Even a low-end 21st century computer is so much faster (and more capacious) than one from 25 or 30 years ago that it can not only easily run a full-speed emulation of the older machine, you can also do tricks like running emulators inside emulators. All of them load inside a web page, but execute on your local machine their storage is online, streamed on demand, and comes preloaded with a swath of apps and games… but even so, they're set up to allow you to load and save files from your local drive, and they can even network with other instances of themselves.Įmulation is fun. That meant changing emulation engine, since MacOS 9 is PowerPC-only. It adds a MacOS 9 version to the existing System7.app and MacOS8.app emulators. MacOS9.app is the latest, and in some ways the most impressive, installment of 'the Infinite Mac,' a series of five web-based emulators of classic Macintosh computers. It turns out, unexpectedly, that a good answer to this is… run them in a browser. Is any of this useful? No not really, but it’s fun, and at least it isn’t a toilet paper dispenser.Friday FOSS Fest Emulators make it easy to run vintage software in a window on a modern machine, but without specialist knowledge of obsolete systems, it can be hard to do much with them. There’s even a web based Atari ST emulator and IBM PC 5150 with DOS for those who want to really go down the retro route. If this sounds similar to the linux in a browser thing we covered a while back, you’d be right, it’s the same basic idea. Not surprisingly, the Mac Plus emu runs a bit slower in iOS, and you’ll need to be pretty precise with your taps to open folders and apps, which kind of makes it more of a novelty than a usable emulator.

Here it is running on an iPhone, complete with a bad Instagram filter to emphasize the retro factor:īecause it’s all contained within the browser, it does not require the old jailbreak emulator method. It’s actually pretty fast on any modern Mac or PC in a half-decent web browser, but you can even run the Mac Plus emulator on an iPhone or iPad within Safari or Chrome. KidPix is also entirely usable, stamps and all, so those of a certain age range can get drawing and pretend we’re all in 4th grade again:Īs mentioned, this does indeed work on just about every platform imaginable. The classic Mac OS experience is complete, you can open folders, adjust control panels, create and save files, edit things with ResEdit, or play Shufflepuck Cafe:

Mac Plus with Kid Pix – it has freakin’ KidPix, need I say more?.

Mac Plus with games & apps – probably the more nostalgic of the two.

Mac classic emulator for os x