Legacy Hardware recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Hi good people
I want to purchase an old mac laptop to open an old AC7 project
What do you recommend?
I have heard that Rosetta will run Classic apps on osx 6 Lion.
Is this correct?
Has anyone tried it?
Hoping to get as current a laptop as I can as my old g3 finally died. Need your recommendations.
Old projects keep coming back.
Thanks

[Karl Ottenstein]

Wow. A G3!

Snow Leopard is the most recent OS X version that will run Rosetta on an Intel Mac to let you run AC 7.

You do NOT need anything that enables Classic apps. That's way too old. 😉 Just need the ability to run PPC apps on newer hardware...which is what the Rosetta PPC emulator was about.

You also do not need to be stuck with Snow Leopard. Just need the newest hardware capable of booting into Snow Leopard. You use Disk Utility to repartition your Mac with two boot partitions... one Snow Leopard for when you need to run AC 9 or earlier... and the other with the most recent version of OS X the hardware is capable of running. Keep in mind that there are no more security updates for Snow Leopard.

If you are currently using another, newer Intel Mac... this dual boot option is the best one. If you do not have a copy of Snow Leopard, Apple is still selling it (physical media):
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

But, this page:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2455
notes:

Note: Macs newer than April 1, 2010 but older than July 20, 2011 must use the original 10.6 installer disc that shipped with them to boot 10.6 from CD. AppleCare may have those discs if you lost or misplaced it. To determine the age of a Mac, plug it in the support status search engine, and use the serial number lookup. Using the model name, find the release date of that model on Wikipedia or Everymac.com, and the followup date.

Macs older than April 2010 can run Snow Leopard. I'm not sure how much older and which models: My Mac Pro (see signature) is from March 2008, but I can reboot it in Snow Leopard but normally run the latest version of Mavericks. I'm also not sure if the newest Macs can run Snow Leopard (probably doesn't have drivers that will work with the newest graphics cards?)?

[Eduardo Rolon]

Another shot (and this might not work) is to create a Virtual Machine using VMFusion or Parallels that runs Snow Leopard but you will need to research this option to see if it is feasible.

[Anonymous]

Haha
Thanks for the response
So
I should be able to purchase Snow Leopard
Put it on a partition on my external drive
Does Rosetta automatically come/load with SL?
Do you know of any issues with the wibo key?
Thanks again
Dave

Karl wrote:
Wow. A G3!

Snow Leopard is the most recent OS X version that will run Rosetta on an Intel Mac to let you run AC 7.

You do NOT need anything that enables Classic apps. That's way too old. 😉 Just need the ability to run PPC apps on newer hardware...which is what the Rosetta PPC emulator was about.

You also do not need to be stuck with Snow Leopard. Just need the newest hardware capable of booting into Snow Leopard. You use Disk Utility to repartition your Mac with two boot partitions... one Snow Leopard for when you need to run AC 9 or earlier... and the other with the most recent version of OS X the hardware is capable of running. Keep in mind that there are no more security updates for Snow Leopard.

If you are currently using another, newer Intel Mac... this dual boot option is the best one. If you do not have a copy of Snow Leopard, Apple is still selling it (physical media):
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

But, this page:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2455
notes:

Note: Macs newer than April 1, 2010 but older than July 20, 2011 must use the original 10.6 installer disc that shipped with them to boot 10.6 from CD. AppleCare may have those discs if you lost or misplaced it. To determine the age of a Mac, plug it in the support status search engine, and use the serial number lookup. Using the model name, find the release date of that model on Wikipedia or Everymac.com, and the followup date.

Macs older than April 2010 can run Snow Leopard. I'm not sure how much older and which models: My Mac Pro (see signature) is from March 2008, but I can reboot it in Snow Leopard but normally run the latest version of Mavericks. I'm also not sure if the newest Macs can run Snow Leopard (probably doesn't have drivers that will work with the newest graphics cards?)?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dave wrote:
Haha
Thanks for the response
So
I should be able to purchase Snow Leopard
Put it on a partition on my external drive
Does Rosetta automatically come/load with SL?
Do you know of any issues with the wibo key?
Thanks again
Dave

Yes... if the Mac you buy is capable of running SL (due to graphics card compatibility). Rosetta is part of SL, but as I recall, it is installed as an option, or later on-demand. No problems with WIBU key. There are issues with Codemeter keys... as CM keys cannot run versions prior to AC 10. For the AC 7 SL WIBU driver, see:
http://www.graphisoft.com/downloads/protection_key.html

If the new Mac has a large enough internal disk, you don't need an external drive for the SL boot partition... just partition your boot drive. But, if it must be external, just don't use USB 2 - too slow for real work. If the new Mac supports USB 3, go for that (cheapest and great speed) - otherwise Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I have a 13" MacBook Air 4gb 1600mhz intel HS graphics 5000
1.3ghz intel core i5 processor
which I believe only has 250gb SSd
My external backup has double that
Usb3 yes

This Air just meets the absolute minimum requirements to run current versions of AC. For AC 7, it'll no doubt be fine as it exceeds the specs of machines available way that long ago. 🙂 If this is an 11" Air, then the screen isn't large enough to display the full AC interface, either. (Not tall enough in pixels for current releases... but OK for AC 7. Can support an external display though.)

But... now i feel stupid for having suggested a USB 3 SL boot drive... since once SL boots... it can only access the boot drive at USB 2 speeds since SL does not support USB 3.

As this Air seems to be a 2013 model (?) ... this thread;
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2455
says:

Macs that were released new as of July 20, 2011 or later, will generally not run Snow Leopard unless you follow this tip for Snow Leopard Server virtualization.

where that tip link goes to:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6841

That gives instructions for getting SL Server and virtualizing it using Parallels Desktop or similar - as suggested by Eduardo below. However, your underpowered, low-memory (4GB RAM) Air is poorly suited to be able to run a virtual machine under the existing OS. It might be able to manage, but I'd personally only feel confident with 8 GB RAM minimum and an i7 processor.

Bottom line for AC 7:
You could try virtualizing Snow Leopard on this or a more powerful Mac...
....or look at Ebay (etc) for a used Mac that is still running SL...
...or (have to list everything!) - an old PC running Windows XP.