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by cyrc 197 days ago

It was because of QuarkXPress and Photoshop. In the same way WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were dominant for business computers.

Wish someone would try to create native MacOS classic on x86 hardware.

There are so many Unix or Linux ABI compatible kernels like the recent Moss written in rust.

2 comments

hmstx 197 days ago

> Wish someone would try to create native MacOS classic on x86 hardware.

Apple worked on this themselves - and then they canned it.

https://lowendmac.com/2014/star-trek-apples-first-mac-os-on-...

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anthk 197 days ago

Ardi Executor. There's a recent fork at GitHub. You can run m68k binaries seamlessly. You don't need propietary MacOS parts, just the software.

But if you are some software preserver, having a libre option to run legacy media it's always good for historical reasons. I am a daily libre software user but I emulate ancient machines with propietary stuff just for curiosity. As it not a personal computing device I find it fine. It's just an historical toy and not my computing device. And, well, if you want to create libre engines for old Mac games (ScummVM, SDL ports...), for sure you need to at least emulate the old OSes and run the propietary game in order to compare the output and correctness.

Also, it already exists "Mac" for x86. It was Rhapsody DR2 and it could run Classic Mac software and NeXT one too. It was like a blend of these two. OSX it's like NeXT Step concept 2.0, with few traces of Mac Classic. Qemu will run it fine.

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/hands-on-with-1998s-rhapsody-...

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jjuran 197 days ago

Rhapsody DR2 is not a solution for classic Mac OS on x86. Lunduke writes:

"Unfortunately [the Blue Box] was only available on PowerPC versions of Rhapsody"

Another option is Advanced Mac Substitute. It doesn't run everything, but what it does run it runs really well. One of my goals is that you can use a 68K Mac application (e.g. MacPaint) as part of your personal computing workflow, if you wish.

https://www.v68k.org/ams/

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anthk 197 days ago

Adding Executor does that for free as in freedom.

Edit, ah, both are similar.

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cyrc 197 days ago

It would be great if somebody tried to create an opensource version of Rhapsody DR2 that ran on X86 baremetal.

Would not even need to be binary compatible. Source compatible API would be enough.

Rhapsody DR2 is more like Classic Mac than any current MacOS.

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anthk 197 days ago