ShapeShifter, in addition to being the name of an appearance changing creature, was also the name of the premiere Macintosh emulator for the Amiga computer.

Written by Christian Bauer, it basically allowed an Amiga user to run a Motorola MC68000 based Macintosh as a separate process. It worked unbelieveably well, and for only $50 USD, was quite a bargain.

ShapeShifter was considered a relative breakthrough in Macintosh emulation on the Amiga because didn't require special hardware like the Amax II or Emplant hardware/software combos required. Of course to be fair, the hardware parts of the other emulators simply provided a means of installing a real Macintosh ROM, and provided AppleTalk ports.

The technology developed in ShapeShifter was later evolved into SheepShaver (for BeOS machines) and then Basilisk II. ShapeShifter is now available as freeware.