Mac OS 8 emulator available as a downloadable application

Mac OS 8 is now available as an application for macOS, Windows and Linux, reports The edge.

Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has transformed Mac OS 8 into a single downloadable app for modern macOS, Windows, and Linux devices. Having previously transformed Windows 95 into an application in 2018, Rieseberg turned his attention to transforming a 1991 Macintosh Quadra complete with Mac OS 8.1 into a single Electron application.

The application, titled “macintosh.js”, is written entirely in JavaScript and uses a virtual machine to emulate a Macintosh Quadra 900 with a Motorola CPU that Apple used prior to its transition to the IBM PowerPC architecture. The project has not been approved by Apple and is provided for educational purposes only.

The macintosh.js application includes a number of applications and games from a 1997 MacWorld demo CD, and includes Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, and the Apple Website Building Kit. The app can also run classic games like Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Dungeons & Dragons, Namely, Oregon Trail, Alley 19 Bowling, and Damage Incorporated. Although Internet Explorer and Netscape are pre-installed, Rieseberg says the versions are so old that “it couldn’t even open Google.”

Originally released in 1997, Mac OS 8 represented a significant revision of classic Mac OS software and integrated many of the technologies developed for Apple’s Copland operating system. Due to delays, deadlines, and dysfunctional management, Copland was never released commercially and is considered one of the biggest IT project failures in history. Mac OS 8 was the remnant of Copland OS, and is credited with having helped modernize Mac OS while Apple was developing Mac OS X.

Hobbyists have started making classic versions of macOS available on modern devices in the past, such as the Internet Archive collection of classic Macintosh software that can be emulated in a browser.