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MyrkridianRhapsody

Q: Which laptop?

Hello-I have a few questions that may be hard to answer.

I have an old mac plus that ran system 4.0 that had a bunch of old games such as artillery, dark castle, etc. About ten years ago I had a powermac 6300 (I don't recall what system it ran), that played some other games like prince of persia, Lucas arts games (sam & max, multiple star wars games), Marathon 1, etc. I still have all of the disks to all of those games (some are on cd, some are on 1.4 mb floppy, some on 800k floppy), but I don't have the computer anymore (the mac plus' monitor quit working.). I used to play those games all of the time growing up, and I wish I could just have a system that could play the games if I wanted to-they're quite nostalgic to me.

I found a program called basalisk II which emulates the old 6-7-8 systems. I tried playing some of them, and a few worked and most of them didn't. The ones that did work didn't play too well, and the sound was terrible. It's understandable when you're running OS X, emulating OS 7.5.3 or 8.1 playing games that were written for even earlier OS's. So I'm looking for a better option, which is why I am here. I see the older powerbooks, even the early G3's can run system 8.1 (my powermac G4 can't). My question is, which powerbook would be best suited to run all of my games? I need a cd drive and floppy drive. I would think the G3 powerbooks would work great, but I'm not sure if they are going to like the really old games. I don't know whether it is even possible to find one computer to run app's spanning 4 OS generations, but I seem to remember doing it a while ago so. I thought maybe some of you guys on here could give me some help. Thanks in advance!

G4 Dual 1.4 Ghz Mystic-30,150 & 180GB HD's-1.5gb RAM-Fan Mods-Multiple OS's, Mac OS X (10.4.10), Radeon 9800 PRO dual 21" displays-usb2.0card-AttoUL3D 243 GB SCSI ultra320 RAID

Posted on Nov 19, 2007 11:15 AM

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Q: Which laptop?

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  • by jpl,Helpful

    jpl jpl Nov 19, 2007 1:03 PM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody
    Level 7 (28,285 points)
    Nov 19, 2007 1:03 PM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody
    Rhapsody,

    If you wanted a G3, the Powerbook G3 Series M4753 "Wallstreet" was the last of the "Old World ROM" machines. It has the legacy ports (SCSI, serial, and ADB) and came with an optical drive; the floppy drive was optional and could be used in either the left or right media bays. Minimum OS was a special MacOS 8.1 (required a Powerbook G3 Enabler) so if you don't have the original system disks, OS 8.5 retail is the next usable version.

    I also have a Powerbook 1400; it came with an optical drive and an optional floppy drive (swappable media bay). The minimum OS is a special OS 7.5.3 (requires the Powerbook 1400 Enabler) or a retail OS 7.6.1. These powerbooks are dirt cheap and I am planning on dispensing with mine.

    The Powerbook 3400 lies between the 1400 and G3; it also has a special MacOS 7.6/7.6.1 (Powerbook 3400 Enabler) or a retail OS 8.0, plus has the swappable floppy and optical.

    No powerbook earlier than the 1400 had an optical drive.

    As far as emulators running older versions of OSes, I have no experience but Grant or someone should jump in.
  • by MyrkridianRhapsody,

    MyrkridianRhapsody MyrkridianRhapsody Nov 19, 2007 1:41 PM in response to jpl
    Level 2 (470 points)
    Nov 19, 2007 1:41 PM in response to jpl
    I did have my eyes on a 3400, but I just figured that the G3 would make more sense if it could run everything, since it's faster. I have an old service source cd that has OS's from OS 6 all the way to 8.1 and is bootable in 8.1, and that was what I was planning to install. Sounds like the 3400 would probably make more sense then.
  • by MyrkridianRhapsody,

    MyrkridianRhapsody MyrkridianRhapsody Nov 20, 2007 6:22 AM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody
    Level 2 (470 points)
    Nov 20, 2007 6:22 AM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody
    Nevermind-I solved my own problem. All of the old games run on OS 9. I didn't even bother trying for some reason...

    Thanks for your help, but I'll pass on the old laptop.