If every moment of your Macintosh experience has been on a version of the operating system released after 2001 you may have wondered what things looked like in years prior. The Version Museum has a lovely collection of screenshots you can view for a glimpse of life prior to Mac OS X, but pictures can’t do justice to what it was really like.
Now, thanks to the fabulous Infinite Mac project by Mihai Parparita you can experience Apple’s System 6, System 7, Mac OS 8, or Mac OS 9 with just a web browser on your modern computer.
These sites will promptly send you back in computing time:
https://system6.app – released in April of 1988 – Wikipedia article about System 6
https://system7.app – released in May of 1991 – Wikipedia article about System 7
https://macos8.app – released in July of 1997 – Wikipedia article about Mac OS 8
https://macos9.app – released in October of 1999 – Wikipedia article about Mac OS 9
Best of all, you don’t get to just experience the operating system. Each site is a virtual Mac that includes applications, games, utilities, and even AppleTalk so you can see what networking was like in the pre-internet days.
Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to find your own beige classic Mac and experience the joys of installing software from floppy disks and CD’s, pushing a beige non-optical mouse around, and using a clacky beige keyboard for some great retro Macintosh computing.
