Want To Run Your Old Apple ][ Warez? Get Catakig!
June 19th, 2000

Catakig 1.1.6 (Freeware)
Colin Klipsch

For those who were bit by the computer bug in the late '70s and early 80's, you may have had a chance to dabble with one of the Apple ][ series of machines. Of course, today's Mac blows it away in just about category. But if you want to get a blast from the past, and experience some of those older titles, you'll need an emulator. Fortunately, today's Mac can emulate an Apple ][ without breaking a sweat. Enter Catakig.

Catakig provides the foundation for emulating an Apple ][, Apple ][+ or Apple //e machine. You'll need a few things not included with the package to get started, though. The first is a ROM image for the machine you'd like to emulate. You can go through the hassle of extracting the data from an actual Apple ][, but it is probably easier to do a bit of surfing to track the file down. The excellent documentation will point you in the right direction.

Once you've found a ROM, you'll then need some software to run. You can either convert your existing titles to one of the several disk image formats that is supported by Catakig, or you can do some more surfing and you're bound to find some archives of old titles. Since virtually none of these titles are sold any more and/or the company that made it no longer exists, you shouldn't feel too naughty if you do find the title somewhere online.


Remember Good Ol' PRODOS?

One of the more interesting features of Catakig is the ability to have multiple emulation sessions active, so that you can switch among several different applications. You can also perform emulation at 200% and 400% of normal. And if you want to capture your screen for later viewing, you can take a screen snapshot.

Have any other Mac OS Gadgets you'd like us to look at? Let John know via e-mail, or share it with the rest of us in the Mac Gadget Forum.