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BTW, you can still play these Apple 2 goodies thanks to emulation: http://www.emulation.net/apple2/

I strongly recommend Virtual ][ for OS X users (it even emulates the 5.25" drive seek noises!).

Game on!

Anyone who wants to try it (and has a Mac handy) can utilize a free CP/M emulator to give it a whirl.

To ease the transition for Apple IIGS owners, Apple could have (and, I believe, SHOULD have) created a IIGS emulator. Thankfully, some IIGS emulators for the Mac now exist. I personally know a lot of people (including myself) who were resentful of Macs because of Apple's callous disregard of the Apple II.

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

Check out http://emulation.net/ which provides a one-stop resource for emulation on Mac OS and Mac OS X. They list 35 different computer systems for which you can get emulators. Most of them appear to be free.

Acorn Atom, Acorn BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Apple I, Apple II, Apple ///, Atari 800, Atari ST, Baby (SSEM), Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, CP/M, Edsac, IBM Series/1, Macintosh 68000, Memotech MTX512, MIPS R2000, MO5, MSX, Oric, PC-9801, PDP-8/E, SAM Coupé, Sinclair QL, Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair ZX-Spectrum, TI/99, TO8, TRS-80, TRS-80 Color Computer, VAX, Windows PC, X68000

If you prefer game consoles you have 13 to choose from. ROMs are hard to come by but if you look hard enough you can find them. And there is a huge selection available.

Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Colecovision, Intellivision, Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Odyssey^2, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, Super Nintendo, Virtual Boy

If handheld units are more your speed, there are Mac-based emulators for 11 different varieties. I haven't tried any of these, but if MacMAME and the other console emulators are any guide, these should run at full speed and beyond.

Atari Lynx, Dreamcast VMU, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, HP-48 Calculator, Magic Cap, Neo Geo Pocket, Palm, Sega Game Gear, TI Calculator, Wonderswan

Including Edsac. IBM Series 1, PDP-8/E, VAX, CP/M, Sinclair QL, Windows PC, Oric and other obsolete stuff. Lots of fun!

Just for anyone who's interested, Emulation.net is probably the best source for all sorts of emulators under Mac OS X.

Emulation links:
http://emulation.net/apple2/

Images:
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/

Whole bunch of other sites:
http://e.webring.com/hub?ring=apple2

There used to be a really good one out there I used as a resource when I was trying to figure out how to move the images from my PC through the serial port to my Apple //e to write them to the Disk II. If anyone remembers what I'm talking about please link under this post (it showed a boot screen on the homepage then it redirected to their homepage).

Thanks! Hope these links help.

Oh and of course if you want to buy old stuff (as I have done) there is always eBay (They suck by the way because they used to have an Apple II section but it's gone now.)

Try one of these then: http://emulation.net/snes/

I'm not so sure about running it directly; but a quick googling came up with an emulator:
Here

America's Army is goodun... Its good quality, and you can't beat free.

I've also found that there are some really good emulators for the mac, SNES9X being a favorite. There are more.

If you're a MUDder, you can get to those with just about anything. I use Cantrip, but it doesn't seem there are as many great Mac MUD clients...

Best of luck: I'm interested to see what others have to say... Its been really slim pickins....

P.S. - I also heard there may be another option available soon.

Fink does indeed rock, but you don't need it (and I don't recommend it) to get DOSBox. Click this link to download a binary. (And if you're wondering where that link came from, and are justifiably nervous about downloading a binary because some dude on /. said so, I got the link from here, a comprehensive list of PC emulators for Mac. The DOSBox entry is most of the way down the page.) No fuss involved in installation; it Just Works, the way all the best Mac software does.

Sheeze. There are plenty of other things that Mac could be emulating.

Like this person, I am a MacOS user with access to Virtual PC, but when it comes to emulating older MacOS to run old freeware/games and code that OSX and 9 have "broken," I'm a bit at a loss. Don't get me wrong, he has a great documentation and his tests are encouraging to all of us mac users needing Windows and x86 support. I would like to see someone do this kinda thing with native MacOS emulation as well.

Since he is an APPLE powerbook user, I was hoping for more Mac systems on his list. He DID mention DOS 1 and Windows 1 with detail for five+ sequels each, which is a bit overkill for most people.

The Emulation.net site deals with Mac emulation for us. If you want a few more mac options, you need a link to vMac . Maybe someone here can go ahead and do this, and post a story on slashdot with their findings. My mac doesn't have enough room for storing CD images of emulated Operating Systems, and unlike him, I don't have resources to find system software :-| . Sometimes even hardware images are needed for Mac emulators, but I think this is only req'ed for PC users

Good luck!

An IBM System/370 hardware emulator for Linux, Windows, and OS X can be found at the Hercules Emulator page.

One site for good Mac emulators is emulation.net. Check out the PDP-8/e emulator -- Mac OS X native, with a spookily accurate virtual reproduction of the PDP-8/e's front panel!

Betwixt and between all of these, and many of the others out there, he could easily double the number of OSes he can run on his PowerBook!

If you are interested in running various emulators on your Mac, then I recommend John Stile's Emulation.net web site. It covers Game consoles, desktop OSs, arcades and handhelds. IMO, worth the visit.

Yes, With an Intellivision emulator.

Well, while you can't directly run old versions of Mac OS on new Apple hardware, there is emulation that would allow you to do it.

It's available from emulation.net on the Macintosh emulator page.

Well, while you can't directly run old versions of Mac OS on new Apple hardware, there is emulation that would allow you to do it.

It's available from emulation.net on the Macintosh emulator page.

Having had both BSD and Linux variants on mac right at OS X.0 release, I didn't find an easy way to boot load all without typing in openfirmware commands (in Forth).

I never learned Forth well enough to write my own boot loader, tho.

I had at least 5 (and I recall 7, but I have a feeling that included YellowDog Linux and Debian PPC) mac native OSes installed at once before the machine failed (power supply, I later learned - this was on a PowerMac 7500).
BeOS
MacOS9
MacOSX
FreeBSD
SuSE Linux

I also ran emulators for everything under the sun and probably had more OSes than he had that way - I tried a good chunk of the downloadable OSes I found off of emulation.net and had VirtualPC (1.0, mind you) with DOS and Windows 95 (tho the OS is technically DOS).

I slipped away from the emulator scene after the death of that machine, though. The only thing I've grabbed recently is an Apple ][ emulator for old times sake (running on Windows... that's probably heresy, but my working mac is old :P )

There are a lot of emulators available for the Mac. Check out emulation.net for a good rundown. Many of these are console emulators (ala mame) but you'll find many computer and OS emulators there.

Check out this link. (Emulation.net - very cool site)

I used to run the original Apple ][ "Castle Wolfenstein" under OS 9, using "Stop the Madness." Haven't done anything with it since X came out. Has anybody tried KEGS?

Try these. Vmac works pretty well.

Actually there are several N64 emulators...Sixty Force is one of the oldes and the best, to quote emulation.net "it has sound support, and the speeds are excellent on a fast G3 or G4. Most importantly, many games seem to work perfectly." Others include True Reality and Mupen 64 both of which have Linux Windows and Mac ports.

I think it would be more accurate so say that Mac OS X is gay. It clearly wins in the fashion stakes, and expresses a strong preference for interfacing with others of the same type (which is not to say it won't interface with others...).

Mac OS X is a freaking slut! It'll do anything it can get its hands on.

File sharing? Sure -- straight NFS with Unix hosts; kinky SMB with Windows; AppleShare AFP with other Macs, even old ones. It'll even play with weird new tricks like WebDAV, and it can mount an FTP server as easily as mounting a local disk.

Executables? No problem. Trick it out with the right gender-bender, and it'll run Windows programs. Lots of Linux and Unix software just takes a recompile and a little teasing -- those perverts at Fink specialize in fitting Debian parts into OS X ports.

And then there's all the perverted things it'll do in emulation ...

I really find it hard to believe that someone would have gone to this much trouble just to play Richard and Alan's Escape From Hell or Hillsfar.

But as for your suggestion for using an Atari or Calico -- there was no Bard's Tale for the Calicovision, nor Space Quest. For DOS, however, we had Wing Commander, and a whole series of Leisure Suit Larry. By 1991, we had the original BattleTech and BattleTech II, not that wierd MechWarrior similator thing.

Hmm...I wonder what I did with the scratch and sniff card from Leather Goddesses of Phobos?

Hmm...it's times like this when I'm glad there's places like emulation.net so I can find something interesting to play with.

(yes, this is partly sarcasm...it's up to you to determine what part)

And emulation capability out the wazoo too.

Now if what you're asking for is a PC that acts like a Mac; just wait 5-10 years and they ought to be up to the standards of today's PowerBook. ;-P

I can't say much about FreeCiv, since I have yet to get it to successfully install, but yes, the board game Civilization takes about 12-16 hours to play if you've got decent opponents. I've seen it played and won in about 75 minutes (with 5 players) by a very aggressive opponent. Yes, I was the first to go :(

As for other free games for XWindows, there's also xscorch, based on the old C64 (and other platforms) scorched earth game. I personally liked the original much better than the X version, though.

Sourceforge has a few mac ported games, as well, but most need quite a bit more work before they're as fun as they should be. Most also require a bunch of free libs, and don't yet have binary dists, as well, so if you're not savvy around a compiler, don't bother.

There are also quite a few emulators other than MAME if you like older games. Emulation.net lists many of them (search for platforms at the bottom by clicking on the OS-X like file system). I'm particularly partial to Apple ][, but that's the system I had when I was 10-16 years old. Emulation.net also tells you where to get roms for some systems (like the Apple ][), so it's handy, as well. No arcade sites anymore, though, since they kept getting shut down.

Also, Ambrosia Software's older shareware games are nagware, but entirely playable. I think there newer games are demo, then they'll send you a CD, but you can play quite a bit before paying. I was hooked on Escape Velocity several years ago (and bought the game), and now there's a sequel, Nova. It's probably worth the download.

If you like graphical adventures, and own some old Lucas Arts titles (check on eBay) even PC versions.

SCUMMVM is an interpreter for these games and it work really well : (under X and Classic)

scummvm.sourceforge.net

Other interesting site for emulation on the Mac :
www.emulation.net

You can also go to emulation.net and pick up some emulation software of your choice. You'll have to be willing to break copyright law to get the ROMs, though.

BlackGriffen

Nintendo is so influential (at least it was in my life as a kid), that I STILL play Zelda: A Link to the Past on an SNES emulator for my Mac.

I converted to Playstation when Sega and Nintendo began to fade. Zelda 64, in my opinion, sucked... but I am confident "ZeldaCube" could be pretty good. Will I buy a GameCube to play it? If it brings back the mystery of exploration (like Link to the Past did but 64 did not do as well), I just might actually.

I love my PS2... but I do miss good ole Nintendo games.

While I've often dreamed of an update to M.U.L.E. (or Archon), I question whether simply updating the graphics and adding new cutscenes can really enhance the excellent gameplay. M.U.L.E.'s gameplay was such that the random events every turn could throw off the balance of the game just enough to give any player the opportunity to take the lead within a couple turns (there were only 12 turns in the game, each representing a month). There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving. Besides that, it had arcade and strategic elements (try figuring out which plot of land you're going to grab at the beginning of each turn can be somewhat stressful) along with a certain 8-bit charm that probably won't translate very well to the modern PC.

I'll definitely grab the demo, but that's only if EA doesn't sue them out of existence first...

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

While I've often dreamed of an update to M.U.L.E. (or Archon), I question whether simply updating the graphics and adding new cutscenes can really enhance the excellent gameplay. M.U.L.E.'s gameplay was such that the random events every turn could throw off the balance of the game just enough to give any player the opportunity to take the lead within a couple turns (there were only 12 turns in the game, each representing a month). There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving. Besides that, it had arcade and strategic elements (try figuring out which plot of land you're going to grab at the beginning of each turn can be somewhat stressful) along with a certain 8-bit charm that probably won't translate very well to the modern PC.

I'll definitely grab the demo, but that's only if EA doesn't sue them out of existence first...

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Using extra layers of emulation is silly.

Go here.

John Stiles has the definitive collection that run on Macs at emulation.net

like everyone else who tried reading the article, i was struck by how disjointed it was.
at first you arent sure what metaphor he is whinging about, but then you realize that he does have a point.

we need a new metaphor. its true. we do. and its not really us who need new metaphors, its the typical user community. the ones who we usually bitch about - the AOL users of the world. and since we're all such ass-kick programmers (l33t c0d3 h4>but what i would really really like is to have the desktop not be a file metaphor, but a notes metaphor - in other words, kill the desktop and make it a cube wall metaphor. one where i can stick up notes and reminders and post its. where i can "hang" my clock, my calendar, or maybe where i can hang a shelf to put books and manuals at.

I've always found the "Desktop" concept somewhat difficult. it doesnt feel like a dsektop, its standing up in front of me. why would i be looking down at it? (i know, i know, pre computers we used to write by looking down at the desktop, but i always focused on what i was doing, not on the things strewn about the 5 foot wide space...)
actually, one metaphor that i did like was the old Magic Cap os from General Magic it used a Desktop metaphor and also a Hallway metaphor. these actually work when you realize that people shouldnt have to think to use the computer, they should just be able to use it.

Make computers easier to use, and we'll have more people using computers and doing more with them. To me, thats what makes a GUI good. Thats why i think people liked the mac originally. you didnt have to learn how to use it, it was all presented for you in a graphical and friendly manner - as opposed to a command line.
The GUI has to evolve again. lets go for something even easier to use.

like everyone else who tried reading the article, i was struck by how disjointed it was.
at first you arent sure what metaphor he is whinging about, but then you realize that he does have a point.

we need a new metaphor. its true. we do. and its not really us who need new metaphors, its the typical user community. the ones who we usually bitch about - the AOL users of the world. and since we're all such ass-kick programmers (l33t c0d3 h4>but what i would really really like is to have the desktop not be a file metaphor, but a notes metaphor - in other words, kill the desktop and make it a cube wall metaphor. one where i can stick up notes and reminders and post its. where i can "hang" my clock, my calendar, or maybe where i can hang a shelf to put books and manuals at.

I've always found the "Desktop" concept somewhat difficult. it doesnt feel like a dsektop, its standing up in front of me. why would i be looking down at it? (i know, i know, pre computers we used to write by looking down at the desktop, but i always focused on what i was doing, not on the things strewn about the 5 foot wide space...)
actually, one metaphor that i did like was the old Magic Cap os from General Magic it used a Desktop metaphor and also a Hallway metaphor. these actually work when you realize that people shouldnt have to think to use the computer, they should just be able to use it.

Make computers easier to use, and we'll have more people using computers and doing more with them. To me, thats what makes a GUI good. Thats why i think people liked the mac originally. you didnt have to learn how to use it, it was all presented for you in a graphical and friendly manner - as opposed to a command line.
The GUI has to evolve again. lets go for something even easier to use.

The propietary hardware will always hold me back from a mac. I like having the ability to install any OS on my machine.

Nice nonsequitur.

And what machine runs "any OS"?

My TiBook has MacOS X.x, MacOS 9.x, Darwin, Windows 98 (via VPC).

If I wanted to I could install various distros of Linux (PPC and, with VPC, x86), but with OSX's Unix underpinings I don't need to.

I'm currently running VPC v4.x. If I were to get a copy of VPC 3.x I could load Solaris and BeOS (support was removed with version 4). But I've no need for them.

A quick check at Emulation.net shows a variety of emulators. I counted 34, plus emulators for game consoles, calculators, and handheld devices.

I have no idea if those emulators are useful. The only one I've used is the PalmOS emulator.

Even with this there are plenty of OS's that I can't run. MPE/iX and OS400 are two that I've worked with in recently.

Please tell me what machine can run any OS, and where I can purchase one. Theoretical Turing Machines don't count.

Steve M

I had a BASIC program that would play arbitrary music over the radio. It had various subroutines that would calculate something or another and thus generate a specific radio tone. The main program simply read in the musical data and called the appropriate subroutine to make each note.

Most games and the like however used the cassette-tape output to make sound effects, or even pretty good voices. "Robot Attack!"

Now where did I put that emulator?

With this site someone could make a MUCH better picture than the one shown.

Yeah, nice job, ASCII. I think anyone here realizes controllers like this have been out for years.

Very true.

I have seen *very* old macs running very new code (netscape 4.7, sharing programs, music players) and ask myself, how do they do that!?

I am now more aware than ever about upgrades because windows98(first ed) was a minor upgrade to windows95 second ed... but something impredictable happened: even the DOS core was affected and my games started freezing in a resolution-change event --in every W98 system and flavor I tried.

For some reason when an Apple OS stops supporting things, you can either install OS 7 and rename the old system folder, do a little trick called blessing the system, and off you go... or... if you experience processor compatibility problems, there are many Mac-within-a-mac emulators from emulation.net so you can run things from 15 years ago that you can no longer find in the supported market but you *paid* for before you upgraded or switched Macs.

I am frustated trying to get the same compatibility on any version of Windows with old DOS programs and games. I once had this secondhand laptop in '96 with a *sealed* copy of Excel 3 or so, and my impatience to install it under windows3.x proved frustrating since Excel "needed" windows 2.1. Plus my old fighter jet game pack broke with windows98 and the wonderful Falcon planes are no longer working in DOS mode / windows98. Falcon ran well in win95/DOS.

If anyone knows of a good DOS 3 emulation site for Windows computers, kinda like emulation.net, reply!! I'd love to have the full compatibility that I PAID for when Windows9X said it PLAYS better.

The classic open source example is MESS, but there are lots of other emulators out there.

Windows and Unix users should check Retrogames and Zophar, and Mac users should check emulation.net.

It's rather dificult to install Windows on any Mac

Actually, I have more working installations of Windows on my Macintosh than I do on my AMD box. I always find it amusing how it much easier it is to install Windows under emulation than on native hardware.


"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho

Look what it did with Carbon. With Carbon did 90% of the work for porting ancient Mac apps to Mach.

That really is true. When I first read the documentation for OSX, I was worried about how well the apps I was coding under OS9 would move over. Carbon has beautifully allowed all of our old software to work perfectly.

In another note, I recently downloaded SNES9X from emulation.net with its Carbon optimized code and it runs at least twice as fast as it used to.

I think Apple has done a great job in keeping legacy apps working. I've seen software from even the old System 6.0.8 days run under Classic. That is amazing legacy support in my opinion.

so where is this going to go eventually..?

ROMs are small. Emulators aren't large. CDs are huge. you could probably fit every worthwhile N.E.S. game ever made into fifty megabytes. You could probably fit most of the worthwhile SNES and Genesis games into the 600 megs or so you'd have left.

I don't know how public the Dreamcast development process is, if you have to buy some expensive liscence or just grab a compiler or what, but if some *cough* third party could put together a couple emulators for the dreamcast.. just port the emus already out there, maybe throw in some debuggerish or game genie cheat modes..
well..
that would be one kickass CD-R, is all i have to say.

Too bad that the closed-minded game developers will never, ever allow such a cd to be published legitimately at any price, despite the fact they haven't made new copies of these games for years are no longer getting any money off them. Their loss.
Such a shame that copyright law is going to continue being extended until those games never reach the public domain..

http://emulation.net/

hey, i always thought of emulation pages as an "obsolete computer museum" :)
seems like a pretty damn complete list to me, even if the focus is on gaming machines. and i will take ANY day being able to RUN the obsolete computer over looking at pictures of them..
seriously, they have just about every old machine ever made, or about half of them anyway, represented there. Fascinating to look at these things, run them, and realize people--many of whom are reading this discussion right now-- actually USED them to DO things. and they're pieces of crap! :) [braces himself for hundreds of flames from angered PDP and C64 zealots]

this page in question is for us mac users only, but you get my point.. perhaps some kind person in the audience would post some emulation resources pointing to emulators that run on wintel or whatever flavors of *n?x you like.

oh and as long on we're on the subject i suppose you ought to look at
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/retro/
for those of us who find programming languages as interesting as computers..

A TI-92 emulator for the macintosh is available here.

I don't think the emulator in question actually works on 68k macintoshes, it claims to requrie a 100Mhz PPC, though a VMWare-style hardware abstraction hack with almost no slowdown would be pretty easy to throw together for a 68k mac i'd imagine. Assuming anyone actually was WILLING to.

ftp.apple.asimov.net is a great place to find Apple II emulators and disk images for Windows/Linux/etc. I've used Applewin for Win9x quite a bit and it works well. I haven't tried any of the Linux ones because when I'm in Linux I don't have time to mess with it(too much work getting done). You could try www.emulation.net if you are running Mac OS. They have dozens of emu's for Mac. acorn-gaming.com has some emulation news/emulator links/etc. Happy Hunting!!