Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Developers Simulate Macintosh System 7 in Flash

Posted by pudge on from the time-meet-hands dept.

TheChocolatay writes "Two guys in Germany have worked to create a Macintosh System 7 simulation in Flash. You can watch the Happy Mac face as the system boots and it even has a working Control Pannel, After Dark screen saver, and games. Wired news has an article on the developers and the simulation can be viewed on-line."

72 comments

  1. Pfft.. by hookedup · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's been a windows version of this for years!

    1. Re:Pfft.. by Carlos+Silva · · Score: 0

      This is been modded Informative? LOL

  2. Ouch. That's an annoying bug. by Hackie_Chan · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's the first and the most annoying scroll script I've ever encountered. I hope I never see one again...

    Ever. By the way, anyone have a copy of the flash or something? It doesn't load for me.

    --

    What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
  3. It's certainly faster.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...than PearPC 0.1 running Mac OS-X. ;)

    1. Re:It's certainly faster.... by Wateshay · · Score: 3, Funny

      ... but how long will it take until someone tries to run this from a browser running in OS X on a PearPC, inside Virtual PC on a G5.

      --

      "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."

    2. Re:It's certainly faster.... by Segway+Ninja · · Score: 1

      already been done. http://www.emaculation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1 151 - screenshot at http://sveinbjorn.vefsyn.is/images/maconwinonmac.j pg

    3. Re:It's certainly faster.... by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      that's not it, read more carefully.

    4. Re:It's certainly faster.... by Segway+Ninja · · Score: 2, Funny

      Note to self, don't sleep and slashdot.

  4. A little too realistic by lawyer+boy · · Score: 5, Funny

    OK, I'll admit it. While trying to quit Space Invaders in the simulation, I hit cmd-Q without thinking and wiped out a bunch of research tabbed in Safari.

    I'm off to hunt through the history...

    1. Re:A little too realistic by useosx · · Score: 1

      Shoulda been running Opera (saves your browsing windows through restarts). No I don't work for them...

    2. Re:A little too realistic by Masque · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes. That's why having cmd-Q mapped to 'Quit' is a silly thing in Safari. Suggestion:

      http://calmstorm.net/lj/safari_safety.png

    3. Re:A little too realistic by Hes+Nikke · · Score: 1

      wow, you used the same alternate shortcut as i did!

      you know what they say.. Great minds think alike, but idiots seldom differ. ;)

      Welcome to my friends list

      --
      Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
    4. Re:A little too realistic by andrewleung · · Score: 1

      huh-huh... "research".

      ya, that's what I tell the girlfriend too when i don't want to show her my "research".

    5. Re:A little too realistic by Pope · · Score: 1

      How is it "silly," exactly? It's been the "Quit Application" keyboard shortcut on the Mac since 1984.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    6. Re:A little too realistic by WCityMike · · Score: 1

      Try Saft. It has a very nice feature (similar to a Firefox extension I've seen) that will let you automatically save open windows upon quit, and restore them upon return. It also has a great deal of other goodies that really make Safari quite nice.

  5. Any non-flash emulators out there? by Radon+Knight · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd love to be able to boot up into old (or ancient) versions of Mac OS which run in a safe little sandbox on my OS X machine - simply for the sake of nostalgia. Are there any non-flash implementations which can run as stand-alone applications?

    1. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by amdg · · Score: 4, Informative

      I use vMac whenever I want to run Dungeon of Doom. I got hooked on that game when I got my first Mac. It is still one of my favorite games of all time.

    2. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes - aside from the Classic environment, there are emulators that will play at being a pre-PPC mac and run software written for System 7 and below.

      VMac runs under Classic.

      There is also an OS X version of Basilisk.

      The bad news is that for either of these to run System 7 or below, you need a 68k MacOS ROM - which you can't obtain legally except from your own 68k Mac (of course, IANAL). Oh, and you need a copy of the OS - but System 7 is available for download here.

    3. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by sg3000 · · Score: 1

      VMac looks Carbonized, but it's still asking for a ROM. Does this mean I have to go hunt down my original Mac 128k? Seems like a lot of trouble for me to be able to play Dark Castle on my PowerBook G4.

      --
      Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
    4. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by shamino0 · · Score: 1
      VMac looks Carbonized, but it's still asking for a ROM. Does this mean I have to go hunt down my original Mac 128k?

      IIRC, vMac wants a Mac Plus ROM. I don't think others will work with it (emulation of other classic Macs is on their to-do list.) Which is kind of annoying - I have a working SE at home, but not a Plus.

      Of course, I could just go play Dark Castle on the SE....

    5. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by jcbphi · · Score: 1

      You should also check out Basilisk II, though I've not had any luck getting it to run anything prior to System 7. It will run well on many platforms.

    6. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by mr_tap · · Score: 1
      Apparently Mac-on-Linux is meant to be close to running on OS X (refer http://www.maconlinux.org/news.html).

      Before googling around, I had assumed that this already was working?

    7. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      I really want to get Rogue going under any OS but have had no luck. I miss playing that game, can't find the disk with it for my 68k macs.

    8. Re:Any non-flash emulators out there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you mean _that_ Rogue, it sparked a whole genre.

  6. FreeCache of Flash by cybermancer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Avoid the SlashDot effect:

    http://freecache.org/http://myoldmac.net/webse.swf

    Brought to you by FreeCache.org!

    --
    "Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
    1. Re:FreeCache of Flash by timothv · · Score: 1

      Freecache doesn't cache anything less than 5 megabytes.

  7. Hehehe. n00bz. by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They made the oldest mistake in the book. The menus will not work if you use them like in System 7. You cannot click and hold on the menu, then drag to the item and release. You must instead click on the menu, then click and release on the item.

    Windows let you do it either way, and Mac OS followed suit, but... System 7 didn't work like this flash thingy.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    1. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      oldest mistake in the book is never get involved in a land war in Asia.

    2. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by phraktyl · · Score: 2, Funny

      And second is never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA! *thud*.

      --
      Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
    3. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by tim1724 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      lots of other mistakes, too..
      • dragging windows or icons should drag an outline, but instead it has live dragging.
      • non-functional resize controls
      • windowshade control instead of zoom box .. huh?
      • selecting icons doesn't work right in the Finder
      • non-functional scrollbars
      plenty of other problems, I'm sure, but the above was enough to annoy me.. didn't feel at all mac-like so I closed the window after 30 seconds or so of playing with it. (although I do admit I did use the "shutdown" menu item first.. :-)
      --
      -- Tim Buchheim
    4. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by tbone1 · · Score: 1
      I thought it was working for the mob and expecting a retirement plan.

      --

      The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
    5. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by Anv*l · · Score: 1

      You got it wrong, menus been click & release until MacOS 8.

    6. Re:Hehehe. n00bz. by Stackster · · Score: 1

      They haven't even got the startup sequence right, which should be the easiest part since there is no user interaction.
      There shouldn't be any icons popping up at the bottom before the "Welcome to Macintosh" window is displayed.
      And from that first impression, it just goes downhill. Sure, they have done a lot of work, but It would be nicer to have something that actually gives the _feel_ of an old mac, instead of implementing a lot of crappy games.

      --

      There are 010 kinds of people. Those who understand octal, those who don't, and 06 other kinds of morons.
  8. I gotta say, that was nicely done by daviddennis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And it's even surviving a Slashdotting, which is pretty darn impressive considering how big that thing must be.

    D

  9. That is soft of cool by ztirffritz · · Score: 1

    I opened MacDraw and created some squiggles. It works just as I remembered.

    --
    Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
  10. Shutdown by Draoi · · Score: 4, Funny
    This is sad, I know, but I had to fight the urge to shutdown the 'machine' properly before closing the window!

    Old habits die hard ... :-)

    --
    Alison

    "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein

    1. Re:Shutdown by goombah99 · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's really funny. I did exactly the same thing. I was looking for the shutdown. Finally I realied I could just close the widow.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    2. Re:Shutdown by Dr.+Smeegee · · Score: 1

      Just so you know: I did it, it works. It shuts down. It restarts. It is the only use of Flash that I will condone. :-)

    3. Re:Shutdown by burns210 · · Score: 1

      i think... the shutdown should do a close window command.

      and by the way, do you think they will add and apps that were a 'must have' from the era? maybe a game or two?

  11. Re:hmm by hattmoward · · Score: 1

    It's not "some flash movie" check it out, you can load up Breakout, Pong, MacDraw, and more. You can browse folders too. This is some cool work, I'd love to see the code for doing the system so flexibly in flash.

  12. yabut by Froze · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    can you run linux on it?

    --
    -- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
  13. Very Accurate if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    By System 7 you mean System 4. And instead of even attempting a file system, you put everything in menus (when did MacWrite sit in the menus?).

    This thing is god awful lame and deserves 0 coverage.

    1. Re:Very Accurate if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Hey my father was system 7 you insensitive clod!

      It's got a decent game of tetris however - so your troll is full of several metric tons of steaming shit.

  14. Translation: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Two guys in Germany have WAY too much time on their hands.

    I wonder it realisticly crashes?

  15. Worthless... by shrapnull · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "preserving the beauty and legacy of Mac OS on the Internet..."?

    The artists obviously did it because they could. If you want to preserver the "beauty of an operating system" archive them, or better yet, release them to the public free of charge (as some have already done).

    This was the internet equivalent of building a model of the Eiffel Tower. Cute, but worthless. I must admit they did a fair job of accomplishing their goal, and they are obviously fairly talented with Actionscript.

    --
    If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
    1. Re:Worthless... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And system 7 is available for free as a download .. so what is your point?

      To me your post is like your impression of a model ...

  16. I've been looking for this for years by erikharrison · · Score: 1

    I train Tech Support agents to use a Macintosh. Screenshots, to a tech support agent, means thorough screenshots that illustrate how to use and OS or application.

    Recently, there has been a tendency to use image maps to simulate an OS using screenshots. But I've been looking for a decent flash based view of System 8 or 9 that agents could use at their desks. Kept meaning to do it myself, but I'd have to teach myeslf Actionscript . . .

    1. Re:I've been looking for this for years by z0ot · · Score: 2

      Have you considered experimenting with VNC together with vnc2swf? Older versions of VNC exist for MacOS 8&9 (I understand the server may be shaky, though) and you may be able to turn the output of the viewer window into a Flash movie using vnc2swf. Haven't tried it myself, but it looks promising.

  17. Why the old mac though? by CrackedButter · · Score: 1, Funny

    Did OS7 even run on it?

    --
    Jonathanjk.com
    1. Re:Why the old mac though? by trash+eighty · · Score: 1
      i was wondering that, i run OS6 on my SEs and thats slow enough. if OS7 could run on an SE (and i'm unsure of that) it would not be fun ;)


      ah, looking at everymac's page for the SE it could run up to 7.5.5. shudder at the slowness of that!

  18. pfft... by jx100 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    These guys have emulated Mac OS in HTML!

    1. Re:pfft... by nuggetman · · Score: 1

      which doesn't work in Firefox

      --
      ...and that's all there is to it.
    2. Re:pfft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or safari

    3. Re:pfft... by jx100 · · Score: 1

      gah.. so it doesn't. Last time I used it (admittedly, a long time ago) was on IE.

  19. Not quite. by ActiveSX · · Score: 1

    I'll be impressed when somebody emulates the hardware in flash/actionscript. Until then, this is just a quirky cartoon.

  20. OS9 / Win95 / Win98 / OpenStep / NextStep emulator by sarahbau · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A friend of mine made an emulator in Java several years ago, that emulates OS 9, Windows 95/98, OpenStep 4, and NextStep 5. It doesn't have working applications within it, but the menus and everything work very well. http://www.naness.com/

  21. This is hardly anything special by azav · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to toot but I've rewritten a windows 98 windowing system in Director and Shockwave in 1999 with:

    Windows and floating windows.
    Video support
    Key shortcuts
    32 bit graphics with alpha channel.
    Window dragging with live content updating.
    Multiple window states
    Multi state buttons
    Minimizable windows collapsable to a toolbar.
    Subclassable windowtypes.

    And I'm not the only guy to have done stuff like this. There are at least 4 other people I know who have done this.

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    1. Re:This is hardly anything special by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      'Shockwave Windows'? Is that the one?

    2. Re:This is hardly anything special by azav · · Score: 1

      RIGHT! Woo! I'll tell Jim (the author) that someone recognized his product!!

      He'll be psyched!!

      Rockin Dave!

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    3. Re:This is hardly anything special by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      That's cool, I learned some stuff from the code. Found out about it through the Direct-L list and DOUG (director-online.com) and messed around with it a bit.

      I need to do some shockwave stuff again.. maybe for my band site.

    4. Re:This is hardly anything special by Xyde · · Score: 1

      Yes I found it the other day, it's lovely. As a matter of fact I'm now using it as my WinME replacement. And it's free! You can download it here! I can't seem to get FireFox installed tho...

    5. Re:This is hardly anything special by azav · · Score: 1

      Dude - buzz me if you need any help. I co-founded DOUG.

      Nice to see another director guy online.

      Zavpublic at mac.com

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  22. Doesn't look like 7 by dthree · · Score: 2, Insightful

    More like 5 or 6. Windows and menubar in 7 have shading.

    --
    "I forgot my mantra."
  23. High Score of 21000 in Space Invaders! by pikester · · Score: 1

    OK, then I got bored and quit the demo...

  24. Re:OS9 / Win95 / Win98 / OpenStep / NextStep emula by InfiniteWisdom · · Score: 1

    That is a simulator, not an emulator

  25. Yaromat had a DHTML Mac sim for years too. by MoebiusStrip · · Score: 1

    http://www.yaromat.com/

  26. Don't forget Windows 98 Ebonics by ModernGeek · · Score: 1

    http://users.moderngeek.com/preston/movies/windows %2098%20ebonics.swf Yup, that's some good shit.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.
  27. OS X by ModernGeek · · Score: 1

    OX X lets you do it either way too. The first thing when I got into this flash, I started to try doing the click and drag, then noticed that flash probably didn't have a way to emulate this behavior.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.
  28. pointless post by foidulus · · Score: 1

    pointless


    post.


    hoooray
    hooray
    this will never get read
    esp. not by anyone with mod points