported that on an unspecified Intel-based Mac, SheepShaver was slow but stable, and MacOS 9 thought that it was running on a vintage Power Macintosh 9500/120. MacMegaSite also has posted installation instructions that you may find helpful.

From reading a number of forums, websites, blogs, and comments, the general consensus is that after overcoming the installation hurdles, SheepShaver allows one to run MacOS 9 slowly, but some also have had trouble with compatibility and stability as well. This is not to denigrate the hard work of the open source community in the slightest as this type of program is extremely complex and the fact it works as well as it does is quite remarkable.

On the home page for the SheepShaver project, the developers post this plea to Apple:

Hello, it is well known that you dropped support for MacOS Classic applications in MacOS X for Intel. Should you care of your users, people that made you a living for years, please consider the following: either (i) bring back a Classic environment, or (ii) help SheepShaver development. The latter can be realized by releasing code and/or documentation about MacOS Classic internals. Thanks.

With help from Apple, SheepShaver probably could work as well as the Classic Environment on PowerPC-based Macs running MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger". It is no doubt a disappointment to the developers to not have Apple's assistance.

Should you have non-critical needs for running MacOS 9/Classic applications on an Intel-based Mac, such as really old games or potentially even archived document access, SheepShaver might meet your needs. However, those who remain dependent on MacOS 9/Classic software would be best served by continuing to use an existing PowerPC-based Mac or upgrading to a newer one.

Site sponsor Operator Headgap Systems specializes in heavily upgraded Macs capable of running both MacOS X and MacOS 9 applications. Site sponsor PowerMax also sells a variety of used systems capable of running both operating systems.