Older Mac games on White 24

[BitterB]

I need a little help here......converted from PC back in June. My kids have been checking out games from the library that are "Mac" compatible, but most of them won't work. Does this have something to do with the fact that I'm running OS-X (Tiger) and these games were written for early Mac OS's?? Is Tiger not backwards compatible?? Am I missing something here?? I figured if a game says "Macintosh compatible", that it would work on my white iMac 24". What gives??

Thanks in advance for your comments.

 

[72930]

Many old games are made for Mac OS9...in March 2001, Apple switched to OSX, and OS9 apps could run under "Classic" on PPC Macs...Intel macs cannot run these old apps, without SheepShaver, which ironically requires an old OS9 Mac to install...

 

[nigrunze]

Crash Course

OK. Here's a crash on the transitions.

About 6 years ago Apple went from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. This was a pretty big jump. To run applications which were made for Mac OS 9, you need to run them in the "classic" environment which is supported on Power PC Macs but not Intel Macs. The 24" iMac is an Intel Mac. I think there's a way to run "classic" apps on Intel Macs but I'm not sure how.

At the beginning of 2006, Apple switched from using Power PC processors to using Intel processors. When using an Intel Mac, the OS seamlessly emulates to run Power PC apps without you even noticing it's doing that. Applications programmed to run on both Power PC Macs and Intel Macs as opposed to only being programmed to run on Power PC Macs are called Universal Binaries.

It seems you might be stuck with the first case. It would help you mentioned what games these are so we could help you out.

Well, psychofreak be me to a bit of this. You might need to use Sheepshaver.