Dark Castle for me![]()
Spent way too many hours playing Harry and the Handsome Executive.
Dark Castle for me![]()
Mac OS 8 is now available as an app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, reports The Verge.
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Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has transformed Mac OS 8 into a single downloadable app for modern macOS, Windows, and Linux devices. Having previously transformed Windows 95 into an app in 2018, Rieseberg turned his attention to transforming an entire 1991 Macintosh Quadra with Mac OS 8.1 into a single Electron app.
The app, titled "macintosh.js," is written entirely in JavaScript, and uses a virtual machine to emulate a Macintosh Quadra 900 with a Motorola CPU that Apple used before its transition to IBM's PowerPC architecture. The project has not been approved by Apple and is provided for educational purposes only.
The macintosh.js app includes a number of apps and games from a 1997 MacWorld demo CD, and includes Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, and Apple’s Web Page Construction Kit. The app can also run classic games such as Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Dungeons & Dragons, Namely, Oregon Trail, Alley 19 Bowling, and Damage Incorporated. Although Internet Explorer and Netscape are preinstalled, Rieseberg says the versions are so old that "you wouldn't be able to open even Google."
Originally released in 1997, Mac OS 8 represented a significant overhaul of classic Mac OS software, and integrated many of the technologies developed for Apple's cancelled Copland OS. Mired by delays, missed deadlines, and dysfunctional management, Copland was never commercially released and is regarded as one of the biggest IT project failures in history. Mac OS 8 was the remnant of Copland OS, and is credited with helping to modernize Mac OS while Apple developed Mac OS X.
Hobbyists have set about making classic versions of macOS available on modern devices in the past, such as the Internet Archive's collection of classic Macintosh software that can be emulated in a browser.
Article Link: Mac OS 8 Emulator Available as a Downloadable App
Awesome, would love to have an SGI IRIX emulator too...
Mac OS 8 is now available as an app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, reports The Verge.
![]()
Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has transformed Mac OS 8 into a single downloadable app for modern macOS, Windows, and Linux devices. Having previously transformed Windows 95 into an app in 2018, Rieseberg turned his attention to transforming an entire 1991 Macintosh Quadra with Mac OS 8.1 into a single Electron app.
The app, titled "macintosh.js," is written entirely in JavaScript, and uses a virtual machine to emulate a Macintosh Quadra 900 with a Motorola CPU that Apple used before its transition to IBM's PowerPC architecture. The project has not been approved by Apple and is provided for educational purposes only.
The macintosh.js app includes a number of apps and games from a 1997 MacWorld demo CD, and includes Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, and Apple’s Web Page Construction Kit. The app can also run classic games such as Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Dungeons & Dragons, Namely, Oregon Trail, Alley 19 Bowling, and Damage Incorporated. Although Internet Explorer and Netscape are preinstalled, Rieseberg says the versions are so old that "you wouldn't be able to open even Google."
Originally released in 1997, Mac OS 8 represented a significant overhaul of classic Mac OS software, and integrated many of the technologies developed for Apple's cancelled Copland OS. Mired by delays, missed deadlines, and dysfunctional management, Copland was never commercially released and is regarded as one of the biggest IT project failures in history. Mac OS 8 was the remnant of Copland OS, and is credited with helping to modernize Mac OS while Apple developed Mac OS X.
Hobbyists have set about making classic versions of macOS available on modern devices in the past, such as the Internet Archive's collection of classic Macintosh software that can be emulated in a browser.
Article Link: Mac OS 8 Emulator Available as a Downloadable App
For really classic Zork, you’ll need a DEC PDP-10.OK, got it up and running. How do I get Classic Zork I to run in it?
For really classic Zork, you’ll need a DEC PDP-10.
You can actually play the original game, known as Dungeon before Infocom existed, on iOS, using iDungeon, which is a PDP-11 emulator running the RT11 OS, running the old Dungeon code.
The 512k must have been quite the investment!
Don't count on it. I had kept dozens of floppy disks in a nice cool environment over the years and when I went to use them, they were unreadable. Maybe it depends on the brand or the alignment of the stars but floppies lose their magnetic properties over time. I still have a working Mac Plus and almost all of the disks I had for it simply stopped working. I threw away the external floppy drives I had because of that reason.
I remember watching my friends with Macs, back in the day, and they sure looked pretty, but the underlying architecture was archaic. I remember often saying (literally), “what this thing needs is demand-paged virtual memory and preemptive multitasking”. Then, Mac OS X came along, and it didn’t merely add those, it had switched over to my beloved Unix, complete with a FreeBSD userland! Gave it a couple years to mature (or get past being a toddler, at least), and dove in feet first. macOS is the best Unix workstation, and has been for a long time. What it loses in Unix purity (the case-mangling filter on the filesystem is still a black mark against it), it gains in having the nicest, most consistent GUI of any Unix, and support by commercial software that Linux could only dream of (yes, you can get Linux versions of some commercial apps, but not nearly the scope that macOS commands).
Linux stole BSD’s thunder by capturing the spotlight as a x86 Unix(-alike) while BSD was mired in a frivolous lawsuit from AT&T (and, man, the Linux fanatics, many of whom had never seen a Unix before, showered Linux with praise and crowned it prom queen, and devoted huge efforts into improving it and proselytizing it, at a time when it wasn’t half the OS that FreeBSD was*), but then macOS stole the desktop market for Unix that Linux was always promising itself (“next year will definitely be the year of Linux on the desktop”).
*: (To me, back in the day, it seemed like Linux was a beat up VW Bug that rolled into a town of Windows bicyclists who had never seen a car, and the Windows townsfolk all said, “Lo! This wondrous new device is a CAR! And it’s clearly the first and greatest CAR ever!” and then they set up a cult around it to spread the word to everyone that this was the greatest car ever and all should bow before it and bring it offerings... and when their missionaries reached people who were well acquainted with cars, those car people said, “you know, that’s fairly mediocre as cars go, we have these here that have been carefully designed and finely tuned over the decades—” “NO! You see, Linux is FREE! That makes it the best car ever!” “Uh, yeah, you see, all these BSD variants are free too, even more free than your Linux, and—” “NO, I say! Begone, heretic! Shun the disbeliever!”. Anyway, that’s today’s Unix history lesson. Nowadays, I work on Linux servers, among others, but I do it from a Mac. Linux is a good solid OS these days, and great for servers - more by dint of huge efforts thrown at it over the years than because of its underlying design - but it’s still far from catching macOS as a desktop OS)
Really! Still have the order form, dated 11/5/85. As a faculty member at SUNY, I got the education discount which was pretty significant IIRC.
____________________________________________________
$1649.00 - 512k Macintosh (M2512)
$1014.00 - Hard Disk 20Mb (M2600)
$ 437.50 - ImageWriter II with Mac Accessories Kit (M2555)
$ 124.02 - sales tax
======
$3259.52 TOTAL
____________________________________________________
Here are the other options on that same order form:
$1475.00 - 128k Macintosh (M2128) - orders for this product not accepted after November 15, 1985
$1971.00 - Macintosh Entry Bundle (M2522) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive and a carrying case
$2390.00 - Macintosh Bundle I (M2523) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter I, carrying case and box of blank disks (only available while supplies of ImageWriter I last) - order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$2410.00 - Macintosh Bundle II (M2521)- 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter II and a carrying case (order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$347.00 - External disk drive (M0130)
$390.00 - ImageWriter I with Mac Accessories Kit (M0151) - only available while supplies last
Really! Still have the order form, dated 11/5/85. As a faculty member at SUNY, I got the education discount which was pretty significant IIRC.
____________________________________________________
$1649.00 - 512k Macintosh (M2512)
$1014.00 - Hard Disk 20Mb (M2600)
$ 437.50 - ImageWriter II with Mac Accessories Kit (M2555)
$ 124.02 - sales tax
======
$3259.52 TOTAL
____________________________________________________
Here are the other options on that same order form:
$1475.00 - 128k Macintosh (M2128) - orders for this product not accepted after November 15, 1985
$1971.00 - Macintosh Entry Bundle (M2522) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive and a carrying case
$2390.00 - Macintosh Bundle I (M2523) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter I, carrying case and box of blank disks (only available while supplies of ImageWriter I last) - order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$2410.00 - Macintosh Bundle II (M2521)- 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter II and a carrying case (order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$347.00 - External disk drive (M0130)
$390.00 - ImageWriter I with Mac Accessories Kit (M0151) - only available while supplies last
About $7688 in 2020 dollars...
Ha! In 1977, our junior high school had a single DECwriter II terminal, connected by modem over a leased line to an HP 2000, that was at the school system’s headquarters. I got to where I could tell what game kids were playing by the varying sounds of the print head. And I learned that you could play Star Trek on it, and managed to grab a few minutes here and there to play. Then a friend taught me a “cheat code“ for the game - you’d load the game (“get-$sttr2”), the type the magical incantation “690 Z[I,J] = G[I,J]” and then “run”, and all the enemies locations would show up on your long range sensor scan. That was my first introduction to programming. That led to me managing to wrangle enough computer time to print out a listing of the whole game and pore over it for days on end. And then I started writing my own programs. And then my dad, bless his heart, without telling me, wrote to HP and ordered a copy of the manual for HP-2000 Access Basic. The school had one copy for everyone to share, and I had my very own copy at home, to read for hours on end. That started my career in programming. A few years later, he bought us a used Apple II (serial number 893), and I taught myself assembly language by reading the examples in the reference manual.Yes you doin 1977, I worked with my High school Math teacher and our local university had donated three teletype terminals and a 300baud acoustic modem to connect to the DEC PD-10 in the computer lab 15 miles away
After I got the teletype terminal setup and the modem connected called the phone number for the lab modems and like magic I was connected. Learned basic programming on it and played adventure and Star Trek. I still hear the teletype terminal striking the ribbon and paper in my memory, to login with username and password. Fond memories.
Really! Still have the order form, dated 11/5/85. As a faculty member at SUNY, I got the education discount which was pretty significant IIRC.
____________________________________________________
$1649.00 - 512k Macintosh (M2512)
$1014.00 - Hard Disk 20Mb (M2600)
$ 437.50 - ImageWriter II with Mac Accessories Kit (M2555)
$ 124.02 - sales tax
======
$3259.52 TOTAL
____________________________________________________
Here are the other options on that same order form:
$1475.00 - 128k Macintosh (M2128) - orders for this product not accepted after November 15, 1985
$1971.00 - Macintosh Entry Bundle (M2522) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive and a carrying case
$2390.00 - Macintosh Bundle I (M2523) - 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter I, carrying case and box of blank disks (only available while supplies of ImageWriter I last) - order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$2410.00 - Macintosh Bundle II (M2521)- 512k Mac, external floppy drive, ImageWriter II and a carrying case (order must be postmarked by 12/31/85)
$347.00 - External disk drive (M0130)
$390.00 - ImageWriter I with Mac Accessories Kit (M0151) - only available while supplies last
I think often about how if I had been born 10-20 years before I was, I would most likely have been a victim of the AIDS epidemic. Or might have been the victim of a violent crime—the way that my mother was, when she lived in New York City in the early ‘90s, and 1) had her car stolen, 2) had her clothing stolen, 3) was mugged and sexually assaulted. Did you know violent crime has sharply declined since then?
Oh, how the shift has bludgeoned society. An incredibly insightful comment on your part.
My bad, I expressed myself wrong. I meant running Zork in the Classic Environment of the Mac, not the classic version of Zork.For really classic Zork, you’ll need a DEC PDP-10.
You can actually play the original game, known as Dungeon before Infocom existed, on iOS, using iDungeon, which is a PDP-11 emulator running the RT11 OS, running the old Dungeon code.