What do you need?

Here are the real basic requirements for an Emplant and some recommended items as well:

• Memory: At least 8 megabytes of Amiga FAST RAM to run Mac that will do anything. 8mb of RAM will give you about a 5mb emulated Macintosh. We recommend 12+mb of Amiga RAM (this will let you have an 8+mb Mac). You can count on about 3mb of overhead for the Mac emulation.

• Hard drive: You need to have about 1mb of hard drive space for the Emplant software, but for Mac itself, you need as much space as you would like it to have (We recommend no less than 100mb). Emplant supports Amiga partitions, real SCSI hard drives and hardfiles, for Macintosh hard drive emulation.

• 32-bit CPU: A minimum of a 68020 CPU is required. A fast 68030 is the recommended minimum, but don't expect great performance with anything less than an 68040 CPU. Emplant Mac emulation is about 95% the speed of the similar speed Macintosh. A processor with an MMU is recommended.

• High Density floppy: You need a way to get information into the emulation, and about the only way to do it is with a high density Amiga floppy disk drive. This drive will let you read/write/format high density Macintosh formatted disks. An Amiga double density disk drive cannot access Macintosh formatted disks.

• Workbench 2.0: You must have at least Workbench 2.0/Kickstart 2.04 for Emplant.

• Macintosh System 7.x: You need to have Macintosh System 7.x OS for Emplant. System 7.5.x will work as well, but make sure you have the lastest version of Emplant. It is possible to get older versions of the Mac OS running, but you will need at least System 7.1 for any current software.

• 256K Macintosh ROMs: Only 256K ROMs will work, they can be version 1.1 - 1.3. These ROMs can either be dumped from the Emplant board itself or from a real Mac by using the "ROMINFO" program that comes with Emplant.

• The following items are only recommended, they are not required for Emplant to operate.

• 24-bit Graphic Card: If you really want your Mac display to fly, you will want to get an Amiga graphics card that is supported by Emplant. You will not believe the speed difference between the native ECS/AGA display versus one of these cards. These cards are even more recommended for ECS users, as many Macintosh programs will require an 256 color display to operate. Some recommended cards are: Spectrum, CyberVision, Picasso and Retina. Also supported: A2410, EGS110, OpalVision, Merlin, Rainbow, Visiona and Vivid.

• Mac double density disk drive: This is something that most users could live without, but some users might need. If you really need to be able to read and write a Macintosh 800K disks, you can do this with the AMIA interface and a real Macintosh 800K external disk drive.

EMPLANT-1200

April 24, 1996

A special version of the popular EMPLANT MAC emulation module has been created just for the A1200 (and CD-32 w/SX-1) machines. This module uses some of the A1200 specific hardware to emulate some of the EMPLANT hardware functions. This version will not work on any other Amiga, simply because the PCMCIA and many other A1200 specific undocumented features do not exist in other machine. The A1200's hardware is taken over, but multitasking is allowed to still function normally.

Features include:

• Use of 256K, 512K, and 1mb MAC ROMs.

• Supports 2, 4, 16, 256, "thousands", and "millons" of colors using special hardware specific tricks.

• Supports CD-ROM drives, hard drive partitions, hard files & ram disks.

• Supports serial & parallel using Amiga ports.

• Supports AMAX, EMPLANT, MAC high density, PC 720K & PC high density disks.

• Supports 8/16 bit stereo audio using Amiga audio.

• Supports Aikiko when used with CD-32/SX-1.

• Supports 020 through 060 processors.

• Support 68881/82 if present.

• OS2.x style guide compliant interface opening on public screen.

and much more!

• This module includes all software necessary except ROM image and System software.

Sorry, haven't been able to find any demos of this on the web yet, but if you find one, mail us antigrav@westworld.com

MAC Emulation Professional

November 16th, 1995 - Official Press Release

Utilities Unlimited International, Incorporated is pleased to announce it is now taking orders for their latest emulation module for EMPLANT.

• The new module is named, "MAC Emulation Professional" and offers a wider range of Macintosh emulation capabilities. Although much of code is based on the previous MAC emulation, the new code is completely new, smaller, and faster. Besides the standard features you have come to expect from our previous MAC emulation, these additional features make this emulation module worth having:

• Completely new OS2.x+ style guide compliant user interface, using gadtools.

• Opens on a public screen. No more custom screens.

• ASL is now used for all file requesters.

• Built-in help when using OS3.0 or later.

• Support for all known 512K-1meg 680x0 color MAC ROM's. This includes ROMS from: MAC II/x/cx/ci/si, LC, LCII, LCIII, color classic, Quadra 700-950. All ROM's work with CPU caches on. All ROM's will support an FPU, whether designed to or not.

• Virtual memory support!

• MAC OS is partially re-written so it does not constantly busy loop, giving the Amiga side more CPU time and allowing lower priority tasks to run (such as screen blankers and auto disk changes).

• Support for EtherTalk and other EtherNet based applications when using a SANA-II compliant EtherNet driver.

• Built-in support for CD-ROM's not connected to EMPLANT's SCSI port.

• Faster interrupt and exception handling.

• Enhanced video driver support (larger sizes, more colors).

• Enhanced file transfer capabilities (ability to set filetype and creator, filename filtering, and more).

• Enhanced multitasking code prevents Amiga serial.device lockups.

• Enhanced sound support. You can set the emulation to use the Amiga's audio exclusively, or shared (audio channels can be stolen by the Amiga if necessary).

• New custom logic chip improves bus timing, boosting performance and reliability of EMPLANT's VIA interrupts, serial communications, and SCSI operations.

• New utilities, and much, much more!

• This package includes the new software, updated documentation, and a new custom logic chip that replaces and existing chip on your EMPLANT board.

• Compatibility problems / Emplant problems

• As good as the Emplant Mac emulation is, you will find a few programs that might have problems. Here are some tips for getting them to work.

• I get a message to insert my hard drive whenever I shutdown: This is a bug with Quicktime 2.0, you can bypass this message by pressing "Right-Amiga period". It seems that Quicktime 2.1 fixes this problem.

• Quicken 5 crashes: This will only happen with the following: you are running in 32-bit mode, you have a 256 color display and Quicken 5 has the Iconbar turned on. You can fix this by: 1.Run in 16 colors or less 2.Run in 24-bit mode 3.Run "enforcer" before Emplant is started up (only on CPUs with an MMU) 4.Hide the iconbar (do this while in 16 color mode, and then Quicken will save its prefs that way) 5.Emplant Mac Pro will run this program fine

• I get a bus error with "Star Trek: Interactive Technical Manual": You have to turn off Quicktime VR. This has been fixed since Mac Pro v1.2

• MacTCP will not work with my modem: Many programs that use the modem will run better or must be run off the Emplant serial ports.

• Emplant locks up while booting: One possible cause, if you have the Amiga accessing something off the Emplant SCSI bus, the Emplant will usually lock up while booting. Don't have the Emplant and Amiga share the Emplant SCSI bus at the same time.

• I get garbage on my Amiga display when the Mac is running: If you have an Amiga graphics card you cannot have the Amiga and Macintosh use it at the same time. Before you start up the Mac emulation, switch your Amiga to a native ECS/AGA mode.

• My hardfile access is very slow. If you increase the buffers on the hard drive that has the hard file on it your access time will improve. You need to add A LOT of buffers to make it faster (like 800 to 1000 buffers). Also, hardfile speed is based on the size of the hardfile, a large hardfile is slower than a smaller one.

• How do I get rid of the disk icon for the Mac hard drive partition? Using HDToolBox you need to set the Dostype of the partition to 0x52455356, this will take the icon off Workbench, but Empant will still be able to use the partition.

If you have any found any other problems and/or fixes let us know! antigrav@mail.westworld.com

Emplant Utilities

Here are a few programs that will make life using your Emplant a bit easier.

You can download these program either using FTP or HTTP by clicking the method you wish to use. FTP server only allows 36 anonymous users on at one time, so if you get a refuse message, try again in a few minutes.

Emplant Mac v5.5: Latest version of the Emplant Macintosh emulation software.

Emplant Mac Pro v1.4: Latest version of the Emplant Macintosh PRO emulation software.

EmpCD Device: Use a CD-Rom drive connected to your Amiga SCSI bus. Great utility, if you have an Emplant without a SCSI port or don't want to buy Macintosh CD-Rom drivers.

EmpSCSI Device v1.1: I have found that this version of the empscsi.device works better than the v1.0 version that comes with the Emplant software.

Epson Printer Driver: This is a Epson compatible printer driver for the Macintosh.

HP DeskJet Printer Driver: This is a HP DeskJet compatible printer driver for the Macintosh.

MacJoy: Use an Amiga joystick with keyboard based Mac games.

MacErrors: Type in an error number, and MacError will tell you what it means.