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The Macintosh Application Environment on a PA-RISC laptop

Forums > Vintage Apple > Software & Operating Systems

ClassicHasClass
Tinkerer
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Joined: Aug 30, 2022
Posts: 386
Likes: 215
Aug 3, 2025 - #1
I decided to fire up MAE on my RDI PrecisionBook 160, a 160MHz PA-7300LC with 512MB of RAM and HP-UX 11. While I'm not game enough to possibly pollute my kernel with HP-UX 10.x AppleTalk drivers, not only does MAE run, it runs very well. I could even play Wolfenstein 3D on it better than my 540c, and Ultimate Doom played okay, with some graphical issues.

Turns out there is a hidden binary in the main executable to run a mysterious Midnight Emulator. I'm going to have to dig into that more, but anyway, MAE is great on PA-RISC and I really want to try it on my big dual PA-8900 C8000 now.

A real PowerBook: the Macintosh Application Environment on a PA-RISC laptop

I like the Power ISA very much, but there's nothing architecturally obvious to say that the next natural step from the Motorola 68000 family...
[Image: oldvcr.blogspot.com] oldvcr.blogspot.com
Attachments:
oldvcr.blogspot.com [View]
oldvcr.blogspot.com [View]

Liked by thecloudandThis Does Not Compute

thecloud
Tinkerer
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Joined: Oct 2, 2025
Posts: 33
Likes: 29
Oct 27, 2025 - #2
Thanks for your deep dive into MAE! I see that you were not willing to install AppleTalk drivers on real hardware, which is understandable. :)

I've just recently managed to get MAE running in a virtual instance of Solaris 2.6 under QEMU... and with AppleTalk networking, so it can mount AppleShare servers on the GlobalTalk network! Attached is my first attempt at a setup guide.

Attachments:
MAE_in_QEMU.pdf (6 MB)
Screen-2025-10-26-224506.png [View]

Liked by Kabootie Computey!andClassicHasClass

ClassicHasClass
Tinkerer
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Joined: Aug 30, 2022
Posts: 386
Likes: 215
Oct 27, 2025 - #3
Good to see it works. My issue wasn't running the AppleTalk drivers on real hardware: it was running it on the wrong version of the operating system. This PA-RISC laptop runs HP-UX 11.00, not the 10.x or 9.x that MAE is expecting. Since these are kernel modules, I didn't want to make the machine inadvertently unbootable.

I do have a HP-UX 10.20 disk around somewhere for the SAIC Galaxys, so I might try it there first.

robin-fo
Tinkerer
Switzerland
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Joined: Feb 17, 2022
Posts: 157
Likes: 76
Oct 27, 2025 - #4
Cool! I like MAE is getting some attention... :)

Liked by thecloudandClassicHasClass

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