Hi everyone,

I have a niece who would love to get her kids interested in MM, is there anything available for PC users? :-?

thanks,

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

I don't think there is. Couldn't she get them a Mac? A used one would do.

Thanks for the idea Rose, but they don't have a lot of extra $, what with having Three kids !

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

Got an intel PC? I heard there was a way to get Mac onto them, but it is hard. Try googling up some help on that if you want to. Plus, you'd have to buy Leopard INSTALL (not Upgrate/pop-in DVD) if you wanted the latest version of Mac to be on the PC.

Installing Mac OS X on a PC is NOT an easy task.  I do not recommend it to anyone.  

On the other hand, Vern has mentioned that he may port MM to Windows one day......

Thanks Wingy and Brell. :)

I guess we have one (BIG) up on all those PC users! :D

I will let her know she may have to wait awhile, but that it will be worth it.  She and the kids are coming over for Christmas, so I will let them play MM on my computer so they can see why it's better to have a Mac!!! ;D

take care,

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

MM on PC? no thanks xD The Mac is better, then my mac is faster as my PC  ;) :D

Hey sandybean, I have a solution, how about you buy each of your kids a Mac with their own MM?  ;D ;)

Anthony wrote on 09.12.2007 at 19:23:20:

Hey sandybean, I have a solution, how about you buy each of your kids a Mac with their own MM?  ;D ;)

lol  :)

Hey Mikee and Wingy;

I don't know if their house is even big enough for three iMacs and one PC.  ;)

Plus, I am not wealthy enough to buy each of my niece's kids a computer!!!  (Geeez, it would be me First, since I am using a 1998 "Vintage" iMac!!!) ;D

Thanks for the ideas anyway!

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

PS: HeHe Mikee;  xD to you too!

Sandy,

Look at your posts! You make always at end of your posts a smiley  ;) :D That can I too!  8-)

Mikee [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif] [smiley=happy.gif]

Wasn't there a version of MM that ran on OS 9? SheepShaver is a cross-platform (Runs on Mac, Windows, Linux) Classic Mac OS emulator/virtual machine. You need a few things to get it up and running, but once you've collected those it works fairly well. Performance is pretty good on my Intel Mac, all things considered.

If you want help getting SheepShaver to run send me a PM and I'd be happy to help.

I've also heard of people getting OS X to run in VMware for Windows. You could probably find a VMware image that would run in the free VMware player if you looked in the right (dark, seedy) corners of the Internet.

I right-clicked MM, and selected "Show file contents." In /Midnight mansion PPC.app/Contents/MacOS/ there is a file of MM for Mac OS 9. So, obviously, if you have a non-intel based mac, and you start in OS 9, you just go to where you keep MM on the OS X side, and double-click Midnight Mansion when you usually boot it up. It should work. The MM PPC application works on both OS X and OS 9, when you double click the PPC version in the MM folder. The PPC version only came out in 1.1.0 I think.

If you look at the "Downloads" page, it lets you download MM 1.0.3 which was the last version of MM for OS 9. I'm downloading it now to see if it will run in SheepShaver.

...So, I just tried it. Turns out MM for OS 9 requires OS 9.1, which SheepShaver can't run (it tops out at OS 9.0.4). So, that's a dead end. It was such a promising lead, too. :(

Thanks Ryos and Wingy for trying so hard to see if it would work, since the above stuff read like Greek to me !!!  (Total Computer Newbie)

I guess my niece and Grand nieces will just have to wait until they get an iMac to play MM, and then, boy won't they be pleased (on both counts)!!!

Thanks again so much, :D

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

Lookee what I did...mwahahaha!

What you see there is, in fact, Midnight Mansion running under a virtualized instance of Mac OS X 10.4.10 running inside VMware Fusion. I managed to acquire a pre-built VMware image so I wouldn't have to do any of the hacking myself. I also haven't tested the image under Windows, but since it works in Fusion it ought to work in VMware player as well.

Oh, and the game is tragically, unplayably slow. Did I mention that? Yeah, check out the frame rate. You thought Freddy's "Moon" level was bad? I guarantee you, this is worse. MUCH WORSE.

So, alas, my two great ideas have come to naught. It was fun to try anyway. :)

If Apple were to officially allow virtualization of Mac OS X, both VMware and Parallels would modify their software to vastly improve the experience. Maybe then MM would run. Unfortunately, if this day ever comes, it will be far in the future. I'm not holding my breath.

As it stands now, virtualized Mac OS X is a novelty created by clever hackers, but not very useful beyond that.

---

I guess I know why that you can barely run Mac on Windows Mode. Apple probably put some anti-virtualize stuff in its base-code so... it just won't run, fast enough, at least. Thats the message. Don't buy a windows computer to run Mac, just buy a mac. :P

E-bay has some pretty good Mac junk, er- I mean, "antiques." If you just want a $100 thing that runs MM, then go check E-bay out.

(HINT: Don't get anything thats older then 1987)

By the way, Ryos, I had windows on my computer.... I would've loved to see some people "try" to run Mac on windows, but, *sigh* alas, Mac is in the world's best Personal Computer. I even think Linux is better, seriously. I had to delete windows because... I opened my web brower to see if the Internet was working, BAM 3 downloads 1,300 virus' on my Windows side. I had to erase it all.

And how many times have I gotten a Virus before on my Mac? *sigh* Too bad, Windows, 0.

Actually, it's nothing so sinister as that. VMware does a pretty good job of creating a virtual computer for your guest OSs to run on, but for a really smooth experience, you need optimized drivers and other bits installed in the guest OS. This affects everything from mouse movement to (most important) graphics performance.

Windows runs similarly slowly until you install VMware tools. The difference is, Windows XP's graphics API (GDI) is not nearly so GPU-intensive as Quartz, so you don't notice the slowness quite so much as with a virtualized Mac OS X. I bet Windows Vista would also be quite slow without VMware tools, but I haven't tried it yet.

VMware provides tools for a huge number of OSs, from Windows to Solaris to several Linuxes. If Apple were to allow it, they would surely write tools for OS X as well, but Apple wants to sell hardware and, thus, doesn't want people virtualizing OS X on El Cheapo commodity hardware.

:-? After Greek, we got some lessons in Latin!  ;D

Wasn't Bo Peep from Greece?

*checks*

That's the case indeed :) We should make a MM Map with represented countries!

lol Freddy lessons in latin xD
calimera!  :D

Greek? No no, that was Geek! Though they may at first appear similar, I have it on good authority that not all speakers of Greek can speak Geek.

;D

As for Latin...um...I speak Spanish, does that count? :p

Ehm...Ryos I'm sorry but what's Geek my translationmachine was a little surprised.. xD

Geek is something like a Fachidiot, I think.

At different levels, there are also nerds and (heaven forbid!) dorks.

aha O.K.  :)

I guess it's up to Vern to decide if he wants to go ahead and port MM to a PC.  But I think the easiest thing would be for SandyBean to donate her "Vintage" iMac to her Nieces kids, then buy herself a new iMac!  Or a Mac Mini, that's what I use, and it's great.  And cheap!

I believe the code Vern used to create Midnight Mansion was a very Macintosh code, (You'd probably know Alan, seeing you where working with him during the making of Midnight Mansion original) that would be rather difficult to convert to Windows.

C++ is a language / code that would be good for making for both Macintosh and Windows. I think Vern didn't use this for Midnight Mansion, or he might of, just never bothered to convert to Windows. I believe Vern is using this code in an engine to make his new game, Insectoid, so  Insectoid will most probably be for Macintosh and Windows. I don't think Vern has any plans to make Midnight Mansion for Windows, but you never know.

I would like to make a Windows port sometime, but part of me wonders if by the time that happens, the graphics might be so outdated that the whole game might need to be remake anyway. (Like at least 800x600 versions of the graphics, instead of 640x480.) And that'd be a project in and of itself.

As for language, Midnight Mansion was written in straight C. It's not the language that isn't portable, it's the APIs used. C itself goes to any platform quite easily. But the APIs used are Mac APIs for opening files, drawing things on the screen, creating windows and dialog boxes, etc. And while the game could probably be ported by someone experienced in a few months, the level editor would be a nightmare, due to the number of Mac dialog boxes it has. Each dialog box has lots of Mac code associated with it that'd be just a ton of work to port.

Hey Vern !

The above sounds way too complicated for my lil' ole' newby computer brain to even translate into English, let alone comprehend.   ::)


Was wondering though, if you had any ETA on the MM Expansion Pack yet?   Summer is a great time for MM;  stay cool inside with the AC on and them Jack's a jumpin'...... ;)

Thanks for all your hard work on this fantastic Game,

SandyBean [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

PS:  to Alan:  We ARE Getting a NEW (to us) iMAC !!!   Yahoo.  We're getting a two year old refurbished one for around $700 as soon as it's available, can't wait since we only have about 400 MB of storage room left on this good ole' gal!  We're sticking with the same program of Tiger though, nothing I really want on Leopard yet.  Take care.   :)

I don't know release date times, probably can't do it this summer, but before the years end, I certainly hope!

My goodness children the expansion pack will be great. Adventures of Ted will be awesome. :P

Many more doors will open for designers to design, and many new mansions will be there for all yall to play. I just hope the expansion pack will out before September is about, and the before the next school year is about to begin.