Does the Mac make a good retrogaming/computing platform

[DesertJets]

When I was first looking at getting into this hobby I got a little obsessive with my research, trying to figure out which old computer platform to get. (I ended up with an Amiga 500 which I talked about my frustrations in a thread about a month ago). I did consider the Macintosh for a while, however several factors kind of turned me off. First was the general lack of info that I could easily find. Plenty of useful stuff on the Amiga, Atari ST, C64, Atari 8-bitters and Apple II however. Second the hardware was a little pricey, at least on eBay. The Amiga, despite the problems I had, was super easy to get into.

 

 

As I want to expand my collection beyond consoles at some point can y'all enlighten me as to whether or not the Mac is a worthy retrogaming platform?

 

And which Mac is a good platform to begin with (SE/Classic, LC, Quadra, the PowerPC based machines).

[Arkhan]

No. It's from that weird era where it's not as great

 

I mean, you could play Warcraft, Wolf3D, PoP, and like, Oregon trail I guess. But most of the good stuff I remember, was all on PC too, so you could just DOSBox and not really miss a beat.

[Rex Dart]

What you want is an Apple, not a Macintosh. It's pre-Macintosh.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Rex Dart

[+FujiSkunk]

Macs have never been known as a gamer's paradise. It wasn't until the past decade that a Mac with anything more than the onboard video was considered "normal." Of course, back in the day the onboard video and audio on a Macintosh was still much better than the barebones stuff that would come on a PC. Once you added real video and sound cards to the PC, however, it would smoke the Mac.

 

Despite that, there were a number of good Mac-only games that popped up, mostly from the freeware and shareware developers. One of my favorites was Maelstrom, an update on Asteroids and a lot of fun to play. An online tank battle game called BOLO was big on campus during my college days. Even a few commercial games managed to be better on the Mac than on the PC (the original Descent comes to mind), but really those were few and far between.

 

If you decide to try out a Mac, I would recommend a newer PowerPC-based Macintosh that can still run MacOS 9. The G3 PPC's for sure can run OS 9, but I'm not sure about the G4's and G5's; I had moved away from Macintoshes by the time those came out. My last Mac was a PPC 604-based system that I then upgraded to a G3. An occasional program written during the System 7 days didn't like my MacOS 9 environment, but otherwise it happily ran just about everything I threw at it, new and old.

 

If you want a true 68k-based system for running games and other software up through the mid '90s, I think it was was the Quadra 700 that the college campus had before they switched to PowerMacs. Those were good, beefy systems as far as 68k Macs go. If memory serves, System 7.5.5 was the last Macintosh OS to run on 68k-based systems, and Apple even released it for free at one point. Finding images of the old OS disks therefore shouldn't be too hard.

Edited June 21, 2012 by FujiSkunk

[Grig]

What you want is an Apple, not a Macintosh. It's pre-Macintosh.

Yes - I had a Performa CD (can't remember the model number) and it was a blast. I added a bit more memory and a new hard drive, had OS 9.1 running on it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Many of the cross platform games (Lucasarts, Westwood) were better on the Apple - better sound, better colors, better graphics, better overall gameplay. Anyway, you probably can pick up an older Apple at a thrift store maybe (I found mine for $20 and it worked perfectly) or on ebay for not that much (just the shipping can get expensive because they are heavy).

[Rex Dart]

I have a Powermac G4, AGP "Sawtooth" model. 450MHz, gig of ram, OS 9.2 & OS 10.4. It's not a bad computer for running old-ass Mac games. Cost me $100 back in 2004 or so, and I see 'em for about $20 online now. Probably can find 'em for less on craigslist. It's still good for basic web browsing too, but you'd need more than 450MHz for youtube.

[desiv]

I have a soft spot for Macintosh gaming, but only true retro Macintosh gaming..

That would be b/w 9" Mac gaming.

 

Dark Castle, Continuum, Daleks...

 

There's some fun to be had there... :-)

I have a Mac Classic. It's not as popular because it's (one of ?) the last 7mhz 68000 based Macintosh, at a time when it "should" have been a faster CPU..

But it handles the classic b/w games wonderfully. It has hard drive support and HD floppy support. And it has OS in ROM as a backup. Nice!

 

desiv

Edited June 21, 2012 by desiv

[DesertJets]

So basically what I am hearing is that anything from the 90s that you could play on a Mac you could also play on a PC (and likely be better) and I should just DOSBox it and not waste my money on a Mac unless I plan on building a Macquarium that I was going to build 6 years ago?

 

 

I have a soft spot for Macintosh gaming, but only true retro Macintosh gaming..

That would be b/w 9" Mac gaming.

 

Dark Castle, Continuum, Daleks...

 

There's some fun to be had there... :-)

I have a Mac Classic. It's not as popular because it's (one of ?) the last 7mhz 68000 based Macintosh, at a time when it "should" have been a faster CPU..

But it handles the classic b/w games wonderfully. It has hard drive support and HD floppy support. And it has OS in ROM as a backup. Nice!

 

desiv

 

 

Now that would be a little interesting since finding an unloved Mac Classic that works shouldn't be much of a problem.

Edited June 21, 2012 by DesertJets

[The Usotsuki]

I think 8.0 or 8.1 would run on '040, but there's no sense in running later than 7.6 on one, I don't think.

[+frankodragon]

Apple never really wanted to have Macs as gaming platforms. Speaking of which I did find a G3 (blue and white) for very cheap at a rummage sale last week. I haven't tested it yet but I did ask if it worked and the owner said it did but was slow.

[Rex Dart]

Apple never really wanted to have Macs as gaming platforms. Speaking of which I did find a G3 (blue and white) for very cheap at a rummage sale last week. I haven't tested it yet but I did ask if it worked and the owner said it did but was slow.

 

Sounds like a G3!

[Austin]

Macs are definitely solid gaming machines. The best bet is to get an iMac G3--they run OS 9.0, and they are super sleek and compact. For the old 68k stuff, I am pretty sure you can get emulators (Basilisk?) that also run on the G3. With that, you have quite a large library of games at your disposal, from the mid '80s all the way up to 2000. '80s classics like Dark Castle are must-plays, and mid '90s conversions like Wolfenstein 3D are excellent as well.

 

Check out the YouTube channel and website for "Killgruz". He has tons of Mac gameplay videos. I initially thought the Mac was an awful gaming platform, but his videos have definitely proved me wrong: http://www.killgruz.com/?p=222

 

Also, iMac G3 systems are dirt cheap these days. I got mine in great shape for $20 at a local thrift shop. You can get them cheap on eBay as well, but you have to worry about paying for shipping (they are kind of heavy). Mac games are also easily obtainable without paying via abandonware sites. Basically, the cost of entry is very small if you just want to get right to playing games. Now, collecting on the other hand--games can be pricey compared to PC titles. Still, if you just want to play, the cost of entry is very low.

[Moya Jackie]

I like quite a few Mac games from back when our family computer was a Mac and my only Amiga was a CD32. Now I play those Mac games on my Amiga 1200, like SimTower, Warcraft II, Theme Park, Prince of Persia II, Sim Farm, The Settlers II and more. The advantage of playing them on the Amiga is not only do they run at full speed (since there's no CPU emulation involved) but I can also multitask with several applications or games in AmigaOS at the same time. I'd recommend just getting a better Amiga than your A500 and use it to play games designed for both systems (and Atari ST too since that's another easy one for the Amiga to emulate).

[Mad-Mike]

To me it never did because finding Mac games was just too plain difficult, and I had to go through all sorts of crap to get them to work without "bungling resource forks" with floppies and optical writeable media from my modern computer. I only have one Mac for gaming now - a Mac SE, and if it does me good on a toxified night of "Sim City, Tetris, Gunshy, and Leather Goddess of Phobos in all it's 2 color 10" screened glee, I'm happy.

[Emehr]

Man, the Mac isn't getting a lot of love here! A PowerPC Mac would be a great addition for some gaming goodness. Here are a few reasons why:

 

Ambrosia's shareware classics. Not including their clones, it's worth it for Escape Velocity alone. It's a space game where you start out as a trader and eventually improve your ship with weapons and such. There's like some intergalactic warfare going on and you can choose which side to aid. It's been a while since I played but I remember playing the heck out of it.

 

Ambrosia also put out Harry the Handsome Executive. You control a guy in a swivel-chair shooting staples and other office supplies at robots who have taken control over the building or something silly like that. Fun game.

 

Desert Trek is an Oregon Trail-like game where you must trek across a desert keeping you and your camel alive.

 

Eric's Ultimate Solitaire is nice solitaire game. The control is great. You can "flick" cards to their destinations instead of dragging and dropping the full distance. Eric's Solitaire Sampler was included on many Macs in the 90s.

 

Glider by John Calhoun is a classic and is available freely from his site.

 

Ingemar Ragnemalm created plenty of nice games for the Mac. My two favorites are Hexmines and MacSokoban. Hexmines is Minesweeper on a hexagonal grid. MacSokoban is probably the best version of Sokoban I have played. You can even create your own levels with a text editor. His games are still available on his site.

 

Bungie, before they were bought out by Microsoft for Xbox development, was a Mac-only developer putting out games like the Marathon trilogy and Abuse.

 

Realmz is a nice classic role-playing game that I played the crap out of back in the day.

 

Rescue! is a cool little Star Trek-inspired space game. Available on the author's site.

 

(YouTube video link) is a cool cyber-style 2D shooter.

 

Spectre is a Battlezone-like game. Spectre Challenger was included on many Macs in the day.

 

System's Twilight is a nice action-puzzle game set inside a computer. Available on the author's site.

 

Technomaniac by Joe Fleck is a classic tank game with mechanics similar to Tank Wars only in 3D.

 

Tetrix Max by Steve Chamberlin is the best version of Tetris I have played. It was later renamed Bricklayer for obvious reasons. Of note is the

. The sound effects complement the game perfectly.

 

Ray Dunakin released several Zork-like adventure games for the Mac: Ray's Maze, A Mess of Trouble, Another Fine Mess, etc. Available on his site.

 

Spiderweb Software was also a prolific developer for the Mac. They released several RPG's (the Exile series) and even an editor so you could create your own scenarios (Blades of Exile).

 

That's a start.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Emehr

[DesertJets]

Man, the Mac isn't getting a lot of love here! A PowerPC Mac would be a great addition for some gaming goodness. Here are a few reasons why:

 

...

 

Bungie, before they were bought out by Microsoft for Xbox development, was a Mac-only developer putting out games like the Marathon trilogy and Abuse.

 

 

 

Yeah I am a touch surprised too. Granted Macs were never known as gaming machines but they were certainly mainstream in the 90s, especially with the ill-advised mass market Performas.

 

Marathon, I love Marathon. In my freshman dorm (this was circa 98-99) we had a computer lab that consisted of some crappy no-name Pentium based PCs that were falling apart and 10 PowerMacs.... I think one 8100 and the rest were 7100s. They were all networked and I spent many hours wasted getting my butt kicked playing Marathon LAN games.

 

 

 

 

Macs are definitely solid gaming machines. The best bet is to get an iMac G3--they run OS 9.0, and they are super sleek and compact. For the old 68k stuff, I am pretty sure you can get emulators (Basilisk?) that also run on the G3. With that, you have quite a large library of games at your disposal, from the mid '80s all the way up to 2000. '80s classics like Dark Castle are must-plays, and mid '90s conversions like Wolfenstein 3D are excellent as well.

 

Check out the YouTube channel and website for "Killgruz". He has tons of Mac gameplay videos. I initially thought the Mac was an awful gaming platform, but his videos have definitely proved me wrong: http://www.killgruz.com/?p=222

 

Also, iMac G3 systems are dirt cheap these days. I got mine in great shape for $20 at a local thrift shop. You can get them cheap on eBay as well, but you have to worry about paying for shipping (they are kind of heavy). Mac games are also easily obtainable without paying via abandonware sites. Basically, the cost of entry is very small if you just want to get right to playing games. Now, collecting on the other hand--games can be pricey compared to PC titles. Still, if you just want to play, the cost of entry is very low.

 

 

Really good suggestion. I was a little curious about the backwards compatibility between the PPC Macs and the 68k ones. I did a quick Craigslist search and iMac G3s are dirt cheap and while not quite a dime a dozen, easy enough to find. And with a more or less modern computer getting less than legal software for it seems much easier.

[Emehr]

I was a little curious about the backwards compatibility between the PPC Macs and the 68k ones.

 

PowerPC Macs can emulate 68k code (and games for that matter) fine. In fact, parts of the operating system were still 68k code when PPC Macs were available. I don't think the entire Mac OS was PPC-native until some version of Mac OS 8 (I'm thinking 8.5?). Anyway, much of the compatibility depends on the age of the game. If the game was designed with a window that was meant to take up the entire screen of a Mac Classic, it's going to look weird on a later Mac because it'll just be this tiny, non-moveable window in the upper-left corner of the screen due to resolution discrepencies. Some games may crash. I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error on that part. It all depends on the foresight and programming fortitude of the author and what operating system they were targeting. If it was made in the System 7 days, chances are it will run fine. Any earlier and it's a crap shoot. As a general rule of thumb, I'm leery of any software older than 1993 on PPC Macs.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Emehr

[+FujiSkunk]

Man, the Mac isn't getting a lot of love here!

 

Eh, I loved my Macintoshes, and I loved gaming on them, but even then I knew I wasn't a very demanding gamer. I had Descent, I had the early versions of MAME and a few other emulators, and there was enough on the freeware/shareware market that I was happy with.

 

All of those are much easier and better to play on a modern PC, even Descent thanks to the DXX Rebirth project.

 

PowerPC Macs can emulate 68k code (and games for that matter) fine. In fact, parts of the operating system were still 68k code when PPC Macs were available. I don't think the entire Mac OS was PPC-native until some version of Mac OS 8 (I'm thinking 8.5?). Anyway, much of the compatibility depends on the age of the game. If the game was designed with a window that was meant to take up the entire screen of a Mac Classic, it's going to look weird on a later Mac because it'll just be this tiny, non-moveable window in the upper-left corner of the screen due to resolution discrepencies. Some games may crash. I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error on that part. It all depends on the foresight and programming fortitude of the author and what operating system they were targeting. If it was made in the System 7 days, chances are it will run fine. Any earlier and it's a crap shoot. As a general rule of thumb, I'm leery of any software older than 1993 on PPC Macs.

 

Yeah, anything meant for System 6 or earlier probably won't work very well on a PPC-based Mac. But System 7 and onward, even 68k-era code, should be fine. That's one thing Apple did very well back then, making the transition from 68k to PPC just about seamless.

 

I mentioned the Quadra 700 for those who want to go full retro and run 68k programs on an actual 68k box. But it's not a requirement.

Edited June 22, 2012 by FujiSkunk

[Bakasama]

Ambrosia's shareware classics. Not including their clones, it's worth it for Escape Velocity alone. It's a space game where you start out as a trader and eventually improve your ship with weapons and such. There's like some intergalactic warfare going on and you can choose which side to aid. It's been a while since I played but I remember playing the heck out of it.

 

I love Escape Velocity, I do remember I had problems playing in Classic Mode on my G5 but Escape Velocity Override worked fine.

[Grig]

Maelstrom is a great game on the Apple. So is Legend of Kyrandia (MUCH better than the PC version), and I loved Fate of Atlantis on the Apple over the PC. I'm not a DOS fan but there were so many games available for DOS that they just completely overshadowed the Apple gaming market.

[Rockin' Kat]

If you're curious about old Mac games you could go to google and look up the Macintosh Garden.

 

Trying to think back to the mid 90's... what did I play on my first Mac... hrmm... SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimTower (I played this one a lot), Myst (got real bored with it, real fast), A bunch of weird stuff from Ambrosia software like Harry the Handsome Executive and Aperion, Dirt Bike, Bolo,... Those are the ones that I remember the most... Honestly though at the time I was more into my Sega Genesis for games.

 

I got the computer for school work and didn't have a lot of friends who had macs and did not have the money or really the means to actually go to look for games and pick them out. There were a bunch of other shareware type games I'd picked up at school but all the floppies I had them on went to crap and I had them on floppies because I didn't have enough room on the hard drive.

 

I have a few old Macs. Sometimes I'll play ShufflePuck or some other random game on my SE.

[+Gemintronic]

What's the difference between just installing vMac on your desktop computer and buying a OS9 compatible PC? I wouldn't expect the experience to be anything different especially with a USB Mac keyboard.

 

I own a Bally Astrocade and Vectrex so I'm not adverse to buying the real thing. I also prefer using Macs at home so I'm no hater.

Edited June 23, 2012 by theloon

[madmax2069]

My favorite G3 Mac has to be the Beige/Platinum series (minitower, desktop, all-in-one). They was native G3 systems, took up to 768mb ram, 3 pci slots, some even had the ability to record AV input and output to a tv by what's called wings personality card.

 

I like them over the fruit colored iMac, the iMac and the beige series are basically the same except for the motherboard design and layout and case design, the beige was expandable and had a few other features (wings personality card, or whisper personality card).

 

I own two beige G3 All-in-one. I could not be happier with them, one is upgraded, one is stock. Even though a PPC can run 68k software it doesn't always work, or doesn't work well which is why i have a 68k.

 

As for a 68k i like the pizzabox formfactor, the performa 475 fills that spot. The 475 i own has been upgraded.

 

I also own a Apple IIgs Wich serves a dual purpose due to its backwards comparability with the 8bit Apple II.

 

Yeah you can emulate a PPC, 68k, or a Apple II or IIgs but it will never be the same as running on real hardware due to compatibility issues.

Edited June 24, 2012 by madmax2069

[Thorsten Günther]

Despite that, there were a number of good Mac-only games that popped up, mostly from the freeware and shareware developers. One of my favorites was Maelstrom, an update on Asteroids and a lot of fun to play. An online tank battle game called BOLO was big on campus during my college days.

Seems someone read Keith Laumer novels very thoroughly to come up with that concept...

[+poobah]

My favorite G3 Mac has to be the Beige/Platinum series (minitower, desktop, all-in-one). They was native G3 systems, took up to 768mb ram, 3 pci slots, some even had the ability to record AV input and output to a tv by what's called wings personality card.

 

I like them over the fruit colored iMac, the iMac and the beige series are basically the same except for the motherboard design and layout and case design, the beige was expandable and had a few other features (wings personality card, or whisper personality card).

 

I own two beige G3 All-in-one. I could not be happier with them, one is upgraded, one is stock. Even though a PPC can run 68k software it doesn't always work, or doesn't work well which is why i have a 68k.

 

As for a 68k i like the pizzabox formfactor, the performa 475 fills that spot. The 475 i own has been upgraded.

 

I also own a Apple IIgs Wich serves a dual purpose due to its backwards comparability with the 8bit Apple II.

 

Yeah you can emulate a PPC, 68k, or a Apple II or IIgs but it will never be the same as running on real hardware due to compatibility issues.

 

The Quicksilver G4's are also nice machines, they can boot Classic OS or OS X.

Also, the early SDRAM based iMac G4's can run OS 9 as well.

 

Either of those should be available for $100 or less.

 

I have a 15" flowerpot (imac G4) and a dual CPU 800 Mhz QS G4 in my home for wayward Macs