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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."

24 of 72 comments (clear)

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

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

  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: 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 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

  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.

  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.)
  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 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)
    2. 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
  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. 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.
  10. Translation: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    I wonder it realisticly crashes?

  11. 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.
  12. 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.

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

    These guys have emulated Mac OS in HTML!

  14. 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/

  15. 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...
  16. 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."