Legal ROM dumping for emulation

[xyrx]

Hello everyone,
I've come here in the past for advice on how to support our aging Mac's in a California state agency. The advice I receive here is excellent, seeing as I have no Mac experience prior to this position.

Having said that, we are looking to start mac emulation on our PC's. We can no longer keep replacing our old equipment running OS 8.6 or OS 9 anymore, so emulation looks to be viable, but we've found article after article that refers to the Apple ROM being illegal to copy.

We currently have a mix of PowerPC's, G3 tower (bondi blue), iMac's (bondi blue, purple, dark blue, all G3's), and a smattering of G4's. All run OS 8.6 or OS 9.2.2 . As we understand, we will need to have a Mac for each ROM file that we dump and move over to the PC for emulation purposes. Is this true? Is there any way around this? We're willing to spend money on this, as we have 2 more years before we can ween ourselves off of these machines. If anyone has any legal official documentation somewhere that they can refer me to, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[jimoblak]

A ROM file is licensed software just like any other licensed software. Your assumption is true.

The way around this is to avoid emulation all together. For what reason must you maintain OS8/9?

 

[xyrx]

We run an old Oracle database that was never upgraded as time went on. Now that it's too late, we cannot upgrade, and must stay on the Mac under OS 8.6 or OS 9, using old Oracle client software. We are working on totally annihilating our old DB and doing a new one from scratch, but that will take 2 years. We have no other alternatives other than emulation or hunting around for old Mac's from 1994 - 2000.

 

[jmgalvin]

Why can't you simply bring in new macs and run the apps under Classic. WE run Quarkd 4 and Dreamweaver 4, as well as a few other apps, under Classic with no problems at all.

We just brought in some Apple refurbed 20 inch Imacs with an extra 1 gig of ram and 3 year Applecare for $1400 each delivered. Without the extra ram and Applecare they would have been $1185 delivered. Apple refurbs carry the same warranty as new.

Mac minis start at 500 dollars each. Apple Government used to have 8 packs of emacs for $5000 total. IBooks start at $1000. It's not like you're going to get a decent PC for less.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[jimoblak]

Beware that emulation apps require a specific ROM and operating system version. I have not heard of a stable emulator for G3 or newer processors and systems newer than 8.5.

You might want to start looking at eBay for used systems.

 

[mmerlinn]

Check with your local recycling agencies for used computer recyclers. Many times they know where the computer recyclers are.

Usually these recyclers just scrap the Macs cuz there is no demand for them, while these same recyclers refurbish and sell PCs for $100-200 per pop.

Another place to check are your school and university systems. Many of them use exclusively Apple products and periodically upgrade, dumping good working Macs.

Last year I bought 36 used Mac computers, all PPCs, for $5 each from the University of Washington. I got most of them up and running with little trouble at all and currently have 5 of them in use.

Three months ago, I needed a replacement PC, so got one for $50 from the local computer recyclers here in Portland, Oregon. While there I got a brand new, still in box, Apple ADB keyboard for $3, from their Mac section.

This recycler has about a 100,000 square foot warehouse stacked to the ceiling with hundreds, maybe thousands, of Gaylords of computers, probably 25 in each Gaylord.

They probably had four or five thousand Macs alone.

Since California has ten times the population of Oregon, you should have dozens of recyclers scattered around your state, not to say anything about all of the school systems. And you really should have no problem whatsoever finding enough Macs to last your lifetime without ever having to upgrade.


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[chiph]

The other possibility is checking with some of the local charities. Sometimes they get donations of old computers which they can't use (for age and/or compatability reasons).

The local Triangle United Way has a sale twice a year. They've had old Compaq servers, IBM compatables, PPC and 68k-based Macs - I even saw a hard drive for an Atari ST there once!

http://www.unitedwaytriangle.org/t4t/index.asp

Chip H.


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