What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[weckart]

I picked up a 2012 quad core Mac Mini recently. When test booting I noticed the indicator light stayed off throughout. Opening it up, it looked like one of the previous owners had gone through taking it apart less than gently to put an ssd in. So much so that the IR connector had been ripped off the logic board and stayed attached to the cable, minus its pins wedged under the ssd.




Fortunately, replacement connectors were available a couple of miles down the road for a few pounds per strip of ten. The tricky bit was soldering one onto the board as they are tiny. I watched a video on YouTube about how to go about it and I had what was needed minus a digital microscope. The other tricky thing was that there was a standoff just behind the connector pins so getting an iron to them was going to be very difficult. I really could have done with that microscope as the stand off was blocking light from getting to the middle pins so I had to guess when they were done. I just about managed it after first bridging two pins with a bit of solder still attached to the iron tip but a that was easily dealt with. I blotted my copybook by melting one side of the connector when the soldering iron slipped off the rear connecting pin. Not catastrophically such that I would need to redo the repair with a fresh connector but enough so the IR jack needs a bit of friendly encouragement to get into the connector and doesn't sit quite flat on the melted side.



I never expect the first attempt to go right but the test boot showed the light back on and it flickers slowly when sleeping. I don't use the IR side of things so not too concerned whether that works or not.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

And, sadly the conversion was made for the X-Wing Alliance only, which is a PC-version.

Incidentally, I play "X-wing Alliance" on my 15" 2015 MacBook Pro using "Porting Kit" here...

Porting Kit | Install Windows apps in Mac

With Porting Kit, you can install Windows games and apps on macOS easily using Wineskin technology!

www.portingkit.com

There isn't a ready made wrapper on the site for "X-Wing Alliance", but it works fine if you let Porting Kit create one for you.

Good luck....and may the force be with you!

 

[DouglasCarroll]

The modern Mac re-releases of the classic Wing Commander games are just the original PC versions repackaged in a neat and tidy DOSBox wrapper (made for GOG by Alun Bestor, the mind behind Boxer). With a bit of digging you can extract the DOS game files and use them in whatever DOSBox environment you have. In my case, I used Boxer to play a bit of the Wing Commander GOG release on my old Core Duo MacBook with 10.6/1 GB of RAM. Or at least tried to, with the keyboard controls...

Speaking of which, is there a DOSBox environment for modern Macs out there? I loved Boxer, but sadly it seems like development ended in 2013.

Yes, there is actually an updated version of "Boxer" that runs on newer 64 bit systems and Apple Silicone here...

Boxer: The DOS game emulator that’s fit for your Mac.

Boxer is the DOS game emulator that’s fit for your Mac. Playing your old games just got easy.

boxer.thec0de.com

Enjoy!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Incidentally, I play "X-wing Alliance" on my 15" 2015 MacBook Pro using "Porting Kit" here...

That Porting Kit software is very interesting and the developers claim that the games run at native speed! I might have to investigate this further and see what the possibilities are.

It's a shame that this is required due to Apple's latter-day disinterest in marketing the Mac as a gaming platform. Though this is going to change, allegedly.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Yes, there is actually an updated version of "Boxer" that runs on newer 64 bit systems and Apple Silicone here...

I downloaded the 4.1 Beta and revisited an old DOS favourite on my 13" 2012 MBP running Ventura.

Still great fun all these years on and even with the availability of MAME, it remains an impressive feat for a freeware offering. On the subject of impressive freeware software, installing and running Boxer and selecting games is a breeze. Even people with a minimum of IT skills would be able to use this. Unfortunately the audio suffers from crackling/static that certainly wasn't present when I ran the games in pure DOS on a PC. Switching to the earlier 2.0.0 version doesn't make a difference because the crackling/static is present there too.

Boxer isn't in the only show in town, so I checked out DOSBox-X and immediately, it's much less user friendly. Nonetheless, the audio issue either vanished or occurred less frequently but whoever created the Mac version doesn't appear to have localised it as the shortcuts all relate to a PC keyboard and none of the obvious alternatives worked.

I'll contact the maintainer of Boxer to see if they can suggest some pointers to eliminate the sound problem because beyond that, it's perfect!

 

[swamprock]

I downloaded the 4.1 Beta and revisited an old DOS favourite on my 13" 2012 MBP running Ventura.

Still great fun all these years on and even with the availability of MAME, it remains an impressive feat for a freeware offering. On the subject of impressive freeware software, installing and running Boxer and selecting games is a breeze. Even people with a minimum of IT skills would be able to use this. Unfortunately the audio suffers from crackling/static that certainly wasn't present when I ran the games in pure DOS on a PC. Switching to the earlier 2.0.0 version doesn't make a difference because the crackling/static is present there too.

Boxer isn't in the only show in town, so I checked out DOSBox-X and immediately, it's much less user friendly. Nonetheless, the audio issue either vanished or occurred less frequently but whoever created the Mac version doesn't appear to have localised it as the shortcuts all relate to a PC keyboard and none of the obvious alternatives worked.

I'll contact the maintainer of Boxer to see if they can suggest some pointers to eliminate the sound problem because beyond that, it's perfect!

Wow. I haven't seen that in years. I used to do business with the programmer of that port (James Rowan, aka "j-rok") many, many years ago when I was working in coin-op. Cool guy who's all in on classic arcade games.

Don't forget to try out MsPac-PC as well...

 

[rampancy]

That Porting Kit software is very interesting and the developers claim that the games run at native speed! I might have to investigate this further and see what the possibilities are.

It's a shame that this is required due to Apple's latter-day disinterest in marketing the Mac as a gaming platform. Though this is going to change, allegedly.

WINE has come a long way since it's 1.0 days, but it's still nevertheless amazing. I have fond memories of stuffing my Core Duo MacBook's hard drive full of Windows games I'd buy off of GOG and "port" myself using Wineskin or CrossOver. I also like PortingKit, but I've noticed some of the included WINE wrappers there being a little hit or miss. That and some ports are simply a no-go on Apple Silicon (MOHAA and MOHPA being two notable examples).

 

[ToniCH]

Incidentally, I play "X-wing Alliance" on my 15" 2015 MacBook Pro using "Porting Kit" here...

Porting Kit | Install Windows apps in Mac

With Porting Kit, you can install Windows games and apps on macOS easily using Wineskin technology!

www.portingkit.com

There isn't a ready made wrapper on the site for "X-Wing Alliance", but it works fine if you let Porting Kit create one for you.

Good luck....and may the force be with you!

Wow, that is interesting!

Recently when investigating Mac gaming I also ran into this site: https://www.macsourceports.com/

 

[ToniCH]

ToniCH: BTW. was there ever a Wing Commander of some sort for Mac? I remember that being fun too.

Yep - that was ported to almost everything. Even the Amiga which was approaching its commercial demise as a gaming platform by that point received a version.

Here's an Intel Mac re-release with the minimum system requirements of 2GB RAM and Lion or later.

Wow (again), there is even Wing Commander 3 and Privateer for Mac - natively. Only WC 4 is for Win only and would need to be ported. All 5 Wing Commander games are now 11.16€ total

There seems to be almost 3000 OSX-games in that store btw. 👍 And they allow game download with offline installation which is a big plus in my view. And they say that Mac is not a viable gaming platform!? 😂

 

[TheShortTimer]

Wow. I haven't seen that in years. I used to do business with the programmer of that port (James Rowan, aka "j-rok") many, many years ago when I was working in coin-op.

It's a small world - even smaller online! Back in mid 90s I bought a PC magazine that featured a cover CD-ROM with around 100 games - a combination of freeware, shareware and demos. Among them was Pac Pc II - which provided me with many hours of fun when I built my first computer. I had no idea that he's a Brit till I read through his bio section.

Cool guy who's all in on classic arcade games.

Totally! He even worked on an emulator for NAMCO machines and presumably discontinued the project because of MAME's rapid progress (but it's worth remembering that not everything is emulated fully or even supported under MAME, so the greater the number of options, the better.)

Don't forget to try out MsPac-PC as well...

I'll revisit it once I've fixed Boxer's sound issue.

And they allow game download with offline installation which is a big plus in my view.

Does that include playing the game without online verification? If so, that's also a big plus in my book too.

And they say that Mac is not a viable gaming platform!? 😂

As we all know, the Mac has always been a viable gaming platform. When I overhauled and set up my Macintosh SE earlier this year, I had a whale of a time working through the scores of titles in the games library spanning from the mid 80s to mid 90s and ranging from graphical adventures to arcade conversions to word puzzles.

Despite being a commercial underdog to the PC, the extent of support from the software industry was quite substantial and I mused that if I'd owned an SE during that era, I would've been more than content on the games front. Yet by the 2000s with Apple revitalised under the helm of Jobs, the idea of the Mac as a gaming platform had significantly diminished - something that I suspect Jobs wasn't that invested in correcting.

I'm not alone in this verdict…

"Steve Jobs doesn't care about games"

Id Software technical director John Carmack has told Eurogamer that the reason Apple doesn't "deeply get" gaming, as he…

www.eurogamer.net

Despite lack of gaming vision, Jobs angered when Microsoft bought Bungie

A new interview shows how angry Steve Jobs became when Microsoft purchased …

arstechnica.com

Jobs turned down Bungie… at first: how Microsoft burned Apple

A former Bungie insider claims that Apple had the opportunity to purchase …

arstechnica.com

(He could've had Bungie for $30m and Halo as a Mac exclusive title/franchise instead of the complete opposite that transpired, wow.)

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/does-steve-jobs-dislike-the-idea-of-gaming.640106/

Anyhow, positive signs are afoot that things will change but it's a sad state of affairs that something as simple as the Xbox 360 wired controller still doesn't work on macOS versions as recent as Ventura.

 

[ToniCH]

Does that include playing the game without online verification? If so, that's also a big plus in my book too.

I just tried Wing Commander and it runs just fine without network -connection. 👍

 

[TheShortTimer]

I just tried Wing Commander and it runs just fine without network -connection. 👍

Excellent news - thanks for letting me know.

I'm not a fan of software that won't work unless it phones home to its creator/publisher.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I downloaded the 4.1 Beta and revisited an old DOS favourite on my 13" 2012 MBP running Ventura.

Still great fun all these years on and even with the availability of MAME, it remains an impressive feat for a freeware offering. On the subject of impressive freeware software, installing and running Boxer and selecting games is a breeze. Even people with a minimum of IT skills would be able to use this. Unfortunately the audio suffers from crackling/static that certainly wasn't present when I ran the games in pure DOS on a PC. Switching to the earlier 2.0.0 version doesn't make a difference because the crackling/static is present there too.

Boxer isn't in the only show in town, so I checked out DOSBox-X and immediately, it's much less user friendly. Nonetheless, the audio issue either vanished or occurred less frequently but whoever created the Mac version doesn't appear to have localised it as the shortcuts all relate to a PC keyboard and none of the obvious alternatives worked.

I'll contact the maintainer of Boxer to see if they can suggest some pointers to eliminate the sound problem because beyond that, it's perfect!

I like pac the man for my EI Macs.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I like pac the man for my EI Macs.

Likewise - on my PPC Macs. Tremendous fun.

Do you play it under Rosetta?

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Wow (again), there is even Wing Commander 3 and Privateer for Mac - natively. Only WC 4 is for Win only and would need to be ported. All 5 Wing Commander games are now 11.16€ total

There seems to be almost 3000 OSX-games in that store btw. 👍 And they allow game download with offline installation which is a big plus in my view. And they say that Mac is not a viable gaming platform!? 😂

Incidentally, there are Mac games in the GOG store that are NOT labeled as available for the Mac. Case in point, “Star Trek 25th Anniversary” game is labeled as “Windows only” BUT after you buy the game, there is a Mac version available for download in your games.

What the hell huh!!!

Makes me wonder how many “hidden” Mac games are lurking there…

Also, there are many games with incorrect system requirements listed….you just need to try them to see what the actual requirements are. I have bought recently released games listed as requiring an “M1 Apple Silicon” minimum Mac and this turned out to be bull***t, it ran perfect on my older Macs, even under Mojave!!

 

[rampancy]

Wow (again), there is even Wing Commander 3 and Privateer for Mac - natively. Only WC 4 is for Win only and would need to be ported. All 5 Wing Commander games are now 11.16€ total

There seems to be almost 3000 OSX-games in that store btw. 👍 And they allow game download with offline installation which is a big plus in my view. And they say that Mac is not a viable gaming platform!? 😂

Not meaning to be a pedant, but WC1-3, WC Armada and Privateer aren't Mac native; they're the original PC DOS releases packaged by GOG in a DOSBox wrapper based off of Boxer. The GOG release of WC4 doesn't seem to work very well in WINE, but the original physical DVD release seems to work well in WINE. Privateer Gemini Gold (a remake of the original game in the FOSS Vega Strike engine) is Mac native, though (it should work in 10.6/10.7).

I remember testing Wing Commander: Prophecy and Privateer 2: The Darkening in WINE a long time ago and both seemed to work well; the major question mark is the use of joysticks, as I'm honestly not sure what the state is of WINE's joystick support (and back when I tested both games, USB joystick support wasn't great).

I really loved WC4. Sure the acting was over the top, but with Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell and John Rhys-Davis, you really can't go wrong. I'm almost tempted to get a cheap Windows PC just to play it.

Also, Mac Game Ports is really cool, but be aware that many of the Mac ports (which they usually recompile and package themselves, even though the source project may already have a Mac build) may not be compatible with older versions of OS X.

 

[rampancy]

Incidentally, there are Mac games in the GOG store that are NOT labeled as available for the Mac. Case in point, “Star Trek 25th Anniversary” game is labeled as “Windows only” BUT after you buy the game, there is a Mac version available for download in your games.

What the hell huh!!!

Makes me wonder how many “hidden” Mac games are lurking there…

Also, there are many games with incorrect system requirements listed….you just need to try them to see what the actual requirements are. I have bought recently released games listed as requiring an “M1 Apple Silicon” minimum Mac and this turned out to be bull***t, it ran perfect on my older Macs, even under Mojave!!

The advent of 10.15 kinda messed up GOG's Mac compatibility. The loss of 32-bit compatibility broke GOG's in-house DOSBox- and WINE-based ports, which is why many games that originally were advertised with Mac compatibility now don't, but still offer Mac versions for download if they're on your list of purchased games. If a given game has a source port (and if it's an older game, there's a good chance it might), you can extract the game's data files for use in your source port. You can also just download the Windows version to use in whatever WINE setup you have on OS X (CrossOver, Wineskin, PortingKit, PlayOnMac, etc.) or Linux. (And if it was a DOS-based game like Star Trek 25th Anniversary, you can use it in whatever DOSBox environment you please.)

The other thing is that GOG's in-house Mac compatibility testing setup is very limited, so their system requirements match what they've tested, not necessarily what they actually are. If you're not certain of the system requirements of a given game on GOG, look up the game on Steam to see what requirements the developers state.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Incidentally, there are Mac games in the GOG store that are NOT labeled as available for the Mac. Case in point, “Star Trek 25th Anniversary” game is labeled as “Windows only” BUT after you buy the game, there is a Mac version available for download in your games.

What the hell huh!!!

Makes me wonder how many “hidden” Mac games are lurking there…

That's clearly a lazy misprint on GOG's part and really sloppy because that game was originally available on the Mac in the 90s.

Star Trek 25th Anniversary (apple 1993) MacPlay for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Star Trek 25th Anniversary (apple 1993) MacPlay at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

(Mods, just sharing the eBay listing an example of the Mac release.)

Also, there are many games with incorrect system requirements listed….you just need to try them to see what the actual requirements are. I have bought recently released games listed as requiring an “M1 Apple Silicon” minimum Mac and this turned out to be bull***t, it ran perfect on my older Macs, even under Mojave!!

This is good info have at hand. Again, another example of lazy and sloppy practices but unfortunately this has been going on for decades in the computer industry with inaccurate system requirements listed for both software and hardware in the PC and Mac worlds.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Likewise - on my PPC Macs. Tremendous fun.

Do you play it under Rosetta?

I have not. Many years ago around 2008-9 I commuted about an hour each way on a train to & from work. At that time the train did not have WiFi so I burned through many a late night commute playing pac the man lol on my 2008 unibody MacBook.

 

[rampancy]

That's clearly a lazy misprint on GOG's part and really sloppy because that game was originally available on the Mac in the 90s.

In all fairness, the original MacPlay release of Star Trek 25th Anniversary was for 68K Macs running System 6. Since GOG's general mission is putting classic games on modern OSs, it doesn't surprise me that they wouldn't mention the original release, especially since the DOS version is easily ported to modern Mac OS, as well as Linux and Windows. But it would have been nice if they did acknowledge it, though.

 

[TheShortTimer]

In all fairness, the original MacPlay release of Star Trek 25th Anniversary was for 68K Macs running System 6.

It proudly declares itself to be "System 7 Savvy" too. (That's quite an alliteration, someone on Madison Ave. earned their pay-check with that one!)

Since GOG's general mission is putting classic games on modern OSs, it doesn't surprise me that they wouldn't mention the original release, especially since the DOS version is easily ported to modern Mac OS, as well as Linux and Windows. But it would have been nice if they did acknowledge it, though.

Indeed but this is problematic in terms of preserving and celebrating Mac gaming history because very often the Mac version of a game would have a higher resolution than its DOS counterpart. Dark Forces is a good example - the GOG offering is admittedly using DOSBox when a better version is available from whoever now owns LucasArts' assets (a Disney subsidiary?) and this is a shame because it means the Mac release will be largely forgotten.

 

[rampancy]

Indeed but this is problematic in terms of preserving and celebrating Mac gaming history because very often the Mac version of a game would have a higher resolution than its DOS counterpart. Dark Forces is a good example - the GOG offering is admittedly using DOSBox when a better version is available from whoever now owns LucasArts' assets (a Disney subsidiary?) and this is a shame because it means the Mac release will be largely forgotten.

Descent comes to mind here too - the GOG release even has the OST from the Mac version too, since some folks prefer it over the original DOS version. IIRC System Shock on the Mac also had superior graphics to the original DOS release. And while GOG doesn't sell them, Civ II and Command and Conquer were also technically superior on the Mac too.

From a technical/product standpoint, I'm not 100% sure what that would look like from GOG's perspective. Maybe they could offer a release of the classic Mac version packaged within a SheepSaver environment for Windows/Linux and modern macOS? But then you'd need to need to potentially navigate licensing issues with Apple over distibuting ROM files, let alone installer images for classic Mac OS. And not having used SheepSaver, I don't know if it's as easy to reproducibly set up as WINE or DOSBox. And that's even assuming a given game runs well in SheepSaver, or if it even runs at all.

From a rights standpoint, that's also a big question mark. When GOG first announced official Mac support, a lot of us were mystified why games like Jedi Knight II and III, or KOTOR didn't have Mac versions, especially with a Mac version of KOTOR at the time still being sold and updated. A lot of us speculated that GOG may have had to pursue licensing deals with the Mac porting companies like Feral Interactive or Aspyr, who both developed and published the Mac versions to many games in GOG's catalog, which they likely didn't pursue for budgetary reasons. One point of data supporting this was when GOG released Imperial Glory - on launch they actually advertised and sold the Mac version of the game, which was developed and published by Feral. After a few days it was mysteriously pulled and all mention of it scrubbed. (You couldn't even download the Mac port if you'd bought the game, which you can still do for GOG's 32-bit Mac games after they got pulled after the release of Catalina).

At the end of the day, GOG isn't like the Internet Archive; they're not in it for preserving and celebrating gaming history, (let alone Mac gaming history) despite what their marketing suggests - they're in it to make a profit off of selling classic computer games updated to work with modern computer operating systems.

For me, as someone who just wanted to play the games DRM-free, it was all somewhat a moot point as I ended up just buying the Windows releases and played them in WINE (or DOSBox, ScummVM, or whatever source port I needed).

 

[ToniCH]

Not meaning to be a pedant, but WC1-3, WC Armada and Privateer aren't Mac native; they're the original PC DOS releases packaged by GOG in a DOSBox wrapper based off of Boxer.

Yes, they appear to be DOSBox -versions. Tried both WC I and II and they seem to work fine with iMac 2011 + OCLP Monterey.

A USB joystick didn't work and disabled the mouse so that is no good. Cannot remember anymore how I played them back in the day anymore. Game Port -joystick maybe? I might still have one somewhere, wonder if any of the GP-USB -adapters would allow it to be recognized by a DOSBox-game?

There seem to be talk about USB-joysticks working fine in DOSBox-games - at least on Windows-systems. Maybe it can be made to work in Mac too? Maybe USB Overdrive could do it? There are versions for most OSX's.

EDIT: so, I installed it and then fiddled with it but while I get the joystick somewhat working in WC I it's just too difficult. I got it working as keystrokes but not as a mouse. And analog stick is too sensitive that way. I find it easier to fly with a mouse. I hate flying with a mouse though...

 

[DCBassman]

Today was strip-and-clean-the-Windows-box day. So the late-2011 running Ventura is today's daily driver, and working well. I'll probably scrap Mail and install Thunderbird, though, Mail is too clunky IMHO...

 

[DCBassman]

While doing a massive downsizing of drive space in the Windows machine - it had probably 10 times the capacity it needed - I took the opportunity to upgrade the late-2009 A1355 Time Capsule to 4TB. I also now have a pile of spare drives totaling some 6TB. The machine now runs on its 128GB mSATA SSD and a 2.5" 1TB Barracuda spinner. And is a lot cooler and a bit quieter.