Converting PC scenarios to Mac cities
by Nathan Kugland

First of all, as far as I know there is not and will never be a direct way to convert PC scenarios to Mac scenarios. There are signifigant challenges imposed by Maxis's decision to use resources for storing the scenario information (ie how many people must move in, how much money must be left over after bonds, any disasters which occur, etc.) on the Mac. If a Mac opens a scenario created by a PC, an error message will appear along with a totally blank landform due to the fact PCs do not support resources.

I have found how to convert scenarios to plain cities, though. To accomplish this, you will need a hex editor, such as HexEdit or Norton Disk editor. Before proceeding, make a backup copy of your scenario to be converted.

Open your duplicate PC scenario file (let's call it SAMPLE.SCN) by dropping onto HexEdit. Notice a window opens containing the contents of SAMPLE.SCN. The column on the left lists "offsets" (addresses for the data in the file), the column in the center contains data in hexadecimal (hex) format and the column on the right contains SAMPLE.SCN's data in ASCII (text) format. We will be working with the text part for this hack.

Next, at the top of your scenario file to be converted, delete everything between the text "SCDH" and "MISC" (no quotes) so the text information at the top reads something like "FORM.....SCDHMISC" instead of "FORM......SCDHblahblahblahMISC". Now close and save your converted PC scenario.

Using a file utility, you must now set the file type and creator codes so Sim City 2000 for Macintosh knows your PC file is something it can open. My favorite way to do this is with File Buddy. Just drop SAMPLE.SCN onto File Buddy. Now set the "type" to CITY and the "creator" to SCDH (see File Buddy's documentation for help on this). Now click the Save button and that's it!

If you don't have Hex Edit or File Buddy, you can download them from the MIT HyperArchive. Just type in the name of the program you wish to download and click search.

This Web Page was created by Patrick Coston October 2, 1995, Last updated April 4, 2006