The latest version of the Mini vMac emulator has been released. The Paul Pratt managed project is now in version 3.2.3 of the emulator. The Mini vMac emulator emulates a 128K Macintosh and runs on a variety of platforms including Mac OS X. One requirement is that you have a 128K Macintosh ROM in file form. The operating system on the other hand is little problem as Apple, Inc. has released all Apple OSes through 7.5.5 as freeware.
The Latest release has a number of fixes and new features including:
- Auto scrolling: If the emulated screen is larger than the real screen while in full screen mode, the emulated screen will be scrolled to keep the mouse pointer in view. (Previously only the top left corner would ever be displayed, and even that didn’t work quite right.)
- “AutoSlow”: Mini vMac will automatically shift down to 1x speed if there is no activity for a while. This helps to preserve the battery on portable computers.
- In OS X, changing the screen configuration, such as switching between using the internal screen of a MacBook Air and an external screen, would tend to make Mini vMac stop drawing.
- In OS X, if the screen configuration changes when in full screen mode, Mini vMac will turn off full screen mode, instead of just leaving the emulator window at a size that is now wrong.
- In OS X, may now have a viable work around for misbehavior of the operating system calls to hide and show the cursor. The most easily reproducible such situation was when the computer went to sleep and then wakes up, the real cursor would end up visible.
- In OS X, the operating system can sometimes bring up a dialog, such as for force quit (upon command-option-escape), and Mini vMac wouldn’t notice, leaving the real cursor hidden, making the dialog hard to use.
The original vMac project at www.vmac.org is long abandoned but Paul has done a good job of picking up and continuing the project. The program and a ton of information is available from the Mini vmac website including the latest version and manuals for getting started. For more information about the Mini vMac project, check out their website on Source Forge at:
