Celebrate Macintosh’s 35th birthday by running classic apps on your PC

By Michael Archambault January 24, 2019

Thirty-five years ago today, in 1984, Steve Jobs walked across the stage in the Flint Center in Cupertino, California to reveal the original Macintosh. During a time where IBM’s dominance in the market seemed as though it might take over, the team at Apple showed the world that there was indeed one more thing. Known today commonly as the Macintosh 128k, the original Macintosh featured a Motorola 6800 CPU running at 6 Mhz with 128 KB of RAM and no internal storage solution. Today, to celebrate the release, you can download and explore the Advanced Mac Substitute, a Macintosh emulator that allows you to run apps of yesteryear on your modern PC.

The developer of the emulation Josh Juran noted that one of the primary goals of Advanced Mac Substitute is to allow the emulation of old Macintosh software without the need to source an original installation CD or Apple ROM. Using API-level implantation, the emulator can directly emulate such classic software on a Motorolla 6800 CPU, just like in the original Macintosh. Downloading the project from GitHub for your MacOS, Linux, Windows, or Android machine will immediately introduce you to four pieces of included software — a welcome message app, a tic-tac-toe app, and a NyanCat animation.

1 of 4

Mac Emulator — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Mac Emulator — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Mac Emulator — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Mac Emulator — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Once installed, users can then add-on their favorite classic software with demoed game examples including The Fool’s Errand, Missile, and Solitaire. However, it is worth noting that the project is indeed a work in progress with MacOS finding compatibility with the emulator only up to version 10.12 (Sierra). Additionally, Linux users will see there are still issues with keyboard input. Nonetheless, the reward is great; get your machine to run the Advanced Mac Substitute, and you can enjoy nostalgic games with 1-bit-deep graphics and text.

In a world where Apple appears to be receiving constant criticism for odd hardware choices and refinements, such as dropping all USB-A ports from its most recent lineup of MacBooks and MacBook Pros, it can be beneficial to look back on a time when the company was a young underdog going up against the giant that was IBM. And 35 years later, we don’t forget that thanks to Apple, the year 1984 wasn’t like 1984.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Michael Archambault

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Michael Archambault is a technology writer and digital marketer located in Long Island, New York. For the past decade…

Computing

The HP Victus gaming PC with RTX 3060 has a $550 discount

The HP Victus 15L gaming PC in white.

Gamers don't need to spend more than $1,000 if they want to buy a new gaming PC because there are affordable options like the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,400, you can get it for just $850 as HP has applied a $550 discount on this machine. However, you shouldn't delay your purchase because there's no assurance that the gaming PC will still be 39% off tomorrow. If you want to make sure that you get it for less than $1,000, you're going to have to complete the transaction for it within the day.

Why you should buy the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop
You shouldn't expect the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop to match the performance of the top-of-the-line models of the best gaming PCs, but it's surprisingly powerful for its cost. Inside it are the 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, with 16GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the best place to start for gaming. It's enough to play today's best PC games without any issues, and it may even be capable of running the upcoming PC games of the next few years if you're willing to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Computing

This 17-inch HP laptop is on sale for just $300 — but hurry!

The HP 17t-cn300 17.3-inch laptop against a white background.

If you want to buy a laptop with a relatively large screen, the good news is that you don't have to break the bank with your purchase because you can get the HP Laptop 17t for a very affordable $300. It's on sale from HP with a $200 discount on its original price of $500, but there's no telling how much time is remaining before this offer expires. We don't think it will stay available for long because laptop deals like this almost always get sold out quickly, so complete the transaction as soon as possible to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the HP Laptop 17t
With the 17.3-inch display of the HP Laptop 17t, you'll have a lot of screen real estate to work on your projects and watch streaming shows. It's pretty affordable for a laptop with this large screen, which offers HD+ resolution for sharp details and vibrant colors. However, despite its big display, the HP Laptop 17t maintains portability because it's only 0.78 of an inch thick, which makes it easy to slide into your bag when you're on the go, and it won't be too heavy to carry around because it only weighs about 4.6 pounds.

Computing

What to do if your Intel CPU keeps crashing

Pins on Core i9-12900K.

Despite being among the best processors you can buy, some high-end Intel CPUs have faced a wave of instability over the past few months. Intel is investigating the problem, but the company and its motherboard partners have already worked toward some temporary fixes to improve stability on high-end Intel CPUs -- even if it comes at a performance cost.

Before getting into the fixes, keep in mind that they are temporary. Intel will release a statement on the instability soon, likely with more direct guidance on what affected users should do. In addition, the scope of the problem isn't clear -- if you're not experiencing issues, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Who's affected