T he Mac SE was one of the first smash hits from Appleis Mac division. It could be configured with an amazing 4MB of RAM, a copious 40 MB hard drive, and a blistering 16 bit, 8MHZ 68000 processor from Motorola. Snicker if you will, but those were hot specs back in 1987. When you hand your kid her new 1 GHZ G4 iBook sporting OS X Panther, and start to tell her about Macs available in your day, wouldnit it be nice to be able to show her what it was really like back when Paul Simon was telling people to call him Al?
Oh to have a virtual Mac SE, one that you can connect to at anytime, whenever you are feeling nostalgic, or are longing for the simplicity of gray scale on a 9" screen. Well, take heart, because Wired News has a report of two German Web developers who have emulated the look and feel of the venerable Mac SE in a Web site, which we offer to you in this installment of A Cool Waste of Time.
Web SE faithfully replicates the look, feel, and fun of the old Macs from any platform. From the Web SE Web site:
The Web version is not ROM based and only a graphical replica of the original Macintosh System version 7.0. A Homage to the most innovative system in computer history. The official release date for System 7 was in USA at the end of April 1991 and in Europe beginning of June 1991. At the 20 anniversary of the Macintosh we published the WebSE online. A simulation of Systems 7.0 with some extensions - and some limitations. Have fun. The simulation is still in German language, but we?r sure you find out how to use it. We work on international Versions.
Screen shots from Web SE (not Pantheris Safari window):
 The Web SE Desktop |
 Tetris, Grey Scale and all, is very playable. |
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The System 7 emulator is only available in German, but the fun is universal and you should not have a problem figuring out whatis what.
You can find more information at the Web SE Web site, and the Wired News article is also an interesting read.
Do you have a Cool Waste of Time you found on the Internet? Tell Vern Seward all about it, and heis pass it around...