SheepShaver is a MacOS run-time environment for BeOS and Linux that allows you to run classic MacOS applications inside the BeOS/Linux multitasking environment. This means that both BeOS/Linux and MacOS applications can run at the same time (usually in a window on the BeOS/Linux desktop) and data can be exchanged between them. If you are using a PowerPC-based system, applications will run at native speed (i.e. with no emulation involved). There is also a built-in PowerPC emulator for non-PowerPC systems.
SheepShaver is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMac ROM image to use SheepShaver. If you're planning to run SheepShaver on a PowerMac, you probably already have these two items.
SheepShaver runs with varying degree of functionality on the following systems:
Because SheepShaver shares a lot of source files with Basilisk II, you also need to checkout the Basilisk II sources.
To download the current version of the sources via CVS:
$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix login(password is "anoncvs")
$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix checkout BasiliskII $ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix checkout SheepShaver $ cd SheepShaver $ make links
You can then try to compile the program with
$ cd src/Unix $ ./autogen.sh $ make
under Linux, or
$ cd src/BeOS $ make
under BeOS.
A Web interface to the CVS repository is also available.
Yes, SheepShaver originally appeared for BeOS in 1998 as a commercial application (first as shareware, then via the now long-defunct BeDepot). Due to the demise of Be, it has been re-released in 2002 as Open Source software under the GPL.
No. Firstly, SheepShaver doesn't run under Windows. Secondly, MacOS X doesn't run under SheepShaver.
I'm not a Windows programmer.
It's a pun on “ShapeShifter”.