First ever Apple Mac OS version - System 0.8.5 (1983)

This video shows the first known version of Mac OS, System 0.8.5 (Finder version 1.0), running in the Mini vMac emulator on Windows. This version of Mac OS was never supplied with any Macs, you will notice that it is dated in the About screen to 1983, long before the January 1984 release of the first Macintosh computer. It was instead only supplied as the underlying operating system on the bootable Tour floppy supplied with the first Mac in 1984, apparently because there was some kind of problem that meant the Tour application would not run properly under the Mac OS 1.0 that the Mac was supplied with, so they had to use the older pre-release OS instead. The user would never have seen this OS as the Tour started full-screen immediately, but this copy has been extracted from that floppy and as you can see it is possible to run it as a standalone operating system.

You'll see several curiosities compared with the release versions of Mac OS, such as "This space for rent" in the Scrapbook application instead of the default pictures supplied with the released versions, the 5.25" floppy drive that the Compact Mac in the system icons has compared with the 3.5" drives that all Macs shipped with and the icon in the release version showed (presumably this means Apple considered releasing the Mac with a 5.25" drive instead), the Training menu on the top menu bar, and the strange second floppy disk that always shows on the desktop (there is only one disk inserted in the virtual Mac but a second "ghost" one always appears in System 0.8.5.

Category:

Science & Technology

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[winterslicker4]

wow. thnks. can u tell me where u downloaded it, 'cos i can see it's running in windows. i have VISTA, and will it work on that version to?

[BeigeG3]

@winterslicker4 It's just the Mini vMac emulator, it runs on any version of Windows and many other operating systems too, and is the simplest Macintosh emulator - just search online to download the emulator, you'll also need to find a disk image of the Mac OS version(s) that you want to run in it.

[h4x0y]

which apple commercial was this song originally used in?

[BeigeG3]

@h4x0y It is used by Apple in the Leopard and Snow Leopard first-run videos, I don't remember it being used in a commercial though it may also have been.

[BSapproved]

Can someone please reply and tell me the song? If you do reply you will be BSapproved;)

[BeigeG3]

@BSapproved Exodus Honey - Honeycut - it is used by Apple in the Leopard and Snow Leopard first-run videos

[BiggestAppleFanboy]

I want that maze app!

[Mastermind12358]

@BeigeG3

thanks! :)

[BeigeG3]

@Mastermind12358 The Mini vMac 128k emulator, which emulates the original 1984 Macintosh.