Run Apple Mac OS 8 as Portable App on Desktop Computer

Apple Mac OS 8 was released in 1997 and now it is available in the form of a portable app that can be run inside your Windows PC. The app called Macintosh.js is also available for macOS and Linux computers.

As you must have guessed, the Macintosh.js is designed using JavaScript and Electron. It is really not exactly like running a virtual guest operating system inside a host system as you would do using Virtual Box. Macintosh.js is just an emulation and it only lets you experience the good old days of computing as it existed in the late 1990s.

The app emulates a Macintosh Quadra 900 computer running Mac OS 8.1. It lacks some of the software tools that would be present in the original Mac OS 8.1 for the obvious reason. Furthermore, it comes with some additional software which is placed inside the folders labeled Apps and Games. There is also a folder called “Sick Videos” which contains two game videos.

Macintosh.js

You will find some of the popular programs of the 90s in the package such as Adobe Photoshop 3.0.5, Adobe Dimensions 2.0, Adobe Streamline 3.1, Adobe Illustrator 5.5, Adobe Premiere 4.0.1, Stuffit Expander, wwwArt and more. For accessing the websites, it comes with Internet Explorer 3.0.1 and Netscape Navigator 3.0.1 even though there is no option to connect to the internet from within the Macintosh.js emulator.

The games that come with this emulator include Duke Nukem 3D which was a smash-hit game of those times, Dungeons & Dragons, Civilizations II, Alley 19 Bowling,  Damage Incorporated, and Oregon Trail. Some of these games and applications are available only in the trial versions. But as nobody is really going to use them, they are enough to experience that nostalgia of old Mac OS 8.1 days.

You can download Apple Mac OS 8 in form of a desktop application from https://github.com/felixrieseberg/macintosh.js.