ShapeShifter (68k Mac emulation on Minimig)

[meauxdal]

I'd like to talk about ShapeShifter Mac emulation on the Minimig core. I have mentioned it a few times in the MacPlus thread, but it seems like there's a place for a specific thread. I've been working on a ready-made image for this emulator, and there have been a lot of roadblocks and bumps on the way. I'm still not done...

I just went down a very long and dark rabbit-hole learning about Workbench and AmigaOS and HDToolBox and FFS and PFS3 and Startup-Sequence and user-startup and S, T, L, Devs, and a million other things... too many other things. My current confusion stems from the DeviceDisk feature in ShapeShifter which seems somehow arbitrary in behavior. Will it directly mount an existing empty Amiga partition? Will it ask to format it? It's like Schroedinger's hardfile...

I probably did something weird with the one partition that ShapeShifter found suitable to mount directly... but the processes I've used have been so arcane and labyrinthine I don't even know exactly what I did at this point

At any rate, I think I may actually finally be getting close to having something to release. That's probably as much as I can say because if I say something like "I'll release today" I'm pretty sure it's going to self-destruct

The Minimig/ShapeShifter hybrid as it currently stands is quite a capable little solution. Even some mid-90s fare like SimCity 2000, SimTower, and Escape Velocity run pretty decently, if slow at times. It really depends on the game - very hard to predict what will and won't work without directly testing. Still, it's a pretty good experience given the software itself plays nice.

Got any color Mac favorites you'd like to see on the image? Chime in!

Here's a rough little highlight video showcasing some stuff that runs OK on the emulator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og0JDQcFToI

[meauxdal]

By the way, for anyone wanting to muck with Amiga stuff but who doesn't know where to start, I've found using the Coffin r58 image (just rename to .hdf) as a base has been pretty fruitful. It has a lot of useful stuff installed on it and can give you a platform to mount other images and use DOpus and other things without having to worry about .lha or .lzx or other potential hangups.

[meauxdal]

This process (formatting an Amiga partition as a DeviceDisk in MacOS under ShapeShifter) takes forever (hours) every time I have to do it (too many times already) but hopefully the results will be worth it in the end. I'm saving my 4GB file with two 2GB Mac partitions pre-formatted as well as the scsi.device information to plug into ShapeShifter. Maybe this will keep other people from having to experience this pain

[C-R-T]

This is über cool! Thanks for doing this.

[softtest9]

This looks really snappy and nice. Have you tried any MIDI or other music software?

[meauxdal]

This looks really snappy and nice. Have you tried any MIDI or other music software?

I have not, though it is definitely something I want to look at. I've gotten MIDI working in Atari ST and native Minimig before, but I have no idea how MIDI works in ShapeShifter yet...

I'm still having trouble with my image. I nearly got everything working in my custom .hdf, it even boots directly into ShapeShifter now thanks to a Startup-Sequence stolen from a previous ShapeShifter image from before I was working on it.

However, when you shut down the Mac, you get a message that asks you to insert a volume with LIBS:workbench.library on it and you're just stuck (Retry and Cancel do nothing). It seems like it should just be some assign nonsense (I already have DH0:Libs/workbench.library present), but that stuff is still above my paygrade. So close, yet so far.

[meauxdal]

Quick and dirty ShapeShifter image editing guide (for Windows users):

Install the FS-UAE Amiga emulator (WinUAE also works and has a few extra options (can create hardfiles), but is harder to use)
Source an appropriate Kickstart ROM (I use kick.a1200.46.143 for most of what I'm doing on an emulator)
Configure FS-UAE as follows:
Home/Amiga Model/A4000/3.1 ROM (68040 CPU also works) (these settings might not be optimal but they seem to at least work)
ROM & RAM/Kickstart ROM/kick.a1200.46.143 (other ROMs may also work)
Chip RAM/2 MB
Fast RAM/8 MB
Motherboard RAM/64 MB

I recommend booting into something other than the ShapeShifter image itself, as it might fail to load since it has a Startup-Sequence which autoboots ShapeShifter and FS-UAE will not cooperate. On the hard drives page in FS-UAE, I recommend setting the first slot to coffin_r58.hdf (any volume with a bootable Workbench environment should work), the second slot to ShapeShifter.hdf, and the third slot to a folder on your computer (click the folder icon) containing the Mac hardfiles you wish to use on ShapeShifter.

Once set, go ahead and save your preset (give it a name, then click the red download button on the Home page), then click Start to boot into Coffin. (Coffin itself has its own ShapeShifter configuration installed, if you want to poke around with that. I haven't tested it on MiSTer yet.)

On the image, the hardfiles for ShapeShifter can be located in Mac/ShapeShifter/Hardfiles (show all files instead of just icons in Workbench to see this drawer) and Mac/ShapeShifter/[Mac OS version]/Hardfiles/. Delete what you don't need to free up space and transfer your new hardfile from the Windows folder you mounted earlier (should be visible on the Workbench desktop) to an appropriate location on the image. You might need to configure ShapeShifter itself (to point to any new hardfiles) back on Minimig as launching ShapeShifter under FS-UAE might fail to load the GUI.

There are other options for doing this, but none of them are easy.

(this guide requires an existing ShapeShifter .hdf - PM me if you want a copy)

[shaitan]

I tried going down this rabbit hole last year and spent a solid month trying to get something working but it looks like you got much further than I did. I was also never an Amiga user so it was a lot of fumbling around in the dark (although I was also trying to build up my own image from scratch so that was probably mistake #1).

I was finally successful at getting MacOS installed and booting a few times, then I had a hard time understanding how to get files to copy over to the MacOS partition. Are you doing all that through FS-UAE, mounting the image and then able to drag/drop over?

I also had a hard time not corrupting the image, or at least I think that's what was happening. Either way, this is some fantastic work, I have been testing your image out when I get a chance and only had a few issues.

[lordoftime79]

there is currently a guy foft working on faster minimig core using CPU emulation on misters ARM side and the rest on the FGPA this may make for a speddy mac experience when done.

[Bas]

Isn't it somewhat convoluted to emulate a bigger Mac through an Amiga core? Isn't there a much more direct route from the constituent parts of Minimig straight to an OS8 compatible colour Mac?

What would BasiliskII do on AO486?

[jca]

There is a version of BasiliskII running on the Linux side.

[meauxdal]

I tried going down this rabbit hole last year and spent a solid month trying to get something working but it looks like you got much further than I did. I was also never an Amiga user so it was a lot of fumbling around in the dark (although I was also trying to build up my own image from scratch so that was probably mistake #1).

I was finally successful at getting MacOS installed and booting a few times, then I had a hard time understanding how to get files to copy over to the MacOS partition. Are you doing all that through FS-UAE, mounting the image and then able to drag/drop over?

I also had a hard time not corrupting the image, or at least I think that's what was happening. Either way, this is some fantastic work, I have been testing your image out when I get a chance and only had a few issues.

I'm still fumbling in the dark myself. I've only gotten as far as I have by just copying files and configuration from the earlier ShapeShifter image I've been modifying

My suggestion for messing with Mac hardfiles is basically the same as Amiga hardfiles - use an emulator to prepare your disks. Trying to get things in and out of the MacPlus core or ShapeShifter directly is horrible.

For Mac I use several emulators - most commonly BasiliskII, SheepShaver, Mini vMac, and SoftMac (specifically for preparing hardfiles with the Apple 7.3.5 SCSI driver). archive.org is your friend w/r/t ROM files. https://www.savagetaylor.com/downloads/ ... macintosh/ is your friend in terms of bootable images that can be used analogously to how I described using Coffin above - as a base with pre-installed software that helps get you over the initial hump. StuffIt Expander and Disk Copy are already installed on SavageTaylor's 7.5.5 image (a Swiss army knife OS that works under all four of the emulators mentioned above), which will go a long way to get things rolling.

And yeah, the image corruption thing sucks. It seems like some games or apps under certain conditions make things explode. Gotta test things to make sure the ones that do that are deleted or at the very least marked as unstable in some condemned directory.

Isn't it somewhat convoluted to emulate a bigger Mac through an Amiga core? Isn't there a much more direct route from the constituent parts of Minimig straight to an OS8 compatible colour Mac?

This would be great and I wholeheartedly approve of any and all work done on Macs (or any Apple stuff, really) in FPGA. I'll happily use such a thing should it become available! ShapeShifter is not exactly ideal, but it is surprisingly usable as a stopgap measure. Much better than I expected.

[meauxdal]

For anyone foolishly wanting to create their own .hdf to use with ShapeShifter: first of all, don't. Just don't!

If you insist, though, do NOT use FFS as your filesystem for ShapeShifter files. It is unbearably slow. PFS3 is very quick by contrast. It took me way too long to figure out how to format partitions as something other than FFS successfully...

[bbond007]

For anyone foolishly wanting to create their own .hdf to use with ShapeShifter: first of all, don't. Just don't!

If you insist, though, do NOT use FFS as your filesystem for ShapeShifter files. It is unbearably slow. PFS3 is very quick by contrast. It took me way too long to figure out how to format partitions as something other than FFS successfully...

Ideally you would only use an Amiga an Amiga Filesystem (FFS, PFS3, etc.) for initially booting and installing the image to a RAW HD partition. The RAW partition will be reformatted (by MacOS) to HFS so it really does not matter which filesystem you use for that.

You can speed up the install process tremendously using the Amiga CLI/Shell "Addbuffers" command on the partition your image is on:

--> http://www.mattowen.co.uk/amiga/amiga-o ... ffers.html

Isn't it somewhat convoluted to emulate a bigger Mac through an Amiga core? Isn't there a much more direct route from the constituent parts of Minimig straight to an OS8 compatible colour Mac?

What would BasiliskII do on AO486?

I think BasiliskII do on AO486 would probably run way too slow if it runs at all.

There was something similar (for DOS) that probably would perform better for ao486:

ARDI Executor --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executor_(software)

Here is a link to BasiliskII for HPS if you are interested in that --> https://github.com/bbond007/MiSTer_BasiliskII

[meauxdal]

For anyone foolishly wanting to create their own .hdf to use with ShapeShifter: first of all, don't. Just don't!

If you insist, though, do NOT use FFS as your filesystem for ShapeShifter files. It is unbearably slow. PFS3 is very quick by contrast. It took me way too long to figure out how to format partitions as something other than FFS successfully...

Ideally you would only use an Amiga an Amiga Filesystem (FFS, PFS3, etc.) for initially booting and installing the image to a RAW HD partition. The RAW partition will be reformatted (by MacOS) to HFS so it really does not matter which filesystem you use for that.

You can speed up the install process tremendously using the Amiga CLI/Shell "Addbuffers" command on the partition your image is on...

http://www.mattowen.co.uk/amiga/amiga-o ... ffers.html

Thank you for this!

The bit I couldn't (can't?) figure out with the raw partitions is how to get ShapeShifter to let me select them as DeviceDisks. I could only select them if they had been initialized and accessible to the Amiga system. Once I could get ShapeShifter to see the partitions, I was able to save the configuration so it could use them even after Mac formatting left them "uninitialized" to the Amiga system again. Such brute force workarounds are par for the course in my Amiga adventures

I also saw the "Mac-Handler" in the ShapeShifter directory, which for a long time I wasn't sure what it was. I now think that might be a filesystem definition? I have to look into it more...

[bbond007]

I was able to save the configuration so it could use them even after Mac formatting left them "uninitialized" to the Amiga system again. Such brute force workarounds are par for the course in my Amiga adventures

After you have formatted them to HFS you can go into HDtoolBox/partition and there is a setting under advanced that will tell Amiga not to auto-mount these "bad" partitions. You do not need these mounted for Mac-Handler to work.

[meauxdal]

However, when you shut down the Mac, you get a message that asks you to insert a volume with LIBS:workbench.library on it and you're just stuck (Retry and Cancel do nothing).

I keep learning more things and one of them was that the 3.1.4 Kickstart ROM removed some stuff that was in the 3.1 Kickstart. Replacing one with the other allowed me to bypass this error! Things are looking up!

[Higgy]

Yes with the 3.1.4 Install disk it will copy over the Workbench.libary file so you can still use 3.1.4
I think there is another icon.libary? that was also moved from the Kickstart ROM to a disk based file.

[meauxdal]

You can speed up the install process tremendously using the Amiga CLI/Shell "Addbuffers" command on the partition your image is on:

--> http://www.mattowen.co.uk/amiga/amiga-o ... ffers.html

I have been using HDToolBox to configure buffers (should be equivalent in practice, right?). I haven't been maxing it out, though. I'm guessing I should set it to MAX for the Mac HFS partitions, since Minimig has RAM for days.

[meauxdal]

New highlight video: Myst (1993) running on ShapeShifter

[meauxdal]

I need to do some testing to see what the optimal setting for MacOS' disk cache under ShapeShifter might be. It defaults to 32K. Smaller seems better for faster disks which have their own cache, which in this case should be handled via the Amiga side and the partition buffers. I haven't done any benchmarking with it yet, could try with Speedometer...

[meauxdal]

Benchmarking 32K disk cache versus 8MB - the results seemed basically identical. In Speedometer 3.23, I consistently get disk ratings around 4.8 times that of a Mac Classic - this seems to be true at any cache setting I tried, including whether or not I'm testing on PFS3 with a FileDisk or Mac HFS with a DeviceDisk (the latter is marginally faster (~4.9), but it was close). Seems like the buffers on the Amiga side, when cranked up to max, are sufficient to nullify any use of the MacOS side disk cache, at least at a glance. There's always the possibility the emulation is doing something funky here.

Anyway, I've been tinkering with this image a lot. Lots of testing, having something go slightly wrong, then moving stuff around and trying again. It's slow going, but I should have something pretty impressive to show for it soon.

[meauxdal]

Just posted a new ShapeShifter image to my Google doc resource hub. It's still rough and messy in some ways, but also represents a pretty significant amount of work. I'm happy about it - I've probably spent 50 hours working on this image since the last release... or more...

Notes:
The Labyrinth of Time doesn't work. I forgot to include the .toast image and it asks for the CD.
Don't boot into 8.1 via the System Picker, you'll bork the drive. Stick to 7.x.x if you use System Picker. If you want to use 8.1, Special>Shut Down the Mac and start it up from the Mac/ShapeShifter/8.1/ShapeShifter file on the Amiga side.
Most of this stuff is 100% untested and might explode. Make a backup.
If you test it out, here's the deal - you gotta let me know what doesn't work. I need help filtering out stuff that has issues and troubleshooting which ones might be able to work.
Send me a PM if you don't already have access and want to test. You can also post in this thread to ask for a link if you don't have permission to send a PM.

[jca]

Thanks for the new image. I did not test any game or application at the moment but as you added Speedometer I wanted to compare the 3 versions of the Mac which can run on MISTer: Mac Plus core, ShapeShifter under Minimig and Basilisk II under Linux.
Here are the results, all done with OS 7.5.5.

Mac Plus Core
CPU: 68020
CPU Clock: 16 MHz
FPU: None
Memory: 4 MB
Performance Rating relative to Mac Classic
CPU: 2.582
Graphics: 2.323
Disk: 1.422
Math: 2.752
Benchmark Mix relative to Mac Classic
2.859
FPU Benchmarks relative to Mac II
N/A
Color QuickDraw Benchmarks relative to Mac II
N/A

ShapeShifter
CPU: 68020
CPU Clock: Unknown
FPU: 68881
Memory: 64 MB
Performance Rating relative to Mac Classic
CPU: 16.018
Graphics: 9.338
Disk: 2.768
Math: 29.029
Benchmark Mix relative to Mac Classic
19.446
FPU Benchmarks relative to Mac II
0.072
Color QuickDraw Benchmarks relative to Mac II
8 bits/pixel: 4.359

Basilisk II (no JIT)
CPU: 68020
CPU Clock: Unknown
FPU: 68881
Memory: 32 MB
Performance Rating relative to Mac Classic
CPU: 18.804
Graphics: 18.334
Disk: Not enough RAM
Math: 136.724
Benchmark Mix relative to Mac Classic
60.121
FPU Benchmarks relative to Mac II
9.876
Color QuickDraw Benchmarks relative to Mac II
Monochrome: 5.219
2 bits/pixel: 5.631
4 bits/pixel: 6.560
8 bits/pixel: 6.931

No surprise with the Mac Plus core: it runs as it should with a 68020 and 16 MHz clock.
ShapeShifter is rather surprising for its performance. Is it due to its clock frequency (unknown to me), its memory? But you can tell that its FPU is emulated in software.
Basilisk II performs very well, in particular in the Math Benchmarks. The results for the FPU Benchmarks is also very good.

[kolla]

What FPU emulator is this?

[meauxdal]

What FPU emulator is this?

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/softwarefpu-307

[bbond007]

Thanks for the new image. I did not test any game or application at the moment but as you added Speedometer I wanted to compare the 3 versions of the Mac which can run on MISTer: Mac Plus core, ShapeShifter under Minimig and Basilisk II under Linux.
Here are the results, all done with OS 7.5.5.

I also have vMac if you are interested to compare. It needs to be recompiled per configuration and even resolution, but I have a bunch of configurations built.

Speed wise its slower for the CPU than Basilisk II but my recollection is it runs comparatively better when you crank the resolution up.

[jca]

I also have vMac if you are interested to compare. It needs to be recompiled per configuration and even resolution, but I have a bunch of configurations built.

Speed wise its slower for the CPU than Basilisk II but my recollection is it runs comparatively better when you crank the resolution up.

I suppose the vMac is running on the Linux side. I would like to test it.
Regarding Basilisk II: is there a way to go up in resolution above 640x480? I tried but is said something regarding X Server not supporting it.

[bbond007]

I suppose the vMac is running on the Linux side. I would like to test it.
Regarding Basilisk II: is there a way to go up in resolution above 640x480? I tried but is said something regarding X Server not supporting it.

I have some examples linked in the README.md --> https://github.com/bbond007/MiSTer_Basi ... le_Scripts

I updated the build about a month ago..

[meauxdal]

The 20210630 Minimig update appears to have broken my latest ShapeShifter image. I spent some time trying to fix it but wasn't able to figure it out. Unless anyone knows, you can use the previous core for now, or wait until the next update...