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floren parent
I recently acquired an old iMac running OS 9. I'd like to play around with interesting old software, but half my attempts to download things off e.g. Macintosh Garden have resulted in a file on my desktop the system can't seem to use. Are there any good guides for what to do and how to do it on a classic Mac? I've got Myst installed but that's been the extent of it.
chongli
To open those old archives you need to get StuffIt Expander [1]. Once you have that installed, you'll be able to extract any .sit archives (unless they're corrupted).

Edit: If you're looking for some interesting software to run on OS 9, Macintosh Garden has Photoshop 7 [2] as well as Illustrator 7 [3]. It's extremely cool that you can get this old software for free now. Those applications are still highly capable for serious editing and design work.

[1] http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/stuffit-expander-55

[2] http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/photoshop-7x

[3] http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/adobe-illustrator-7

Gracana
You may also need to open the files from Stuffit, rather than just double-clicking, as they may have lost their type and creator codes.

You should also get Disk Copy to mount disk images.

virusduck
Oh man Stuffit really takes me back....
klodolph
.img -> disk image, open with built-in tools (Disk Copy), copy to hard drive, then unmount it

.bin -> MacBinary, uncompressed binary format containing one file, use MacBinary or Stuffit

.hqx -> BinHex, uncompressed ASCII format containing one file, use BinHex or Stuffit

.sit -> compressed Stuffit archive, use Stuffit

.sea -> self-extracting archive, must be wrapped (.bin or .hqx is common), run it as a program

.cpt -> compressed Compact Pro archive, use Compact Pro or Stuffit

You can drag a file onto the Stuffit application icon and it will open in Stuffit. This is a feature I sorely miss when I am using Windows or Linux.

yjftsjthsd-h
> You can drag a file onto the Stuffit application icon and it will open in Stuffit. This is a feature I sorely miss when I am using Windows or Linux.

I thought dragging a file onto an executable in Windows did open the file with the executable? Dunno about *nix, though if it doesn't work it should be easy enough to implement.

klodolph
I just went and tried, and apparently you need to shift-drag. So, on Windows, the default action for dragging an HTML file onto Google Chrome, in the taskbar, is “pin to Google Chrome,” and “open with Google Chrome” is what you get when you hold the shift key down. I think this might make sense in some kind of fantasy world.

My general expectation is that dragging and dropping is a great way to discover an easier way to do something on a Mac, at least if you have a mouse and not a trackpad. I can drag a file into a terminal and get its full path, with escapes as appropriate. I can drag a folder into a “save” dialogue box and the dialogue box will move to that folder. I can drag an application off the Dock and remove it.

My general experience on Windows is that if you try dragging and dropping something, it may perform some kind of action, and it may be consistent about how it performs that action, but it is rarely the action I want to perform. Drag a file into a save dialogue? Obviously, I wanted to move that file into the folder that the save box was browsing!

My general experience on Linux is that drag and drop is utterly broken and will never work so I might as well give up. Even copy and paste is hell on Linux.

walrus01
a few years ago arstechnica tried using an OS9 computer as a 'daily driver' for fun, they detail some of the challenges encountered:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/my-coworkers-made-me...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/an-os-9-odyssey-why-...

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