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I'm not sure why this keeps appearing on HN, but I hope it's some kind of postmodern critique of everything that's wrong with our field. This is taking Basilis

I'm not sure why this keeps appearing on HN, but I hope it's some kind of postmodern critique of everything that's wrong with our field. This is taking Basilisk II (which is already a native app that runs on all major platforms!) and recompiling it into javascript, so that it can be run less efficiently and more bloatedly in Electron. Can we please stop doing this to ourselves?

userbinator 5y ago
Adding more abstraction just for the sake of it is definitely somewhat trendy these days, although it's been like that in the industry for a long time; only the extremes the web stuff goes to is a relatively recent phenomenon. The hardware manufacturers probably like this "artificial inflation of requirements"...
tambourine_man 5y ago
On a side note, I wonder if this could run on iPads, since it's just JavaScript. If I could run Photoshop 4 decently, it suddenly becomes interesting.
- bombcar 5y ago
  I believe you can load vMac but you need a developer account: https://namedfork.net/minivmac/ https://namedfork.net/minivmac/ The "browser emulators" might be able to be made to work with iPad Safari.
  - tambourine_man 5y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking on a web site. Avoid the whole App Store thing. But Mini vMac looks cool too.
flohofwoe 5y ago
I really wonder: why wrap it in Electron, instead of simply hosting the emulator as a regular webpage on one of the free hosting services? The "hard part" of making it run in a browser engine is already done. WASM is supported across all browsers with good performance. There is absolutely no advantage of running it in Electron, and it's harder for the user to install (since Windows SmartScreen will most likely block the installation, and the macOS version is distributed as a zip file.
- chacha2 5y ago
  Copyright and hosting presumably. Lot easier to throw an exe on GitHub.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    How? Throw it on GitHub Pages. Same DMCA implications.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Back in the late 90s and early 00s we used to do things like running Bochs[0] instances inside of OSs running on Bochs instances recursively. Back then we thought it was funny, but these days that just seems to be how software works. [0] Hey guys, remember Bochs? https://bochs.sourceforge.io/ https://bochs.sourceforge.io/
- DarmokJalad1701 5y ago
  Bochs was the go-to emulation platform when I tinkered with OS dev in the 00s.
- anthk 5y ago
  Bochs is the best option to setup Windows 98 before loading the final image under Qemu.
tomxor 5y ago
What would have been more interesting is compiling basillisk2 or minivmac to WASM and seeing how well it performs compared to native (I think this may have already been done with the later). That might actually result a good convenience performance trade-off allowing for some interesting use cases: e.g popping a quadra emulator with a specific disk image into an arbitrary web page as an interactive figure in an article commenting on some part of personal computing history. But transpiling it to JS and then wrapping in electron... just seems like some weird masochistic exercise in how to make things worse for no benefit. then again: > Should this have been a native app? Absolutely. Maybe the author was fully aware of that, but this makes me wonder what their motivations were.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  > Maybe the author was fully aware of that, but this makes me wonder what their motivations were. Shits and giggles, possibly. There's something deliciously ironic and outright hilarious when totally mismatched platforms from different time periods are mashed together like this, and it still works somehow.
shp0ngle 5y ago
Technically, Basilisk doesn’t run natively on M1 macs, but seems to be running fine with Rosetta intel emulation :)
- bombcar 5y ago
  It should be possible to run a PowerPC emulator (Sheepshaver?) on M1 using x86 Rosetta, and in that emulator run original Mac programs and get 4 layers of emulation.
  - dunnevens 5y ago
    It's been some years since I played with it, but I think vMac worked on PPCs? If so, then you could run vMac inside of Sheepshaver and get 5. If the early version of Virtual PC works in vMac, then you could get 6. If someone knows of an emulator that would run under early 90's DOS, then you could get to 7.
  - travisbhartwell 5y ago
    Yep, I've done this very thing on my M1 Mac Book Air: See my Tweet [1] with a screenshot. -- 1: https://twitter.com/travisbhartwell/status/1358288382913179649 https://twitter.com/travisbhartwell/status/13582883829131796...
tl 5y ago
I played with both this and Basilisk II when it hit HN about 9 months ago. Basilis kII is harder to setup, mostly driven by fears of hosting Mac roms leading to incomplete instructions and shady download sites. And Mini vMac (like Basilisk II but for older Macs) was also far easier to get up and running. Macintosh.js is one download and ships with a handful of interesting productivity tools and games. Why Basilisk II cannot do the same (one is as legal as the other) is an open question.
- slacka 5y ago
  > fears of hosting Mac roms leading to incomplete instructions and shady download sites I'm a bit of an emulator hobbyist and have played with the native version of Basilisk II. If you weren't an outsider and part of the communities on reddit/discord you'd know the torrents trackers to use (public and private). Sure, there are shady sites, but that's not the emulators fault. And the fix is definitely not killing the good performance of a native emu by transpiling it to JS. Improved documentation could help send new users down a better path.
  - rvanlaar 5y ago
    I wish the community made it easier to find this information. Which reddit and discord should I sub to?
    - slacka 5y ago
      /r/ClassicMacGaming/ and /r/emulation legit roms sign up at pleasuredome
- bombcar 5y ago
  Clearly Macintosh.js doesn't care, and if Apple whips them with a DMCA they'll just go away (it's a toy project).
  - dylan604 5y ago
    What would be the point of the DMCA though? I understand it is Apple, and their infinitely funded lawyers need something to do. However, this is an old and dead OS that generates $0 income for them. If this was a method to use modern/current release of the OS without buy Apple hardware, then I could understand the lawyers.
ARandomerDude 5y ago
A project like this is purely for fun anyway. Maybe the author thought an Electron version would be a fun side project? Edit: interestingly, it looks like he also has a Windows95 emulator in Electron. https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95 https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95
- dmitrybrant 5y ago
  That's even more bizarre, since that uses the "v86" emulator, which can literally run in a browser tab with one click: https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows95 https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows95
yesimahuman 5y ago
Something can be fun and ridiculous without it being some kind of critique on our field. Last time I used Basilisk II to set up a Mac 8 VM there was considerably more work involved to get it working. With this I'm deep in nostalgia in just a few clicks. This is purely awesome.
jackcviers3 5y ago
Maybe we should make electron more efficient?
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  Or maybe we should blast it into the sun. On a more serious note - something went terribly wrong if we consider it a good idea to keep wrapping (slow) abstractions and wrappers around things which work perfectly fine.
Forge36 5y ago
>Should I use this for [serious application]? >Probably not. This is a toy - it's not the best nor the most performant way to emulate an old Macintosh. It is, however, a quick and easy way to experience a bit of nostalgia if you're not trying to do anything serious with it. This accomplishes it's goal and an interesting/unique way to learn about many different technologies and how they can link together. That it brought someone joy is not a good reason to deride our field.
coldnose 5y ago
Hear hear

userbinator 5y ago

Adding more abstraction just for the sake of it is definitely somewhat trendy these days, although it's been like that in the industry for a long time; only the extremes the web stuff goes to is a relatively recent phenomenon. The hardware manufacturers probably like this "artificial inflation of requirements"...

tambourine_man 5y ago

On a side note, I wonder if this could run on iPads, since it's just JavaScript. If I could run Photoshop 4 decently, it suddenly becomes interesting.

bombcar 5y ago
I believe you can load vMac but you need a developer account: https://namedfork.net/minivmac/ https://namedfork.net/minivmac/ The "browser emulators" might be able to be made to work with iPad Safari.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking on a web site. Avoid the whole App Store thing. But Mini vMac looks cool too.

flohofwoe 5y ago

I really wonder: why wrap it in Electron, instead of simply hosting the emulator as a regular webpage on one of the free hosting services? The "hard part" of making it run in a browser engine is already done. WASM is supported across all browsers with good performance. There is absolutely no advantage of running it in Electron, and it's harder for the user to install (since Windows SmartScreen will most likely block the installation, and the macOS version is distributed as a zip file.

chacha2 5y ago
Copyright and hosting presumably. Lot easier to throw an exe on GitHub.
- qeternity 5y ago
  How? Throw it on GitHub Pages. Same DMCA implications.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

Back in the late 90s and early 00s we used to do things like running Bochs[0] instances inside of OSs running on Bochs instances recursively. Back then we thought it was funny, but these days that just seems to be how software works. [0] Hey guys, remember Bochs? https://bochs.sourceforge.io/ https://bochs.sourceforge.io/

DarmokJalad1701 5y ago
Bochs was the go-to emulation platform when I tinkered with OS dev in the 00s.
anthk 5y ago
Bochs is the best option to setup Windows 98 before loading the final image under Qemu.

tomxor 5y ago

What would have been more interesting is compiling basillisk2 or minivmac to WASM and seeing how well it performs compared to native (I think this may have already been done with the later). That might actually result a good convenience performance trade-off allowing for some interesting use cases: e.g popping a quadra emulator with a specific disk image into an arbitrary web page as an interactive figure in an article commenting on some part of personal computing history. But transpiling it to JS and then wrapping in electron... just seems like some weird masochistic exercise in how to make things worse for no benefit. then again: > Should this have been a native app? Absolutely. Maybe the author was fully aware of that, but this makes me wonder what their motivations were.

selfhoster11 5y ago
> Maybe the author was fully aware of that, but this makes me wonder what their motivations were. Shits and giggles, possibly. There's something deliciously ironic and outright hilarious when totally mismatched platforms from different time periods are mashed together like this, and it still works somehow.

shp0ngle 5y ago

Technically, Basilisk doesn’t run natively on M1 macs, but seems to be running fine with Rosetta intel emulation :)

bombcar 5y ago
It should be possible to run a PowerPC emulator (Sheepshaver?) on M1 using x86 Rosetta, and in that emulator run original Mac programs and get 4 layers of emulation.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  It's been some years since I played with it, but I think vMac worked on PPCs? If so, then you could run vMac inside of Sheepshaver and get 5. If the early version of Virtual PC works in vMac, then you could get 6. If someone knows of an emulator that would run under early 90's DOS, then you could get to 7.
- travisbhartwell 5y ago
  Yep, I've done this very thing on my M1 Mac Book Air: See my Tweet [1] with a screenshot. -- 1: https://twitter.com/travisbhartwell/status/1358288382913179649 https://twitter.com/travisbhartwell/status/13582883829131796...

tl 5y ago

I played with both this and Basilisk II when it hit HN about 9 months ago. Basilis kII is harder to setup, mostly driven by fears of hosting Mac roms leading to incomplete instructions and shady download sites. And Mini vMac (like Basilisk II but for older Macs) was also far easier to get up and running. Macintosh.js is one download and ships with a handful of interesting productivity tools and games. Why Basilisk II cannot do the same (one is as legal as the other) is an open question.

slacka 5y ago
> fears of hosting Mac roms leading to incomplete instructions and shady download sites I'm a bit of an emulator hobbyist and have played with the native version of Basilisk II. If you weren't an outsider and part of the communities on reddit/discord you'd know the torrents trackers to use (public and private). Sure, there are shady sites, but that's not the emulators fault. And the fix is definitely not killing the good performance of a native emu by transpiling it to JS. Improved documentation could help send new users down a better path.
- rvanlaar 5y ago
  I wish the community made it easier to find this information. Which reddit and discord should I sub to?
  - slacka 5y ago
    /r/ClassicMacGaming/ and /r/emulation legit roms sign up at pleasuredome
bombcar 5y ago
Clearly Macintosh.js doesn't care, and if Apple whips them with a DMCA they'll just go away (it's a toy project).
- dylan604 5y ago
  What would be the point of the DMCA though? I understand it is Apple, and their infinitely funded lawyers need something to do. However, this is an old and dead OS that generates $0 income for them. If this was a method to use modern/current release of the OS without buy Apple hardware, then I could understand the lawyers.

ARandomerDude 5y ago

A project like this is purely for fun anyway. Maybe the author thought an Electron version would be a fun side project? Edit: interestingly, it looks like he also has a Windows95 emulator in Electron. https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95 https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95

dmitrybrant 5y ago
That's even more bizarre, since that uses the "v86" emulator, which can literally run in a browser tab with one click: https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows95 https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows95

yesimahuman 5y ago

Something can be fun and ridiculous without it being some kind of critique on our field. Last time I used Basilisk II to set up a Mac 8 VM there was considerably more work involved to get it working. With this I'm deep in nostalgia in just a few clicks. This is purely awesome.

jackcviers3 5y ago

Maybe we should make electron more efficient?

lpcvoid 5y ago
Or maybe we should blast it into the sun. On a more serious note - something went terribly wrong if we consider it a good idea to keep wrapping (slow) abstractions and wrappers around things which work perfectly fine.

Forge36 5y ago

>Should I use this for [serious application]? >Probably not. This is a toy - it's not the best nor the most performant way to emulate an old Macintosh. It is, however, a quick and easy way to experience a bit of nostalgia if you're not trying to do anything serious with it. This accomplishes it's goal and an interesting/unique way to learn about many different technologies and how they can link together. That it brought someone joy is not a good reason to deride our field.

coldnose 5y ago

Hear hear