I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time. Probably it could be converted to a newer Pascal
that would run under OS X, but I'm too old (80) to learn how to do
that. I currently use an older portable that runs Classic, but (1) it's
heavy; (2) its battery refuses to charge, so I need to have it plugged
in whenever I use it; (3) I suspect that it's nearing the end of its
life. My recollection is that the original Air could run Classic, and
so I'd like the newest model that exists and can run Classic. Buying an
unused one is probably impossible, but probably used ones can be found,
and my computer shop could possibly find one. Any suggestions?


--
Athel cb

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On 2023-12-29 13:19, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still use
from time to time. Probably it could be converted to a newer Pascal that would run under OS X, but I'm too old (80) to learn how to do that. I currently use an older portable that runs Classic, but (1) it's heavy;
(2) its battery refuses to charge, so I need to have it plugged in
whenever I use it; (3) I suspect that it's nearing the end of its life.
My recollection is that the original Air could run Classic, and so I'd
like the newest model that exists and can run Classic. Buying an unused
one is probably impossible, but probably used ones can be found, and my computer shop could possibly find one. Any suggestions?

Can't reply to your specific need, however freepascal (fpc) has a
classic Mac compatibility switch so could likely compile your code w/o
issue or at most some minor tweaks:

$ fpc -Mmacpas program

Installing fpc requires you first install Apple's XCode Line Command
Tools - this can be done pretty easily using a few command line
instructions. Not needed if the XCode app is installed.

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

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On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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On 2023-12-29 18:19:23 +0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden said:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time. Probably it could be converted to a newer Pascal
that would run under OS X, but I'm too old (80) to learn how to do
that. I currently use an older portable that runs Classic, but (1) it's heavy; (2) its battery refuses to charge, so I need to have it plugged
in whenever I use it; (3) I suspect that it's nearing the end of its
life. My recollection is that the original Air could run Classic, and
so I'd like the newest model that exists and can run Classic. Buying an unused one is probably impossible, but probably used ones can be found,
and my computer shop could possibly find one. Any suggestions?

None of the MacBook Air models can officially run the Classic
environment. The very first MacBook Air shipped with MacOS X Leopard /
10.5, which was also the version to stop support for Classic. You would
have to get something older than 2008 ... and at approaching 20 years
old, may not last much longer either.

The old Classic environment is more user-friendly, but you could buy a
new(er) Mac and then run the old Classic program under emulation using Sheepshaver - which is likely to be much faster than using Classic as
well. You just need to make sure you've got plenty of storage disk
space (internal or external) to be able to have the two versions of
MacOS installed.

Think Pascal was great, but unfortunately got killed off by Symantec,
so doesn't work with MacOS X. At best, you would have to import the old program's source code into a different version of Pascal and tweak it
to work with that and the new MacOS ... or re-write the entire program
in Swift (the current preferred programming language for MacOS) or a third-party programming language (C, BASIC, etc. or maybe in the
FileMaker Pro database program depending on what the program does).

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On 2023-12-29 17:04, Your Name wrote:

Think Pascal was great, but unfortunately got killed off by Symantec, so doesn't work with MacOS X.

THINK Pascal may not be alive, but it can be compiled with fpc for Mac
OS as described in my reply to the gent.

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

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On 2023-12-29 21:21:03 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about SheepShaver. I tried it some years ago but
couldn't get it to run. I think it needed a Pre-OSX ROM, which I hadn't
got and couldn't get. I'll try again.


--
Athel cb

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On 2023-12-30, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 2023-12-29 21:21:03 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about SheepShaver. I tried it some years ago but couldn't get it to run. I think it needed a Pre-OSX ROM, which I
hadn't got and couldn't get. I'll try again.

Oh, that's easy:

<http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-rom-archive>

🙂

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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On 2023-12-30 08:08:09 +0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden said:

On 2023-12-29 21:21:03 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about SheepShaver. I tried it some years ago but couldn't get it to run. I think it needed a Pre-OSX ROM, which I hadn't
got and couldn't get. I'll try again.

The ROM images are easy to get all over the internet. Most emulation
sites suggest using one of the ones from https://www.redundantrobot.com/sheepshaver or https://archive.org/details/SheepShaver_Roms

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On 2023-12-30 21:14:19 +0000, Your Name said:

On 2023-12-30 08:08:09 +0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden said:

On 2023-12-29 21:21:03 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about SheepShaver. I tried it some years ago but
couldn't get it to run. I think it needed a Pre-OSX ROM, which I hadn't
got and couldn't get. I'll try again.

The ROM images are easy to get all over the internet. Most emulation
sites suggest using one of the ones from https://www.redundantrobot.com/sheepshaver or https://archive.org/details/SheepShaver_Roms

Or, depending on what model your current old Mac is, you can use one of
the utilities to create a ROM image from the actual Mac. <https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/rom-grabbers-old-school-macs>

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On 2023-12-30 18:08:23 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-30, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 2023-12-29 21:21:03 +0000, Jolly Roger said:

On 2023-12-29, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

I would like to have an early Macbook Air that can run Classic. Why?
Because I have an old program created with THINK Pascal that I still
use from time to time.

Why not just run it in SheepShaver or Basilisk? That's what I do for
such software.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about SheepShaver. I tried it some years ago but
couldn't get it to run. I think it needed a Pre-OSX ROM, which I
hadn't got and couldn't get. I'll try again.

Oh, that's easy:

<http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-rom-archive>

Looking at my records I see that it was in 2006 that I tried and failed
to get the ROM, but no doubt things have changed since then. Probably I
need a newer version of SheepShaver than what I downloaded in 2006.

--
Athel cb

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