So, I recently found a copy of Sim Tower (CD-ROM) laying around. Nostalgia jackpot. I remembered playing this game on Windows 3.1 & Windows 95 back in the day. Turns out, if you have the disk, you can get everything else for free (and legally, with the exception of 1 Apple license agreement violation, but not where you think.)
But how to play it on my OS X machine? I found out that the Sim Tower CD ROM was made compatible for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Unfortunately, it wasn’t compatible with any of the current ones (or any of the ones that are easy to emulate on OS X). So I was stumped.
First, I tried to use a program called Crossover which allows you to emulate some Windows games on OS X. Couldn’t get it. Then, to my salvation, I found out that it was doable to run an OS 7 emulator. The instructions that I found (the ones I could understand the best) was for a program called Basilisk II: Setting up system 7.5.3 with BasiliskII for Mac OSX
I followed those instructions and everything worked pretty much perfectly. The only thing I did differently was double their recommended amount of RAM from 64 MB to 128 MB. Also, in “preparing your Basilisk folder” Step 4, they say to “google redundant robot sheepsaver” to find the download. I won’t link to the site or the download, as I assume there are reasons that the author of the other post did not do so, but I will verify that it is the first Google result that you want to click on, and I got the Performa ROM and it worked fine.
The instructions are kind of technical, but very well done and pretty easy to follow. So, if you have any classic OS games (1995-1997 era) sitting around, I’d say go for it. Sim Tower is a bit choppy but very usable. I’m having fun and am going to try to find some other games around… looking around already, I just found the original Backyard Football which says it will work on this OS. This should be fun.
Good luck. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Can’t guarantee I’ll be able to help, but we’ll see.
mangosquash 
February 16, 2011 at 10:30 pm
For a good selection of “abandonware” for classic Mac OS, you may want to check out:
February 17, 2011 at 8:38 pm
macintosh garden dot org
Sorry, it ate the link.
February 17, 2011 at 8:10 am
[…] So, I recently found a copy of Sim Tower (CD-ROM) laying around. Nostalgia jackpot. I remembered playing this game on Windows 3.1 & Windows 95 back in the day. Turns out, if you have the disk, you can get everything else for free (and legally, with the exception of 1 Apple license agreement violation, but not where you think.) But how to play it on my OS X machine? I found out that the Sim Tower CD ROM was made compatible for both Mac and Win … Read More […]