Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea of running old Macintosh software on my Windows PC. It’s been a bit of a wild ride, let me tell you. I started out thinking it would be a simple thing. Boy, was I wrong!
First, I tried to find out if I could even run macOS on my Windows machine. Turns out, Apple’s terms of service say a big “no-no” to installing macOS on anything other than Apple hardware. So, that was a dead end, technically speaking. Still, I was curious about older Mac software, not the latest macOS.
Next, I went hunting for Macintosh emulators. I found a few names that kept popping up:
- SheepShaver
- Mini vMac
- Basilisk II
These are basically programs that pretend to be old Macintosh computers so you can run old Mac software.
I decided to start with SheepShaver because I found a couple of setup guides, one for the OS X port and one for the Windows port. I figured that since I’m on Windows, the Windows port guide would be the way to go. This was my first mistake. The guide was dense, and I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out what the heck it was talking about.
After struggling with SheepShaver for a while, I stumbled upon something called Mini vMac. It’s described as an open-source emulator that focuses on accurately emulating the Macintosh Plus. Sounded pretty cool, so I decided to give it a shot. This turned out to be a way better experience. The setup was much simpler, and I was able to get it running without too much trouble. It was like a breath of fresh air after the SheepShaver mess.
Then there was this thing called Infinite Mac. This was really interesting. It’s a project that makes classic Mac emulation easily accessible in a web browser, using things like WebAssembly. I played around with it a bit, and it was really neat to see old Mac software running right in my browser. I spent a day or two just exploring old software I hadn’t seen in years.
So, after all this tinkering, I finally got to a point where I could run some classic Mac applications on my Windows machine. It wasn’t as easy as I initially thought, but it was definitely a fun learning experience. I mean, who needs the latest macOS when you can play around with Mac OS 7, right?
It’s a bit rough around the edges, and you definitely need some patience to get things working, but in the end, it’s pretty satisfying to see those old Mac apps running on a Windows PC. I even got some old games working, which was a nice trip down memory lane.