Other Emulator software suite for Intel-generation Mac OS versions?

[amccallum1]

Hi All.

I'm running a 2009 Mac Pro (OS 10.11.6, El Capitan, the most recent OS that runs on the machine) alongside a slightly more recent Mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro, also Intel, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Core i7 (OS 12.7.6 Monterey, also the most recent OS that runs on that machine).

Are there available any emulators that let us run old Mac OS on modern computers, 'shell'-style? It's not just laziness on my part: I own thousands of dollars worth of old software that runs on the old Mac Pro, good as the day it was coded, but won't run on today's OS and the providers won't upgrade me, so I'd have to pay again, grrrr.

Thanks...

 

[Bigwaff]

For PPC Macs & Mac OS 9 / Early Mac OS X - this is emulation

E-Maculation: All About Macintosh Emulation [E-Maculation wiki]

www.emaculation.com

You'll need to find older versions of Parallels or VMWare which run on your older Macs if you want to run older versions of Intel macOS in virtual machines.

 

[joevt]

Latest version of Parallels Version 20.2.0 (55872) still seems to work ok with my Leopard 10.5.8 VM. I can connect to it using AFP from Mac OS 9.2.2 or SMB from macOS Monterey (though I have to change the network bridge type depending on whether or I want to access files using the host or a separate computer).

Virtual Box VM can run 10.4.11.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I find that VMWare Fusion does a noticeably better job of running macOS guests than either Parallels or Virtualbox, if that's what you're asking for.

That won't work on an Apple Silicon Mac though, you'd need a true CPU emulator for that. (Rosetta can't do OS-level emulation.)

 

[Bigwaff]

I'm running a 2009 Mac Pro (OS 10.11.6, El Capitan, the most recent OS that runs on the machine) alongside a slightly more recent Mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro, also Intel, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Core i7 (OS 12.7.6 Monterey, also the most recent OS that runs on that machine).

Old host macOS versions need older virtual machine software versions.

 

[joevt]

Old host macOS versions need older virtual machine software versions.

2009 Mac Pro can run later macOS using OCLP so it should be able to run newer VM software.

But that's not the point of this thread. The original post wants to run old macOS (versions that run on the Mac Pro 2009) on newer Macs (such as the 2015 MacBook Pro).

 

[Wowfunhappy]

But that's not the point of this thread. The original post wants to run old macOS (versions that run on the Mac Pro 2009) on newer Macs (such as the 2015 MacBook Pro).

Sorry so this is actually what I was confused about. How new are we talking?

If it's anything Intel-based (like the 2015 Macbook Pro), this is really easy, you want VMWare Fusion. Your other two options are Parallels and Virtualbox; the former is slightly worse than VMWare at running Mac guests, and the latter is way worse. Even VMWare isn't great, but it's the best you're going to get.

 

[amccallum1]

For PPC Macs & Mac OS 9 / Early Mac OS X - this is emulation

E-Maculation: All About Macintosh Emulation [E-Maculation wiki]

www.emaculation.com

Thanks – that's a great place for me to start looking. I'll study.

 

[amccallum1]

But that's not the point of this thread. The original post wants to run old macOS (versions that run on the Mac Pro 2009) on newer Macs (such as the 2015 MacBook Pro).

Yes, exactly, thanks!

 

[Snowlover]

El capitan will run on the 2015 macbook pro.
You could make an external clone of the 2009 mac pro drive and use it as a boot drive for the mbp if you can't find a suitable emulator. Or dual boot.