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| Author | How about a 'Video' section? (Read 14621 times) | ||||||||||
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cballero
1024 MB  Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever 
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on: March 10, 2021, 15:50
Now I know having too many forum sections would just clutter the place awfully, but an area that has potential and in practice poses a challenge is 68k video generation, usually from conversion schemes. I have been in pursuit of this goal for several years. Early in the Mac space, Apple knew that digital video was of huge interest and they were very active in that space, so it's amazing to see what they were able to do with the humble processing power available through their Macs back then. QuickTime really helped to harness and showcase video technology on the Mac and even with the physical bottlenecks they managed to squeeze so much from so little. 68k Macs mostly used the Cinepak codec, of which a Pro version allowed for the best video compression under certain conditions where video would end up more blocked with the standard Cinepak codec. A site that really showcases that era is Cornica.org. I applaud the magnificent efforts of one of our own members for the resurrection of this site where you can enjoy Classic Mac videos. The culmination of video technology in the 68k years came in the form of several video-focused Macs. They showcased these technologies in several Mac models, including the Macintosh TV, a limited-edition black Mac with a TV tuner, the Performa 580, the Quadra 630 and lastly, the exciting Quadra 660av and 840av Mac models. These came with a special DSP video chips pretty much equipped with hardware designed for video processing. A few third-party hardware manufacturers even took uncompressed video through Nubus to allow high-level video editing on Nubus-based Macs. Everything changed with the introduction of PowerPC-based systems and even more video-focused hardware and software technologies. The PowerPC Motorola chips were couple with the Sorenson codec to produce better compressed video in a smaller format than what was possible in 68k Macs. The only downside was that in order to play this encoded format your Mac had to either be a PPC Mac or be upgraded to one. Nowadays, as more and more people emulate the Mac OS, this trend is opening up new doors and interest, especially since the hardware that is used in emulation has greater processing power than the Macs the Mac OS originally ran on. Mini vMac II and Basilisk II can both emulate 68k Macs running System 7, Basilisk II can emulate 68k Macs running System 8.0 and 8.1, SheepShaver can emulate PPC Macs running 8.5 through 9.0.4 and QEMU can emulate PPC Macs running 9.0.4 through 9.2.2. For practical purposes, S7T would focus on the first two emulators. Apparently, Fusion is a capable DOS-based 68k emulator that can run System 7, similar to Mini vMac. Which brings up yet another potential section to consider: Mac emulation. Many places online already cover how to do this, but System 7 is ideal for this because of its more modest hardware requirements, and with the introduction of the Android port of Basilisk II, practically everyone can run it on their phones and tablets. It all comes down to outlining easy-to-follow using the KISS method: keep it simple stupid, lol. When those familiar with technology work on things like this, we sometimes forget who the Mac was designed for: those who are adverse or could care less about the internal workings of computers. System 7 started the personal computing experience for the masses, so I feel it would be equally fitting to dumb-down the setup process as much as possible to make it more accessible to people who just want to experience the Mac, not have to build one in their garage like Steve Jobs and Wozniac did. For that section, maybe a simple page with the basic pieces needed and a printable, one-page how-to and on what the steps are, and then for advanced users, they can be pointed to additional resources on the subject online like emaculation.com. I don't think a forum section would be needed for emulation. Again, these are just some ideas.. 
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #1 on: March 10, 2021, 17:54
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Well, as the one behind Cornica.org I can hardly negate the awesomeness of Quicktime and the pioneer work Apple has done in that field. :-) As for the emulation suggestion: I can understand how this is interesting for some people, especially those feeling nostalgic and wanting to "play one more time with System 7". As you know, I always prefer the "real thing" and I for one don't think that software emulators are the future. (a FPGA is a different story, but that's for another topic) So I couldn't possible help out writing a KISS guide. I think, however, I know just the right person competent and eloquent enough to do it! :-D Would make a great tutorial for the System 7 Today website - so I can count you in? ;-)
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #2 on: March 10, 2021, 18:38
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Well now (that I have) pushed (myself) into that corner, why not!  I did do a wiki on Basilisk II at the Garden, so I imagine that it could serve as a starting point for the System 7 emulation guide. Done! Here it is: https://macintoshgarden.org/emulating-a-mac-android-device Lol, it was written one year and four days ago  Again, it can serve as a starting point, and since I wrote it, I don't see why it can't be mirrored here!
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