It comes with a few games to begin with, and there's also built in access to the Interactive Fiction Database, so you can grab as many text-based adventures as you'd like -- hours and hours of text-based good times. Whether you're an old hand at GET LAMP or new to the surprisingly vast world of IF, Frotz seems like a perfect portal to all the adventuring there is to find out there.

[via Joystiq]

This takes me back to the 10.1/10.2 days, before anyone had invented decent webmail, the days when I still used Eudora and loved it. Passion for Eudora aside, I still experimented with alternative email clients (everybody did, right?), and one of those was GyazMail.

It was actually pretty good, at the time, and a serious rival to Apple's then-still-young Mail. In recent years I'd rather forgotten about it, but lo and behold, here it is popping up with new updates.

This new release kills a bunch of bugs and tweaks a few features, but what impresses me most is that the update is available for Jaguar users, with a separate (Universal Binary) version for those on 10.3 or later. That's what I call legacy support.

If you have a creaky old Mac that still serves you well running one of these older big cats, and you need a mail client for it, GyazMail is well worth a glance.

Earlier this week, we pointed out an unboxing video of a pristine 20th Anniversary Mac. Of course, they're underpowered by today's standards, but many Apple collectors love them. To find one still sealed in its original factory box is a rare indeed.

During the video, we got a look at the obnoxious introductory QuickTime that shipped with these things, which begins, "There are some things in life which capture one's soul." Capture my soul? You mean the TAM is a ghost trap?

Check out the fancy CG graphics, self-important narration and the glinting TAM itself. Many thanks to propstoyou22 for sending us the video.

It's not every day that you can buy a brand new computer that's over 10 years old, but Alfred DiBlasi managed it: an eBay find of an original Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, fresh in the box. In the 22-minute unboxing video (more than ample even by our standards) Al and his buddies remove the artifact from another era from its packaging and boot it for the first time. Zoom ahead to the 20:00 mark to watch the delightfully pretentious "Design Is Art" QuickTime intro movie (worth YouTubing on its own, if possible) and enjoy the Michael Hedges-esqe (possibly actually Michael Hedges) soundtrack.

While the TAM may have been a poor bargain when it was introduced in 1997 (2 GB hard drive and 32 MB of RAM in a machine costing $7,500?) it still wears a striking titanium gray silhouette, and we know that sleek, forward-looking design can command a premium price today. I hope Al gets all the enjoyment out of it that a decade-old computer can possibly provide.

Thanks Eric & Blake!

When I think about a computer, I usually don't think about a 5-ton assembly of brass gears, cams, and steel rods. Yet in 1847 - 1849, Charles Babbage first created his design for the Difference Engine No. 2, a large mechanical computer that used these non-electronic components.

Nathan Myrhvold, former Chief Technical Officer of Microsoft, commissioned the building of a Difference Engine No. 2 based on Babbage's design. It's on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and will soon grace the living room of Myrhvold's home.

What does this have to do with Apple? In this MarketWatch video, it's mentioned that Babbage had problems getting funding for a device that was considered to be ahead of its time. It kind of reminds me of Apple's Newton MessagePad. It was the progenitor of all PDAs and smartphones, but failed in the marketplace because of its price and the fact that few people understood what it was good for.

The video also highlights Daniel Janisch, PowerBook Guy, who upgrades and sells antique PowerBooks (8-year old "Pismo" PowerBooks, for example). You can run Tiger on the Pismos, but they're often abandoned for the new kids on the block.

Thanks to Jomo for the link!

24 years ago today the public could, for the first time, buy themselves a Macintosh computer. This little computer, which cost $2500, changed the way people interact with machines on a very real level. It is also the reason that TUAW exists. Without the Macintosh 128k there would be no TUAW, no Mac, and (most likely) no Apple.

Sound off in the comments if you bought one of those first Macs and share your story of how it impacted your life.

Thanks to everyone who reminded us about this.

Dr. John Zoidberg is my TV Boyfriend. My husband knows, accepts, and understands. So imagine my surprise when TV Squad's Richard Keller posted about how Futurama's Zoidberg got his name. Sure, yadi yadi background stuff and then...Apple II assembly language? Wow cool!

Futurama creator David X Cohen wrote Zoid back in the rocking '80s, when Brøderbund was a gaming force to be reckoned with--although it never actually was released to market. Instead they passed on the software and Cohen was forced to entertain us with cryogenics and one-eyed mutants and, well, you know the rest of the story. "Zoid" inspired the name for my darling Zoidberg, the Dr. McCoy with a mail order medical degree.

Now here's where it gets interesting and TUAW-ish. Cohen still actually has his original Zoid game on a 5.25-inch floppy disk and, according to TV Squad, wants to find someone capable of ripping it for use on an Apple II emulator. Any volunteers? We at TUAW have no idea how to get in touch with Cohen but, hey, we thought we'd throw this one out there and see if we can make Internet magic happen!

Now open your mouth, and lets have a look at that brain!

Here's an awesome project from over at 123Macmini-- James Colby hollowed out a Classic Mac, and stuck a ripped apart mini in there along with a new LCD, took Finder out of the interface and sent it straight to Front Row, and bingo-- a Classic mini jukebox. And I especially like that the Classic was named Morris and the (10 minute old) mini was named Frank, so together, they're Frankenmorris. Cute.

It's a tight fit to get all that stuff in there and working, but it's even more amazing that he was able to get everything out of there-- as he said, he had to cut the front off of the CRT. The front also looks nice considering he made a few cuts there, to let the floppy take in a DVD, and another hold for the IR receiver.

But the end product looks great. One more reason why the mini, despite recent rumors, should stay right where it is.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

I love this. From my old hometown of Maryland Heights, MO (although Google says there is no Mac Store in town there-- maybe it's that old computer store that used to be on Dorsett just east of 270), it's the Mac II couch, made completely out of old Macintosh IIs held together with drywall screws. I can't imagine that it would actually be comfortable (although it's probably as comfy as any park bench), but I do like how there is actually a little bit of design to it-- instead of just building a solid block, those armrests and that base look great.

See, that's the problem with today's computers. Sure, MacBook Pros are super thin, and iPhones are slim little devices that have many times over the power of the old Mac II, but can you build a couch out of them? I think not!

[ via Neatorama ]

Who doesn't enjoy walking down memory lane? Picture it: October 23, 2001 Apple changes the world again but no one realizes it. That's the day Apple introduced the first iPod ever, and produced the above video letting people know what the heck an iPod was.

The original iPod had some things I miss on the newer iPods: FireWire support and a physical scroll wheel (oh, how I miss the physical scroll wheel!).

Here's a fun question, how may folks out there had one of the original iPods? You know, before our PC using friends could get in on the party and everyone from the Queen of England to the Pope could be counted amongst iPod users.

[via Chris Pirillo]

A little while back we linked to ByteCellar's Apple //c terminal, and now he's gone and put a Newton online. You can check out the whole setup in the gallery, but the short story seems to be that he hooked up the eMate 300 to a serial-to-USB terminal, and then ran it through his Mini. Pretty easy, he says, since he'd already done it with the Apple //c, and apparently it's just an experiment-- while he could easily keep it around for IRC, he says the eMate is bound to its eFate as a paperWate.

And if getting the Newton hooked up as a terminal revs your engine, I was surprised to find out that TUAW houses the original Newton serial connector. Very impressive-- even in 1993, Sadun was doing stuff with Apple hardware that makes my head spin. Figgles, apparently, is her Newton.

And finally, if you don't have the knowhow or the patience to hook your Newton up to a serial internet connection, you could always just pull an Ihnatko and fake it. How long has he had that sticker sitting around? If you're not up for actually stickering your iPhone, Jer Wood's wallpaper might be more your speed.

[ via MacBytes ]

It would seem that today is retro theme day on TUAW, at least for me that is. Jordan saw my last post about the System 6 theme for Wordpress and he let me know about his retro themes for RapidWeaver. You can pick from System 7, System 8 (my first Mac ran 8.6, ahh the memories), or even Be (which isn't an Apple OS, but it was created by an Apple guy, so it counts).

Each theme costs $4, though there is a System Bundle that'll get your both System 8 and 7 themes for $7.50.

Mad props to my parents for keeping our basement an Apple museum! Aside from a pristine Apple //c (with monochrome monitor), vintage Apple ][ ,and Mac SE/30 (with a color monitor card) they kept most if not all of our Mac and Apple programming books from my youth. A few games even survived, although my addiction to Wasteland forced my dad to ship several of the more fun games to my French cousins. So I took some quick pics and made a vintage Apple books and software gallery. Enjoy the trip down memory lane-- and if any of the authors of these books are around, let us know in the comments.

Some of my favorites:

• Chipwits - one of my favorite edutainment titles ever (and the original authors are trying to bring it back)
• Jeeves - before he hit the web he was your personal assistant
• Adventure Construction Set - taught me a lot about game design
• Using HyperCard - oh how I miss HyperCard
• The Elementary Apple - notable because of the binding, which was really useful when trying to type in programs
• The Halley Project - who didn't freak out when they heard their Apple start talking?
  

For some reason my copy of Racter is MIA.

We don't usually cover Wordpress theme on TUAW, but I think we can make an exception for the Retro MacOS Wordpress Theme. Wordpress, in case you aren't familiar with it, is a very successful blogging engine which allows users to apply various themes to change the look of their blogs. Stuart Brown decided to try his hand at creating one, and he used System 6 as his inspiration. The result is a Wordpress theme that'll bring a smile to any Mac user's Finder (Ha! See what I did there?).

You can see the theme in action here.

Thomas from the German site Rettet die sent us this English version of his petition to save the Open Apple key-- that little Apple icon on the Command key that's missing from the new Apple Keyboards. Already, he's received 1600 German comments in favor of keeping the Apple key, and he asked us to bring the petition to America and join the fight to save the Apple key.

But is it a fight we want to join or not? Sure, the Open Apple key is a tradition by now-- ever since I was a kid, I've learned to use the Open Apple key instead of the Ctrl key on Windows keyboards, and even when Microsoft trotted out their "Windows key" in Windows 95, it was just a copy of the classic-- their flag didn't come close to the icon design of the bitten apple.

But Apple has to have a good reason for taking the key off, don't they? So far, all I've heard is that they did it from a design standpoint-- they didn't want Apple logos all over the place, and the Command key is (and works) exactly the same anyway.

For me, that's not a good enough reason. Having a logo on the Command key is a uniquely Apple standard, and no one said that it cluttered up the keyboard before now. Of course, Apple is Apple, and they'll do what they want-- even 16,000 petition signatures probably won't get them to change their product. But that doesn't change the fact that they're wrong to kill the Open Apple.