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mac on mac

There is an ancient PowerPC-based Macintosh (still working!) about 18km West of here.

The chap who began using it about two decades ago has a need to access some of the CAD files on it, and to print some of those out.

So I installed QEMU on an hp laptop I own (based on Lubuntu), then a PowerPC emulator module for it, Mac OS 9.2 on that (retired 17 years ago), the free CAD package, and a print-to-PDF plugin.

After copying the CAD files into the emulated file space (from the internal hard-disk drive borrowed from the original Mac), they can be opened, viewed, edited and/or PDFed.

The next step was to install QEMU under OS X on his MacBook Pro under OS X, and copy the virtual workspaces to it. Now the owner can edit drawings of machinery (some of it older than I am), print them out on a modern printer, and back up the entire system by copying two files.

If his MacBook ever quits the game, QEMU can be installed on whatever replaces it, those two files copied into it, then away he goes again.

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