When the Raspberry Pi went on general sale ten years ago, the barebones, low-cost computer harked back to the past while looking towards the future. The idea was that users would learn how to program computers once more, evoking memories of the era of the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum and a myriad other machines on which millions of people cut their coding teeth.
While many Pi users have done just that, the computer has proven fruitful in other ways. The various versions of the small single-board computer have formed the heart of many projects, from magic mirrors and weather stations to robots and orreries. But an ability to emulate vintage computers and consoles has arguably caught users’ imagination the most.
The free software library RetroPie, for example, lets people revive the Amstrad CPC, Dragon 32, Commodore 64, Master System, Neo Geo, Oric, TRS-80 and Vectrex, among many others. Raspberry Pi has also in effect become a near-perfect Amiga thanks to the distro Amibian (amibian.org).
Recently, our heads were turned by a new tool created by Jarosław “Jaromaz” Mazurkiewicz called MacintoshPi. This open-source project allows users to run full-screen versions of Apple’s
Mac OS 7, OS 8 and OS 9 (all released between 1991 and 2001), and it does so complete with sound, an active internet
