Another Solution for the Appleworks Conundrum-it's called Chubby Bunny

Many users find themselves hitting a wall when upgrading to Lion, Mountain Lion, and soon Mavericks. They have created several year’s worth of data in Appleworks 6.x and wonder what they should do so they can continue to use this data.

Along with the Apple solutions and Macworldsolutions; I have offered up my own solution using a ingenious piece of hardware that you can buy at either Fry’s or through Amazon.

I base my previous solution on the fact that Appleworks runs as a PowerPC OS X application under the Intel versions of 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6. My current solution is based on the fact that Appleworks is a Carbon program. “Carbon” was a programming framework Apple developed to allow Classic OS programs to be modified to run under OS X as soon as possible. They could run under OS 9 or the then new OS X 10.1.

Now my previous solution works if you have an older Intel Mac running 10.6 Snow Leopard. 10.6 hits the “sweet spot” between compatibility with the piece of USB hardware I mentioned earlier and the ability to still run PowerPC OS X applications.

Now if you don’t have an older MacBook or iMac, but now need to run Appleworks 6 or some other application demanding OS 9 Classic; the program Chubby Bunny could solve your problems. It has limitations which I will discuss.

Chubby Bunny downloads from this site: Brazoslink.net in Texas, not some Eastern European site of dubious provenance. This is the direct link to download Chubby Bunny 4.01

Jon, the developer of Chubby Bunny 4.01, includes several pages of documentation both as a PDF in the download (it says Read Me! for a reason, people) and also a Simpletext document within Chubby Bunny’s emulated OS 9 machine.

When I downloaded and unZip Chubby Bunny, I got a folder named COI 4.01+. Within this folder you’ll find these files and folders:

An OS X application named Classic.app. This is Chubby Bunny. Move this app to your /Applications or /Applications/Utilities folder

newOS.app You use this to install a different OS other than the OS 9.01 that comes pre-installed Chubby Bunny.

SheepShaverPrefs.app. This is an app used for adjusting SheepShaver, the heart of Chubby Bunny. You won’t need it in most cases, as Chubby Bunny’s own Preferences command lets you adjust these parameters.

SheepShaver Docs. This is a folder with two Applescripts that you can use to fix SheepShaver problems. These are Delete Prefs File and Zap PRAM (of the emulated OS 9 machine, not your own Mac!) Read instructions before using these.

400Meg.blank HD.dmg.zip. 800 Meg.blank HD.dmg.zip, 1200Meg.blank HD.dmg.zip. Jon made up these Disk iMaGe files, which serve as additional hard drives for Chubby Bunny. Just unZip one of them and put it into your /Users/Shared/ folder. Chubby Bunny will automatically recognize it and mount it.

Now click on the Classic application and the app comes to life. You should see the OS 9 splash screen.

1. 10. For some reason, this message pops up about a blank virtual hard drive:

 

Just Eject it and proceed. I tried initialized (formatting) the virtual disk, but got another message that the disk was locked! So just Eject it and move on.

1. This is my Chubby Bunny desktop:

 

 

 

The Desktop shows the main virtual hard drive, Classic HD, an OS X bare hard drive icon branded with a “9”. Below that you see two subsidiary, but important, virtual disk drives.

1.2Gig is one of the preassembled disks that I told you about it in Step #5. I decided to go with the biggest drive.

I put Appleworks 6 on that 1.2 Gig drive because ClassicHD has limited room for new apps after the apps that the developer put on it. You can take off these apps to add your own; but don’t forget, you’ll want space for your data for Appleworks.

Unix is very important. The Unix disk provides the link between the emulated OS 9 environment and the real OS X environment this program runs under. The developer set up the preferences to point UNIX to your /Users/Shared folder.

To get Appleworks into the emulated environment. I first copied Appleworks into a folder in /Users/Shared.

Then I opened up Chubby Bunny and copied the whole Appleworks folder from Unix into the 1.2Gig. These preassembled .dmg files function just like real hard drives. Files you copy into them stay inside after you shut down Chubby Bunny.

Issues with Chubby Bunny

Chubby Bunny wouldn’t recognize a game CD that I wanted to play. CD/DVDs are not an option at the moment. Copy your data from your CD/DVD onto your Mac’s /Users/Shared folders if your desired OS 9 program can work with data in that fashion.

If you want to play an old OS 9 or earlier game that depends on a CD or DVD, buy a real iBook or PowerBook.

Printing is another issue. If you want to print from Chubby Bunny, it turns your document into a PDF in the /Users/Shared folder. From there, you must use Preview or Adobe Reader in OS X to print out the file.

I like Chubby Bunny, but I wouldn’t go around changing parameters at will. The developer set it up to work right out of the box. Mess with it at your own risk.

John Rethorst’s Sheepshaver-WP 1.5 package also emulates Classic OS. It installs as several discrete components from an Applescript-based installer created by John.

To get John’s package, you have to join the WordPerfect Yahoo group It’s free and it’s quite friendly.

If you want to join a group for Appleworks/iWorks, join the AppleWorks User Group here

Sheepshaver-WordPerfect 1.5 is specifically intended for users of the Classic version of WordPerfect. It includes OS 7.5, not 9.01.

John Rethorst felt that OS 7.5 would not draw Apple’s ire if he included it in a package to run a specific Classic program under OS X.

Jon, the developer of Chubby Bunny, wants you to know that you should have a license for OS 9 in your possession. That license would take the form of Apple’s own disks for OS 9. In my case, I have the installation disks that came with my old G3 iMac all those years ago.

If you don’t have a copy of the original OS 9 disks, exercise discretion and don’t make an ass of yourself on-line!

Summary

I have given you two ways to handle running Appleworks 6 under 10.8 and higher. The earlier way involves spending $30 to $40 for a special USB cable with the screen & clipboard sharing software built into the cable housing itself. You’ll need two separate Macs to do this. One of the Macs has to run OS 10.6.x.

The second method uses a version of the Sheepshaver PowerPC emulator along with other firmware and software to produce as simple a method of running OS 9 that I’ve seen since Classic Mode on my old G3 iMac.

Here’s a link to the article that Iread about Chubby Bunny.

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog