It’s not exactly the same thing as freeware, but abandonware is indeed free — and there’s a ton of it at Macintosh Garden.
This amazing site first came to our attention when we linked to a game called Desert Trek, which appears to be the inspiration for a more recent game
called Explore! But it turns out that Desert Trek is in turn similar to the most popular game at Macintosh Garden — Oregon Trail, which goes all the way back to 1971.These are just two of hundreds of games and apps that have been abandoned by their original publishers and made available free, with Macintosh Garden providing the links. Other popular games at the site include The Secret of Monkey Island, Prince of Persia and Baldur’s Gate. People mainly go to the site for games, but you can also find the likes of AppleWorks 6 and Illustrator 10.
There is a catch, though, and depending on how willing you are to mess around with your Mac, it can be a big one. You’ll likely need to use emulation.
Much of abandoned software was created for Macs with a PowerPC processor and the classic Mac operating system. If your Mac was manufactured in the past five years or so, it likely uses an Intel processor and Mac OS X. That means you’ll have to download and install other software before you can even get started. Macintosh Garden has instructions on how to do this, but in a nutshell it involves an emulator such as SheepShaver or Basilisk II, a Macintosh ROM image, and an older Mac OS such as the freely available System 7 or the more-difficult-to-obtain OS 8 or 9.
If you’ve got the stomach to go through these steps, or if you happen to have an older Mac, then Macintosh Garden will truly be your Garden of Eden.
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