Apple Does It Again

[Lucidus]

Last year I installed Windows 10 under Boot Camp on my iMac, specifically so that I could play some older games that I love: the original Avernum trilogies, Heroes of Might and Magic III, and a few others. Now Apple has announced that they will be transitioning to ARM processors, and at some future date it will no longer be possible to install Windows on a Mac.

 

I am currently approaching the endgame in Avernum (I have completed all the minor quests, but still have a few things to do, like Bahssikava, before going after the Demon Lord.), and despite the clumsiness of the navigation, I am thoroughly enjoying myself. A few years ago, when the revised trilogy was just coming out, I delayed updating my OS just so I could play through the original games one more time. I was not happy to lose the ability to enjoy these games, and once again I am saddened by the prospect.

 

I don't even want to imagine the headaches it will cause Jeff.

[Randomizer]

This is why you keep old computers and hope they will function. Eventually old games don't run on newer operating systems and there is only so many versions that will be backwards compatible so you can still play them.

 

I'm not looking forward to the next generation of Apple computers since they won't be compatible with older games. Jeff finished upgrading his iPad versions for Avernum 1 to 3 remakes and Avadon 1 to 3 for the new engine, screen sizes, and guidelines.

[ThomasCats]

General disgruntled agreement.

[Lucidus]

Randomizer, I still have my old PowerPC G5, which doubled as a space heater, and the Sony monitor I used with it. They haven't been turned on in many years, but they probably still work. I will have to find a keyboard and mouse to use with them; periphals tend not to last as long as computers (at least, when you are talking about Apple computers).

 

The hardest thing about resurrecting older gear is the software. I used to know someone who was an expert in older versions of MacOS, but he is now thousands of miles away (and I don't know how to reach him online).

 

In the meantime, I will just continue to enjoy the Windows ports of A1 through A6, and then - ta da - Blades! But it has always been my intention to get the older stuff working again. If only I had infinite space and time.

 

(ETA: I also like some games that were never available for MacOS. I suppose I will keep my current iMac as my Windows gaming machine.)

Edited June 28, 2020 by Lucidus

[Thaeris]

I just kind of want to vent some frustration here: The OS I'm moving to is Linux, and it's quite shiny and new. The OS in particular is Solus. One thing I find very bothersome is that some of the higher-ups there seem to think that because some packages are old or unsupported, they are not needed. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I enjoy is the older software, or it's software that relies on those older packages. Linux being Linux, if you know how, there's probably a way around the problem. Unfortunately, if you don't (that's me) it makes it very hard. That said, I sympathize with your dilemma. Even "back in the day" this was an issue. I remember Hornet 2.0 would not run on Mac OS9, and it really made me upset...

 

...Fortunately, there ultimately was a way around this many years later. Emulate Mac OS7, and finally, I can play Hornet again! On that note, I am confident there will be a solution in the future for whatever issue you have. In the meanwhile, I'm sorry for your trouble!

[ladyonthemoon]

The original Avernum series exist for Mac; the first time I bought the games was for Mac. Can't you get the Mac version if you already own the Windows one? I didn't dare asking but maybe you could.

[Thaeris]

You might be in luck! I only had two Spiderweb games in full growing up, Avernum 2 and Nethergate (having the latter, given its current lack of availability, is kind of cool these days), both of which were on very nicely printed CDs. Both of those games shipped with the Windows version. The Windows partition of the CDs also shipped with demos of the games Jeff didn't have for Mac as well - neat little time capsules! If you have the original hard media, it couldn't hurt to drop them into your drive and find out what happens.

 

...You also might try emailing Jeff. Otherwise, you might try and see if the GOG versions have what you need, though that might require a little bit of money.

[ladyonthemoon]

21 hours ago, Thaeris said:

The GOG versions

 If a game has been built for Windows, Mac and Linux, you get the three of them when you buy it from GOG. Not sure Steam does that.

[Thaeris]

That is generally true of GOG - I don't know about Steam, never used it on my end personally. The one thing to bear in mind is that the specific version for a given OS is something you generally can't work with. If you needed a really old version of a Mac game, say OS9 or earlier (still in the PPC era), you probably won't find those anywhere except from the realms of the abandonware sites, which might be a taboo subject (even amongst us Avernites!).

 

...Then there are games which could work on other platforms, but they are not configured for it, etc. I wanted to have a "legal-feel-good" version of Fleet Defender, so I bought that recently. This is a DOS game, so it should run fine under Linux via DOSbox. However, GOG does not currently have a Linux version from Retroism at this time.