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SheepShaver is an open source project designed to emulate Power Mac hardware with versions for Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and more. In order to make it work, you need to download a copy appropriate for your hardware and operating system, have handy a copy of the Mac operating system (versions 7.5.2 through 9.0.4 - and not a copy that's tied to a specific piece of hardware), and access to a Mac ROM image. You need the ROM image in order to allow your emulated Mac to start the boot process - where standard Windows-style PCs have fairly simple ROM BIOSes, PowerPC Macs need access to a hunk of Apple-written (and Apple copyright) code before they start to load the operating system.
Performance on my Intel iMac is pretty good, but performance on my older (PowerPC) 12" PowerBook (running 10.5) is spectacular - far and away the fastest classic Mac I've ever used. That's because on an Intel Mac, SheepShaver has to emulate PowerPC instructions, translating them into Intel code; on a PowerPC Mac, no translation is necessary. As an example, it takes about 45 seconds to boot the virtual Mac on my 2 GHz Intel iMac. On my 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook, the same thing takes 16 seconds.
Head over to the link below to read the rest.Performance on my Intel iMac is pretty good, but performance on my older (PowerPC) 12" PowerBook (running 10.5) is spectacular - far and away the fastest classic Mac I've ever used. That's because on an Intel Mac, SheepShaver has to emulate PowerPC instructions, translating them into Intel code; on a PowerPC Mac, no translation is necessary. As an example, it takes about 45 seconds to boot the virtual Mac on my 2 GHz Intel iMac. On my 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook, the same thing takes 16 seconds.
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