Macintosh

One of the common definitions of "retrocomputing" is "more than 10 years old", such as used by the http://classiccmp.org mailing list. For Macs, that happens to pretty much perfectly fit the line of "Old World" / "New World". That is, pre-iMac and post-iMac. Of interest to hobbyists includes, especially, the compact Macs and the Mac II line, though as time goes on, early PowerPC Macs may qualify as "historical computing". Early Macs are certainly often the first computers many younger people today encountered and have great sentimental value for many people.

Systems

Macintosh II

The Macintosh II series. System 4 through 7.5 depending on model. Can run NetBSD.

MacOS

Classic 68k and PowerPC Macs are notable not so much for their hardware (though they tended to be more sophisticated and use higher-end components than other personal computers of their eras), but their for their operating system, MacOS, Macintosh System Software... it goes by a few names.

A few notes for anyone trying to get an old Macintosh running.

The SCSI partitioning tool that comes with all versions of MacOS will REFUSE to partition a NON Apple hard disk. There is a hack to alter the tool so it will, or the easier way out is to use the install diskettes from A/UX.

A great resource for boot floppies can be found here. I used them to get a PowerMac 5400 back into action.

Emulation

Today, both 68k and PowerPC macs, as well as right up to the latest versions of OS X are all emulate-able, with varying degrees of ease. We'll concentrate on emulating "old world" Power PC and Motorola 68k based Macs here.

Mini vMac

Mini vMac emulates the old Macintosh Plus. It's 68000 only, and really suited for MacOS 1.x - 6.x, although 7 can run, it's not very usefull in a maximum of 4mb of ram.

Basilisk II

Basilisk II is the de facto official emulator of the MacOS 68k environment. It's important to note that the emulator is highly customized toward running MacOS inside it, and will not handle AU/X or modern UNIXes written for 68k Macs. See the Wikipedia article for more information. Guides and compatibility tables and so on will be posted here later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk_II

SheepShaver

SheepShaver emulates the first generation PowerPC Macintosh models. Please note that SheepShave will *NOT* run OS X. SheepShaver is good for emulating OS 8 & 9, for those that still need it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheepShaver

PearPC

PearPC is a 'new world' PowerPC emulator that is capable of running OS X. Keep in mind, that it is VERY slow, sometimes upwards of a factor of 40x slower per clock then with a PowerPC (a 2Ghz p4 performs like a 40Mhz PowerPC...)