Blast From The Past: A Tribute To System 7 And eWorld
For those who yearn for the glory days of the Classic Mac OS and Beige Boxes, Andrea Grell offers up an authentic and interactive working demo of System 7 running on a Performa 6116CD. From the startup chime to eWorld, this blast from the past is worthy viewing for all old Mac fans.
Welcome to Macintosh is a Flash-based demo – leaving out iPad viewers – but the tradeoff is worthwhile in this case. The old Mac boots in System 7.5.1 to the Finder. From there you can view all the menus, launch a few applications, or play the virtual CD loaded in the AppleCD Audio Player. Stickies opens up with general instructions, and a pair of menubar eyeballs follow your cursor around onscreen.
The highlight of the demo is an interactive tour of eWorld, Apple’s online service option (“walled garden”) of the period. Competing with AOL, CompuServe and MSN, eWorld’s menus and services will look familiar to anyone online in the mid 1990s. When connecting you actually hear the modem tones as your Mac dials-up your ISP – this cracked me up – along with the welcoming sounds of eWorld and “You Have Mail!”
Alas, Apple killed eWorld in 1996, as the service just couldn’t compete with AOL and their onslaught of floppy disks and CDs crowding our mailboxes.
Worth a look.
Adam Rosen is an 
