
Early Macintosh Emulation Comes to the Archive - jf
http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/16/early-macintosh-emulation-comes-to-the-archive/
======
mambodog
I did the initial work of porting this emulator to the browser (most credit
should go to the original emulator author however:
[http://hampa.ch/pce](http://hampa.ch/pce)).

I wrote up the process and hacks that went in to making this possible here:
[https://jamesfriend.com.au/porting-pce-emulator-
browser](https://jamesfriend.com.au/porting-pce-emulator-browser)

The most gross/fun part was how I made the Mac OS mouse position align with
your real mouse cursor: by writing its position directly to the emulated
computer's memory. Classic Mac OS held the mouse position in a few fixed
global memory locations. I realised I could just write to those memory
locations every few CPU cycles. I could have instead written a driver which
ran inside the emulated OS to communicate with the emulator program, but this
was simpler!

~~~
macrael
Sadly it's not working for me, seems to be off by half. The emulated mouse is
always at x/2 y/2 compared to the real mouse pointer.

~~~
db48x
I believe Chrome misreports the mouse position if you zoom the page, or if you
have a hidpi display. Care to share more details?

~~~
macrael
This was in Safari on a retina mac book pro

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beefhash
I do wonder, from a legal perspective, did the Internet Archive get permission
from Apple or are they merely trusting that no one will enforce their rights
on abandoned software? Especially since they seem to be doing the same with
MS-DOS/Windows 3.1[1].

[1] [https://blog.archive.org/2016/02/11/internet-archive-does-
wi...](https://blog.archive.org/2016/02/11/internet-archive-does-windows-
hundreds-of-windows-3-1-programs-join-the-collection/)

~~~
TillE
Definitely seems like the latter. It's pretty strange to see archive.org
adding more and more stuff that's under copyright without explicit permission.

They have a ton of copyrighted games, they have recordings of concerts from
artists who almost certainly haven't authorized that. Personally I love this,
I just really hope they don't get sued into the ground.

~~~
toomuchtodo
DMCA exemption.

[http://archive.org/about/dmca.php](http://archive.org/about/dmca.php)

And the Archive could always move out of US jurisdiction if absolutely
required.

~~~
beefhash
> Following deliberation, the Copyright Office ruled in late October 2003 that
> four exemptions should be added to the anti-circumvention clause of the
> DMCA, to be valid until the next Copyright Office rulemaking in 2006,
> including two that are related to the Internet Archive's original comments:
> [...]

It's past 2006 now. This text seems outdated. Furthermore, it states:

> In 2003 the Internet Archive, as part of research into vintage software
> archiving, discovered possible archiving issues involving the Digital
> Millenium Copyright Act. This could make it impossible to legally archive
> early computer software and games, even for accredited institutions wishing
> to store limited amounts of non-distributable, archival images.

I don't believe we're looking at "non-distributable archival images" here.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I suppose we'll just need to wait for someone to sue the Internet Archive and
have the EFF step in.

~~~
j_koreth
I'm not sure if even the EFF can rationally justify the amount of copyrighted
materials on there.

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
I think the sheer quantity of really valuable copyright-free things on there
would be a pretty good case.

This is one of my favourite things on the internet:
[https://archive.org/details/EALand_FinalCountdown](https://archive.org/details/EALand_FinalCountdown)

And it would probably vanish in a few years without something like
archive.org.

------
Tloewald
Several things strike me going down this memory lane:

1) How modern and responsive the UI behavior is.

2) How many subtle improvements there have been (e.g. the old Mac menu
behavior that I liked I find annoying). No command-A for select all in
MacWrite.

3) How screen updates I used to think were instantaneous decidedly were not.
(That said, I couldn't trigger the "ultra slow update" mode and watch menus
drawing one line of pixels at a time).

4) Copyright notices for third party companies in "Apple" software (e.g.
MacWrite is copyright "Encore Systems".

------
adamnemecek
Somewhat OT but it should be more widely known that you can run NeXTSTEP on
VMWare.

[https://medium.com/@jmarhee/installing-nextstep-on-vmware-
fu...](https://medium.com/@jmarhee/installing-nextstep-on-vmware-
fusion-5c5c3e4442f4)

It's pretty creamy.

~~~
gattilorenz
And with shoebill[1] you can run A/UX, Apple's Unix with a MacOS GUI.

What I love is that it was a real Unix, but it could run Mac apps, and it even
provided a graphical interface to select/explain the command line switches of
some Unix tools.

[1] [https://github.com/pruten/shoebill](https://github.com/pruten/shoebill)

------
oso2k
This is why I donate. To me this is important. We already lost the library of
Alexandria once (or multiple times really until its final destruction). Let's
not have our hubris do that again.

~~~
jonafato
The donation link, to save everyone a search:
[https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

------
trimbo
Dark Castle! It was so great for the time.

[https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2](https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2)

~~~
DonHopkins
I ran into Jonathan Gay at CGDC, and upon realizing who he was, I squatted
down, raised up my arms up above my head, flapped my hands, and chanted "Nya
nya nya nya nya!"

Dark Castle was so cool, I totally forgave him for writing Flash.

~~~
pmarreck
TIL the author of Dark Castle went on to write Flash. (Didn't it start out as
some Macromedia thing?)

~~~
DonHopkins
Jonathan Gay [1] and Charlie Jackson [2] founded FutureWave Software [3], and
developed a drawing program called "SmartSketch", to which they added
animation features and renamed "FutureSplash Animator" to challenge Macromedia
Shockwave [4], which Macromedia (nee "Macromind") then bought and renamed
"Macromedia Flash".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Gay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Gay)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jackson_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jackson_\(software\))

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureWave_Software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureWave_Software)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Shockwave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Shockwave)

~~~
pmarreck
wow, that's awesome!

Also, any old Dark Castle fans should note that "Return to Dark Castle" exists
and was finally released a few years ago
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/return-to-dark-
castle/id4107...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/return-to-dark-
castle/id410703154?mt=12) (possibly the longest wait for a game sequel ever?)

~~~
jnwatson
That is the second sequel. The first one was Beyond Dark Castle, a truly
excellent game.

~~~
pmarreck
Ah good point. Yeah, finished both of those back in the day.

------
marchustvedt
So many hours of my childhood were spent playing early Mac games, especially
Dark Castle and Prince of Persia.

Ubisoft did release an iOS port of the original Prince of Persia:
[https://appsto.re/us/FNmRB.i](https://appsto.re/us/FNmRB.i)

But sadly Apple is about to discontinue support for iOS apps that don't
support 64 bit. I expect that Prince of Persia Classic will get lost to that.

------
cm2187
What strikes me is that Excel almost hasn't changed. Yes, they added some
colors.

------
ontouchstart
It even works on iPhone !

[https://twitter.com/ontouchstart/status/853683865113722885](https://twitter.com/ontouchstart/status/853683865113722885)

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peterburkimsher
Shufflepuck! I'm so excited to play that again.

Please can we get a copy of LogoWriter on one of those? That was how I first
learned to program, on a Mac Plus when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

------
oldmancoyote
Basilisk II on a current Mac may be a more useful option for those interested.
I routinely run Mac OS 8.0 with hyperCard... on my 2016 MacBook Pro using
Basilisk II.

------
saagarjha
Interesting that this is done in-broswer; it looks like they're using
Emscripten for emulation.

~~~
aaroninsf
Correct, also for the other runnable software (e.g. Apple II collection) and
livingroom consoles :)

------
michaelwsherman
Awesome. Mac Plus was my first real computer as a kid, played a lot of games.
World Builder scripting was the first programming I ever did.

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disconcision
oh man, Crystal Quest! amazing. the mouse control seems wonky though, sudden
bursts of acceleration, and jitter even when the mouse isn't moving?

~~~
JoeDaDude
As I recall, the mouse sets acceleration, but not the position of the gamer's
piece, so it is possible to have movement even if the mouse is left alone.

FWIW, I just tried the emulator on MacOS Sierra and Chrome and it works just
like I remember it.

------
scrollaway
Impressive work :)

