Mini vMac: Vintage Macintosh Emulator

Mini vMac is an emulator written by Paul Pratt that recreates a vintage B&W Macintosh Plus. It supports up to System 7.5.5 with 4MB of emulated RAM. The great thing about this compact emulator is that it runs on multiple platforms (MacOS, Windows and X) and takes only a few minutes to get up and running. Oh, and it's free.

Follow the jump for download and installation instructions that'll transport you back to the early 1990s within minutes.

First, grab the necessary files:

• Download a copy of Mini vMac for Windows, MacOS, or X from SourceForge.
  
• You'll need a ROM image [vMac-ROM.zip] from a genuine Mac Plus.
  
• Get a boot disk from Macintroid. If you're seriously retro, the System 6.0.8 image includes ResEdit 0.8, MacWrite 2.20, MacDraw 0.9, MacPaint 1.5 and TeachText. It's great for quick mucking around (I used it to to generate the screenshots). 
  
  You can also download E-Maculation's Mac OS 7.5.5 starter disk, which includes System 7.5.5 and the Stuffit Expander 5 installer.

Now that you've downloaded everything, put it all into the proper place.

• Create a vmac directory. I created a vmac folder at the root of my PC's hard drive.
  
• Unzip the Mini vMac application into your new folder.
  
• Unzip the vMac.ROM file into the new folder.
  
• Unzip the System 6.0.8 image (vBoot.dsk) or the System 7.5.5 image (Starterdisk.hfv) into the new folder. You can copy both files if you want to taste both flavors of vintage MacOS.

Double-click the Mini vMac icon to start the emulator. You'll see the Mac startup screen prompting you to insert a disk. Select "Open Disk Image..." from the file menu, choose vBoot.dsk (System 6.0.8) or Starterdisk.hfv (System 7.5.5) and you'll be up and running in a few seconds...