I am contemplating trying Sheepsaver to run some of the older applications that can only run in OS9.

I am curious if someone has tested Sheepsaver slightly beyond just its ability to create an apparent desktop. I would like to know how stable it is and if adjustments like memory allocations to various programs are possible. I will also need the ability to print on network printers.

I am a Mac user of 23 years and I found SheepShaver so cumbersome and confusing just to set up I finally gave up. Add to that the ambiguous legality of some of its components. Also trying to find the latest build and simple instructions was also confusing. I commend the SheepShaver developers for a nice try. But they need to go back to the drawing board, IMHO. I would love to find a simple, efficient, elegant and unambiguously LEGAL shareware program that would enable classic mode in Leopard. If SheepShaver can do that, great, but they are not there yet. I would like to hear about it if they do succeed and I wish them luck.

A questionable legality you refer to probably has to do with using a legally owned OS 9 version by a user. As long as, one uses a bought OS disk and builds from there, I imagine it may be alright.

I realize that for financial reasons a corporation cannot keep supporting old versions of OS that are used by relatively few users, which leaves those who wish to continue using older applications look for non-Apple supported alternatives.

I use SheepShaver extensively. I've had no problem at all with it.

The reason that it is cumbersome and confusing to set up is legal; it is against the law for the SheepShaver programmers to include a copy of the Mac OS ROM file that it needs. You have to do some gyrations to get your hands on that file; it's not hard, but there are a lot of steps.

The program is absolutely, 100% legal. It would be of dubious legality if they shipped it with an Apple Mac OS ROM file, which is the reason they don't.

The only real flaw is you are limited to OS 9.0.4; you can not run OS 9.1 or later on it (OS 9.1 significantly changed many things under the hood, and relies on parts of the processor that SheepShaver does not emulate).