With Your Web Browser, You Can Test Every Old Mac OS Version

macOS has a long history, beginning with the barebones System 1 in 1984 and progressing through the Unix-based Mac OS X overhaul in 2001 to its current macOS version. You may now simulate each phase of the journey in your web browser.

Infinite Mac is a virtual machine “library” that aims to host every major release of classic Mac OS prior to Mac OS X 10.0. You can use it to launch an emulation of 1984’s System 1 or as recently as Mac OS 9, published in 2000. That version was released one year before Apple entirely redesigned its operating system with Mac OS X, which evolved into what we now know as macOS.

System 3.3, 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, and 5.1 — Mac OS versions from 1987

Infinite Mac does not presently have every version described. While the online emulator can run the majority of them, some releases cannot be found online or emulated. This website compiled as many images as it could and adapted popular emulators Mini vMac and SheepShaver to WebAssembly for usage in web browsers. It’s a technically impressive effort.

“The final gallery includes every important system software release (I’m sorry, fans of System 7.0.1),” developer Mihai Parparita stated in a blog post. Perhaps in the future I’ll go back and backfill everything, but for now, producing 36 bootable images was sufficient. I attempted to make the browsing experience as nice as possible – each release has a permalink, and you can open things in new windows by command-clicking on the “Run” button. Certain releases are only compatible with specific Macs, while others can operate on various machines (I built a library of machines using the Apple ROMs spreadsheet and Mac ROMan) — which machine is used may be selected via the “Customize” button.”

If you want to try out these old macOS versions, go to Infinite Mac. Again, you don’t need much more than your browser.

Source: persistent.info