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| Messages - Nightingale | |
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1
Software / Re: Websites that work with System 7 browsers
March 02, 2026, 14:26 |
Here’s a throwback website I found that still works in old browsers, and will be a fascinating read for anyone who hasn’t heard of it: http://mojavephoneboothbook.com Enjoy! |
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2
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
July 03, 2025, 01:26 |
Just an update for anyone who may have played the shareware version of the game - the full version of the game is now available as a "pay what you want" digital download: https://criminalcaterpillar.com/product/angry-robots/ Suggested price is $15 CAD ($11 USD), but you can download it for $0 if you like. I'm doing this because I'd still like to track how many people download the full version of the game. You do need to visit this page a modern computer to complete the "purchase" even if you pay $0. But you can just purchase on a new computer to get your serial number, then download the game on your old mac here: http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com Once you've got the shareware version, you can enter the serial number you purchased on your new computer. Enjoy! |
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3
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
December 13, 2024, 02:46 |
Thanks everyone! Yes, the shareware version is free to download on the website, and if you want to purchase a code to unlock the full version, you can do that on the website, without the need for any shipping. If a physical boxed version of the game is more your style, I ship worldwide! |
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4
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
December 12, 2024, 00:47 |
Happy to announce that the game is finished, and you can download the shareware version of the game for free today!! Visit http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com to download the game from your 68K or PPC Mac. If you like the game, and you want to purchase the full version, you can unlock the game by purchasing a serial number or you can buy a full boxed copy of the game, complete with floppy disk and colour manual! You will need to use a modern computer to do that, however! Excited for people to try out the game and send me your feedback! |
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5
Software / Re: Globaltalk - Marchintosh project
March 27, 2024, 22:44 |
It's always been on my "to do" list to integrate my Local Talk network with the rest of my LAN with an ethernet bridge, but I've just never gotten around to it. I'm not sure I would expose it to the internet, though. Although I often wonder if all of these old systems with all of these unpatched vulnerabilities have actually ended up being secure again in a way, since no one would think to look for them any more, or know how to exploit the vulnerabilities if they even knew what they found? |
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6
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
March 27, 2024, 22:39 |
Thanks for the testing! Glad B&W is running smoother now. The game does check whether colour is available on startup, and if it's not available, it would disable colour as an option and start in B&W mode. But if you made the decision to run in B&W mode even if colour was available, the game will remember that and start in B&W mode next time. As it happens, I just forgot to re-enable colour mode before stuffing the file! At this point, I think I've optimized as much as possible, so users who have colour available but find it a bit sluggish will be able to manually switch to B&W. |
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7
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
March 26, 2024, 16:47 |
Jatoba - appreciate the testing! If it didn't run well on a G4 I would be concerned. But it just goes to show how much Apple was committed to backwards compatibility in those days. That something that was designed to run on a 1986 Macintosh Plus on one of the first commercially successful GUI operating systems also runs well on a "modern" G4 Mac Mini is a testament to the longevity of the original Macintosh. Sad that Apple has seemingly abandoned that commitment with their new systems, dropping compatibility for old software after only a few years when they move to a new architecture. But alas, I digress. Bolkonskij - Apologies if this is a stupid question, but did you enable colour mode in the Options menu? I realize now that I had colour mode disabled by default in the options menu. I am glad to hear that B&W mode runs more smoothly. That furthers my suspicion that the emulator I'm using is not good with System 7. And unfortunately (for testing purposes) newer emulators run way too fast to get any idea of what it would be like on real hardware. |
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8
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
March 24, 2024, 21:09 |
Things are indeed moving along! I think we're on track to release the game on schedule in May. There will be a Shareware version available for download, in addition to both the boxed copy and digital download being for sale on my website. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted! I've re-written a few graphics routines to try to make things more efficient, and I appreciate the testing you folks did with the earlier demo. I wonder if there are some System 7 folks on here who could help me out with a quick test? The System 7 Today users so far have been the most helpful for testing and giving feedback. Angry Robots will run on any Macintosh in black and white, and runs well even on a 68000 CPU. However, using colour mode requires Color Quickdraw, which, from what I've been able to deduce, is only available in ROM if you are using a machine with a 1MB ROM. Basic QuickDraw, even on colour capable systems, can only display 8 colours, and using it would require a substantial re-write of the way the game gets graphics and draws them to the screen. So that means any Mac with a ROM smaller than 1MB will need to run System 7 in order to make use of Color QuickDraw. In my emulator testing (since I only have so many old macs), using Mini vMac II, colour mode is laggy. The game runs fine in an emulator in B&W using System 6. However, since I am using System 7 to get access to Color QuickDraw, I assumed running in colour was the slow part. But when I disable it and use Basic QuickDraw for B&W in System 7, it runs just as slow. So I'm starting to think that maybe the emulator is just slow at running System 7, and maybe it has nothing to do with Color QuickDraw. This is where I would appreciate if a few people could do some testing on real machines to see if my theory holds true. I've created a simple test application here (http for old systems). If you have access to an older colour-capable Mac, would you be willing to download this file and test this for me? I would like to know: - Which Mac model are you using? - Try running the game in both colour and B&W modes in both System 6 and System 7. Just walk your robot quickly from one side of the map to the other to see how the scrolling looks. - Does it run smoothly in both modes in both systems? Or is it laggy? Will it even run in colour under System 6? I would greatly appreciate the feedback from anyone who is willing to run this test for me! |
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9
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
November 17, 2023, 00:13 |
Thanks for the testing, everyone! Mostly the reason the game even has mouse control is for the Mac Plus I have which I haven't been able to get an affordable keyboard for! I'm also not a huge fan of mouse movement. I'll take a look at my drawing routines and see if there is any where else to improve efficiency. I have already improved the efficiency a lot since the initial concept, so I don't know if I'll be able to speed up the drawing any more. One of the fun parts of developing for vintage systems is figuring out how to get the most out of a limited system to get the best results! Interesting that you say it's more noticeable with keyboard vs mouse control. I have hard coded a keyboard repeat rate rather than using the system repeat rate to stop people from adjusting the repeat rate in the control panel to be able to play the game faster or slower. So if you hold your cursor key down, it will move at the same rate as the mouse movement. But if you mash the arrow keys, you can move as fast as your fingers can take you. So I wonder if you're moving faster, and that's causing you to see the redraw more than with the mouse. If you just hold the cursor key down it should look the same as if using the mouse. I spent a few weeks experimenting with different systems for controlling how fast you can move the robot. It was about striking the right balance between timing the movement to work with the mechanics of the game versus making the game feel responsive and initiating movement as soon as you hit a key. Ultimately this is what I chose, knowing I would probably revisit later. If you have a system that has Color QuickDraw, it will use the more memory intensive colour routines even if you manually change the game to black & white in the options menu. So I may also consider re-writing that so it uses the basic quickdraw routines if you are in B&W mode to make it draw more efficiently. If the flickering bothers you, you could force this mode right now by adjusting the allotted memory in the Finder Info window down to 400k. If it doesn't have enough memory for colour it will load in true B&W mode. I'll give this more thought and put it on my list of things that need attention. |
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10
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
November 12, 2023, 15:08 |
Thanks for testing on the IIci! I was able to test using the following ROMs in an emulator: Mac II FDHD & IIx & IIcx And it crashed. So I'll have to do further research, but I'm assuming that any mac with a 512k ROM has Color QuickDraw in ROM, and should work fine. The IIci has a 512k ROM, so that makes sense. I've fixed a bug in the game where it was incorrectly checking for Color QuickDraw, so now if you launch on a system that doesn't have Color QD available it will launch in B&W mode instead of crashing. However, if you boot System 7, you will always have color QuickDraw. In emulation, I've now discovered that the game is very laggy in colour mode on anything less than a 68030 CPU. So I may addd a check to see what your CPU is and disable colour if running on an older CPU. But I'm not sure I'm ready to do that based on emulation alone. Does anyone have a colour capable 68000 or 68020 that can boot System 7 that would test this for me? As for getting a boxed copy of the game without going through kickstarter, I will produce extra copies and have them on my website, target launch date is May! Thanks again! |
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11
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
October 25, 2023, 00:44 |
There actually is a "cheats" menu, which currently is enabled by changing a setting in ResEdit: http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com/images/cheats.gif I actually forgot to delete the TMPLs in ResEdit from the latest version of the demo I posted, so an industrious person could probably figure out how to enable it... I have used the cheats largely for level testing, if I don't want to have to work through an entire level to get to a certain part I'm testing. I was planning to leave it in as an undocumented feature, but I think in the final release, I will implement a key combo or something to enable the cheats menu. And then there is the "Practice Mode" which disables the clock. Also, if you fail at a level 3 times in a row, it will ask you if you want to skip the level and you can come back to it later. For shipping, I am in Canada, but have a good shipping company that has reasonable rates worldwide. It's about $20 shipping to anywhere outside Canada and the US. Since my prices are all in Canadian dollars, everyone is delighted to learn that the game is cheaper than they thought it was once converted to their local currency! Thanks to everyone doing some testing for me! I'll continue to refine the website to make it work on more browsers, but I suspect anyone who is actually trying to browse the web on 68k Macs is probably using iCab at this point. |
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12
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
October 24, 2023, 00:05 |
I hate it when games make you change the colour depth or screen resolution before they will launch! Angry Robots runs in a window, and it checks the screen depth at startup. If the screen has at least 4-bit color depth (16 colours) then it will start in colour mode. Otherwise, it will launch in black and white. So no interaction is needed from the user. If you want to run it in black and white on a colour screen for that nice nostalgic 1-bit colour feeling, you can turn colour OFF manually. I have done lots of testing in Basilisk II, albeit on System 7, and it runs fine. I see no reason it shouldn't work in Mac OS 8, but hoping to get lots of people to try it on lots of different hardware before it's finalized in case I need to fix anything. One thing I haven't tested (because I don't have the hardware to do so) is whether it will work in colour on Macintosh II systems running System 6. As I understand it, these systems did not have Color QuickDraw in ROM, which I rely on for colour mode, since Basic QuickDraw was only capable of 8 colours. But it should run no problem is System 7 on these systems. |
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13
Software / Re: Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7
October 23, 2023, 12:45 |
Hey everyone! I’m the developer behind this game and love to see all the corners of the internet that have been reached with the announcement of this game! If you’re interested in getting a copy of the game when it is released in May, there is a kickstarter running. You can buy a physical boxed copy of the game, complete with a box, manual, and 800k disk. The kickstarter is fully funded, which means I can confirm the physical release will be happening, but there are still 22 days to go if you want to get in on it. The old-computer friendly site is tested and working well in iCab, but I tried it yesterday in Netscape and it’s a little janky, so I’ll have to do some adjustments. I had forgotten the joys of writing custom css to work with every different browser on every different platform! Maybe some things have improved since the old times… I’m also going to go get rid of the animated GIFs on the homepage and replace them with static images, as they are very slow to load on a 68k Mac. So if you are on a new computer, I’d love it if you’d check out the kickstarter. (modern browser needed) If you’re on an old computer, head over to the legacy site today and download the demo! I’d love to hear any feedback on the game so far. http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com |
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14
Software / Re: Websites that work with System 7 browsers
April 08, 2021, 00:49 |
I see no reason why you couldn't host it on your LAN if you had a computer with a webserver installed, along with any other necessary software like PHP. I haven't looked into it yet, although I am planning to. Hosting it on an internet-facing webserver would end up using a lot of bandwidth I assume, so hosting on your LAN seems like a much better approach, if it can be achieved. Maybe this weekend I'll give it a try and let you know how it works! |
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15
Software / Re: Websites that work with System 7 browsers
April 02, 2021, 16:05 |
Frog Find and 68k news, those are great! I will use those all the time. What a great resource! |
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