BusinessWeek Logo

How Many Personalities Does Your Mac Have?

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on April 14, 2006

Last week’s news about Boot Camp, and Parallels – both fascinating and distinctly different ways to introduce Windows to Intel-based Macs – has had me thinking about the various computing environments I’ve been running on various Macs – mostly just for fun — for years.

I thinking about the multi-personality Mac, I’ve been reminded of the other computing environment I run on my Mac from time to time just for kicks: That of my the first computer I owned – a Commodore 64.

It was a great machine – there were a lot of good and not-so-good games that supported it – which I traded my Commodore-owning friends in school. But other kids in school had Apple II’s. This situation caused a good bit of debate – the kind that still rages between Mac and Windows users. In truth I liked them both.

I still play some of those Commodore 64 games on my Mac using an emulator called Power64, which I absolutely love. If you can track down ROM images of games or other software you loved on the C-64, you can probably run them on the Mac using this emulator. Over the years I’ve blown more than a few hours playing games like Frantic Freddie, Karateka or Jumpman.

Tell me about your favorite emulators in the reader comments below.

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.businessweek.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/

Reader Comments

fred freutel

April 14, 2006 08:43 PM

Virtual ][ by Gerard Putter, excellent Apple 2 emulator.

Søren Ladegaard

April 15, 2006 03:09 AM

Yup - I remembember the C64 too. That's why I created a site about Commodore emulation from a Macintosh perspective. Get info on C64, Amiga, music, demos etc. from

www.thinkcommodore.com

Cheers,

Søren Ladegaard - Denmark

Raphael Chan

April 16, 2006 09:28 AM

Instead of having various personlities, I would rather like my mac to always be a mac. I just like the combination of Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.

I like to idea of Bootcamp. It gives me choices (which is in most cases a good thing). However, I hate the idea of "a Windows program running inside OS X". It just doesn't match! Just like playing the gameboy Pokemon software with an emulator. It feels weird.

I like choosing the right thing for the right job. (Macs for digital life, Windows for work and PlayStation for gaming.)

Beeba

May 2, 2006 01:53 PM


I have used Basilisk, which emulates old Motorola 68k-running Macs of the past-- like the IIsi or Quadra 630 (both of which I have actually owned in the past), on both OS X and Windows. It's great to play some old games that way.

MAME (multiple arcade machine emulator lets you virtually pump quarters into a faithful Z80-based arcade game replica from the 80's. Pacman, Donkey Kong, etc...

Priscilla Petty

May 5, 2006 12:11 PM

The Mac has lost its way. I've bought 3 I-Macs; 3 laptops, one 15", two 17" and urged my sons and friends to do the same. Never again. My new G4 Powerbook has had everything wrong with it possible and has been out of service more than in. This is from day one. I can't trust it to use it. Yet Apple will not replace it. If you think you're buying a Mac for dependability, as I did, think again. They've become just as lousy as any regular PC.

Post a comment

 

About

A blog on the daily doings of Apple and the many companies in its orbit, with insight and analysis by two longtime Apple-watchers BusinessWeek Senior Writer Peter Burrows and BusinessWeek.com Senior Technology Writer Arik Hesseldahl.

RSS Feed: Byte of the Apple

Leave us a voice message. Learn more.

BW Mall - Sponsored Links

Buy a link now!