I want to run a classic Mac OS game on my XP computer. How?

You are fighting two battles:

The first is the shear OS difference.
The second is the logic chip difference.

I’ll assume that you are running with an x86 processer (32 bit intel). OS 8 ran on “PowerPC” chips. Fundamental differences in these chipsprohibit you from being able to install even a cracked version of OS 8 on your computer.

You could try pearPC, a powerPC emulator. I’ve not used it myself, but you may be able to get it working. I hear that this flavor of emulation is slow, however.

The short answer to your question is that there is no real simple way to do this. Another solution you may explore is a legacy Windows version of the game. Some games were developed for both platforms.

What game are you going after? I may be able to look something up…

Solarian II is my game. But don’t kill yourself over it because I may have my problem solved shortly with a possible new MacBook Pro on the way (perhaps….. did I mention that this was a definite maybe?)
Thanks for your help. =]

Macbook pro is good and all, but…

Macs (as of 2006) use intel processors as well as PCs.

PowerPC macs running OS X used to be able to virtualize the classic OS (OS 7–9) and run old programs (the runtime for classic and cocoa/carbon apps are completely different). Under the intel architecture, this is no longer a possibility. You will not be able to run this old game on a macbook pro. ever.

I’ll keep an eye out for Solarian II, though.

Best of luck.

Just looked up the game on DL.com

There was never a version written for windows.

Turns out there is an OS X compatible version (trialware, $10 full license). This will work on the Macbook Pro.