What to do with a classic Mac?

[Ze_ro]

A while ago (quite a while ago in fact), I found an old Mac LC-II at the thrift stores... for $30, the whole thing (with monitor) was mine. I've never been much of a Mac fan, but I figured the price was good enough. The machine has an 80MB hard drive, with about half of that free. Whoever owned it before me had already installed enough software to get online (assuming I had a modem), as well as Excel, Word and some other basics, so at least I have that going for me. Are there any other interesting programs or games that are worth trying out on this machine? I think it's running System 7.0.1, but there are some files that say 7.5, so I'm thinking the previous owner botched an upgrade attempt. Plus, the machine takes forever to boot up due to a ton of extensions that I'll likely never use, so I'm considering just wiping the hard drive and starting from scratch. Anyone got any advice?

--Zero

[Cantaloup]

First, you might want to check out these two threads, which discuss Mac gaming:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31365&highlight=
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31400&highlight=

The LC II should be able to handle many games released in the late 80's and early 90's. However, most 3D games of that period, like Doom, X-Wing, Descent, and so on, are probably beyond its capabilities. Pathways into Darkness and Marathon (both early FPS from Bungie) might be barely playable. Games like SimCity and Civilization may also be OK, though it's been awhile so I'm not totally sure. Check out the Mac Garden (http://mac.the-underdogs.org/) at The Underdogs (seems to be down right now) to get a sense of what was available.

For shareware games, try Swoop, Apeiron, Chiral, and Maelstrom from Ambrosia Software (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/all.html); these are listed as requiring "Any Color-Capable Macintosh".

BTW, if you need the System Software, Apple has 7.5.3 available for download (http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/).

[Jorpho]

LC-II? Not so bad, that; I thought this thread would be about a Classic.

Anyway, there's probably no need to run System 7.5.3 (which can actually be updated to System 7.5.5 for free). There are several websites dealing with old Macintoshes who advise sticking with a version of MacOS suitable for one's hardware.

Just google for "old Macintoshes" and numerous very useful sites will come up, such as http://www.nicholaspyers.com/articles/19960201-usesforoldermacs/ . As for those extensions, see Extension Overload (http://www.xoverload.com/extensionoverload/).

[Ze_ro]

Cool, I'll have to check some of this out. I'm using a monochrome monitor though, so I'm not sure how much gaming goodness I'll really be able to have (It gives a nice, crisp picture though!)

Anyways, I've run into another problem. I figured I'd at least get copies of Rogue and Moria on the machine, so I stuck them on a disk, put the disk in my Mac, and then tried to read it. The Mac just labels all the files as "PC Exchange" files, and nothing recognizes them. I tried Googling to see how to convert these to legitimate Mac files, but it seems that System 7.5 includes built-in stuff to convert these, so finding a seperate program is a little tough... And this also begs the question: Since my only means of getting software on the Mac is via PC formatted disks, how would I get a PC Exchange converter on there in the first place?

If I try to stick all those System 7.5.3 disk images on the Mac, will I still get this file conversion problem?

Oh, and while I'm posting... I tried setting the year to '04, and it thinks I mean 1904. This thing isn't Y2K compatible?

--Zero

[Jorpho]

Ah, yes, I know this unpleasantness well, I think. Actually, I was under the impression that PC Exchange barely ran at all under System 7.0.1; check the Apple menu ("About This Macintosh") to determine the current OS version.

I assume the games you found were compressed stuffit (*.SIT) files. The first thing to try is to just drag-and-drop the files onto Stuffit Expander and see if that works. Sometimes it does (and I think you have to do this for MacBinary-encoded BIN files or BinHex HQX files), but otherwise...

You know how PCs use file extensions to associate files with programs? Macintoshes use two case-sensitive four-letter strings to identify the Type and Creator of a particular file. For instance, Stuffit files tend to have a Type of SIT! and a Creator of SITD.

Naturally, there is no built-in way to conveniently edit a file's Type and Creator. There should be a PC Exchange control panel where you can associate PC file extensions with a particular Type and Creator, though. Other programs that come to mind include Resedit (http://www.resexcellence.com/support_files/resedit.shtml), Snitch (http://www.niftyneato.com/) (an extension that adds an extra panel to a Get Info menu; you may need to look for an older version), and Type Resolve.

[Ze_ro]

check the Apple menu ("About This Macintosh") to determine the current OS version.
Well, "About This Macintosh" tells me that it's running 7.0.1... but there are a bunch of programs on the machine that complain that they need 7.5, and there's a file on the hard drive that discusses all the features of 7.5... I'm not sure what the previous owner had going on here.


The first thing to try is to just drag-and-drop the files onto Stuffit Expander and see if that works.
I feel really stupid asking this... but where do I drag the file to? If I run StuffIt, all I get is a different title bar with it's options (I've tried using "Open" to open these PC Exchange files, but they refuse to show up in the file selector). If I try dragging a .sit file onto the StuffIt executable, I just end up copying the .sit file into the same directory.


There should be a PC Exchange control panel where you can associate PC file extensions with a particular Type and Creator, though.
Aha! Success! I didn't notice this option there before, but I was finally able to tell the Mac that .sit files are indeed to be opened with StuffIt (Although I find it a bit odd that this only seems to work for files that are on disk... PC Exchange files on my HD seem immune to this program). I was able to extract Ultima 3 and play that... Moria just gave me errors about the archive. I figured it was made with a different version of StuffIt, so I tried installing StuffIt 5.x, and it complains that I don't have System 7.1.1... Le sigh...

Alright, so now that I have this PC Exchange thing sort of working... I have a couple of other things in .sea.hqx files... what should I be associating these with? And what about these .bin files for System 7.5.3?

--Zero

[Cantaloup]

Since my only means of getting software on the Mac is via PC formatted disks, how would I get a PC Exchange converter on there in the first place?

I suggest keeping the Mac files compressed or encoded after download, and then expanding/decoding them on the Mac with StuffIt Expander or a similar utility. There are 4 major formats from that I can remember from that time:

StuffIt format (.sit) -- a compression format that retains additional Mac information (like .zip, but for Macs)
Compact Pro format (.cpt) -- like .sit, a competing format
Mac Binary (.bin) -- this is an encoded format that keeps all the extra Mac file information intact
Binhex (.hqx) -- another encoded format like .bin, but this is encoded as text so it could be sent as e-mail etc.

StuffIt Expander can be downloaded free from Aladdin Systems (http://www.stuffit.com/mac/index.html), but you may need to find an older version, since the current version requires OS 8.6 or later. Try the Info-Mac archives (http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html) . They have some older StuffIt versions there, as well as other utilities that may help (for example, you can search for "macbinary").


Oh, and while I'm posting... I tried setting the year to '04, and it thinks I mean 1904. This thing isn't Y2K compatible?

It should be Y2k compliant. Check here:

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1049.html

Dates being set at January 1, 1904 sounds like a dead battery. Look here for info:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=11751


Alright, so now that I have this PC Exchange thing sort of working... I have a couple of other things in .sea.hqx files... what should I be associating these with?

SEA stands for self-extracting archive. First you need to de-binhex the file (.hqx) with StuffIt Expander, which will create a program that you can double-click to decompress the archive. When in doubt, drop it on StuffIt Expander.

EDIT: I just thought of something. If you only have a monochrome monitor, you may want to run System 6.0.8 (ttp://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_6.0.x/) instead of System 7. More details can be found at System 6 Heaven (http://www.euronet.nl/users/mvdk/system_6_heaven.html).

[Jorpho]

[quote]There should be a PC Exchange control panel where you can associate PC file extensions with a particular Type and Creator, though.
Aha! Success! I didn't notice this option there before, but I was finally able to tell the Mac that .sit files are indeed to be opened with StuffIt (Although I find it a bit odd that this only seems to work for files that are on disk... PC Exchange files on my HD seem immune to this program). I was able to extract Ultima 3 and play that... Moria just gave me errors about the archive. I figured it was made with a different version of StuffIt, so I tried installing StuffIt 5.x, and it complains that I don't have System 7.1.1... Le sigh...

The idea is that when PC Exchange sees new files on a PC floppy, it will assign new Type and Creator data to each file. In fact, if you look at the floppy on a PC afterwards, you'll find a bunch of miscellaneous directories (some of them hidden) where PC Exchange stores this data. So, no, it won't reassign files that have already been copied to your hard drive.

I'm sure there's an older version of Stuffit Expander out there somewhere that works... If you get really desperate, you can try downloading Basilisk II and do the decompression on your PC.

[Ze_ro]

Well, I've had some success... One of the huge problems I've had so far is that I had no means of extracting BinHex or MacBinary files on the Macintosh itself. StuffIt 3.0.3 is apparently too old to handle either of them, and everywhere I tried to find programs that DID handle them, they were always in BinHex or MacBinary format themselves!

Luckily, I found that I have Compact Pro sitting on the hard drive, and it had an option to extra BinHex 4 files... I tried it, and it kept telling me that the files were corrupted. Eventually I realized that since BinHex files are essentially just clean text files, I tried opening them up in a text editor, and they were an enormous mess! Turns out that my browser had been saving them wrong (I think Mozilla was trying to do the extracting for me, and fucking it up all along). So, I finally managed to get a "clean" BinHex file and put it on the Mac, and Compact Pro STILL said it was corrupt. Eventually I realized that since I'm downloading this stuff using a Linux machine, the files are in Unix text format, which the Mac doesn't like. So I converted them to Dos text files, and it finally was able to open the BinHex files. Sheesh.

However, I still can't use PC Exchange to actually associate .hqx files with BinHex 5.0... If I try to, the only file type it lets me convert to is TEXT, and BinHex just loads up as if you clicked the executable. This isn't a huge problem, since the program still works at least, but it would be nice of it to actually open files on a double click.

Also, I managed to get MacBinary II+ onto the Mac, but it doesn't seem to work properly. It claims that you're just supposed to drag and drop .bin files on it, and it'll extract them... but as far as I can tell, you can't drag and drop like this in System 7.0.1. Trying to run MacBinary II+ on it's own doesn't work either, since it just loads up and promptly closes itself. Is there any other way I can extract these files?

--Zero

[Cantaloup]

Sounds like you have an old version of StuffIt, and not StuffIt Expander, which is a newer program and probably what you need. I found StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 at the Umich archive (http://www.umich.edu/~archive/mac/), under util/compression. I suggest you try that one and see if it helps.

You may also want to look at this page:

http://www.pure-mac.com/compen.html

As for drag and drop problems, you may want to try rebuilding your desktop. You can do this by holding down the command and option keys when rebooting until the Finder loads (note that this will wipe out any comments in Get Info windows).

You may also want to look for a utility that will convert text formats/linefeeds on the Mac, which might save you some hassle with .hqx files.

[Jorpho]

Well, I've had some success... One of the huge problems I've had so far is that I had no means of extracting BinHex or MacBinary files on the Macintosh itself. StuffIt 3.0.3 is apparently too old to handle either of them, and everywhere I tried to find programs that DID handle them, they were always in BinHex or MacBinary format themselves!

I'd be kind of surprised about that; MacBinary is a pretty old standard. (As Cantaloup suggested, is it really Stuffit Expander?)


However, I still can't use PC Exchange to actually associate .hqx files with BinHex 5.0... If I try to, the only file type it lets me convert to is TEXT, and BinHex just loads up as if you clicked the executable. This isn't a huge problem, since the program still works at least, but it would be nice of it to actually open files on a double click.

Another wonderfully confusing thing is that, unless I am gravely mistaken, BinHex 5.0 is MacBinary, and if you try to feed it an HQX file, it will spit gibberish back at you. Try using it to decode MacBinary files instead of MacBinary II+. (See www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330,3012757,00.html+%22Binhex+5.0%22&hl=en]this (http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:ou1IBvxyT2YJ:[url) cached TechTV article[/url].)

And actually, I also seem to recall that Linux and Unix in fact use the same line termination standard in text files (one character), and DOS is the odd one out (using two characters per line termination). However, PC Exchange probably expects DOS text files and is set up to remove one line termination character anyway.

[Ze_ro]

Try using it to decode MacBinary files instead of MacBinary II+.
Aha! It worked! I can finally get to using this thing now instead of just fighting with it. Thanks a lot! I'll try the 7.5.3 install tomorrow, at which point I'm sure I'll be back here asking questions ;)

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

Well, 7.5.3 installed properly :) Thanks again for your help guys... yet another computer saved from the scrap heap.

--Zero

[Jorpho]

Like I said, don't forget System 7.5.5 (http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/System_7.5.5_Update/). (Don't worry, this one is much smaller.)

[Flack]

If you can find it, check out a game called Spectre. It's a vector based 3D capture the flag type game. I used to play it in our old Journalism lab all the time. I've since picked up the PC version as well. You can also play this game over a network. Works great with either mono or color.

http://mac.the-underdogs.org/index.php?show=game&id=139

[Ze_ro]

I remember playing Spectre VR on the PC... I liked it quite a bit, although Stellar 7 had it beat in my opinion (although both are available on the Mac I think).

I'll have to try out the 7.5.5 upgrade tonight.

--Zero