A New Visual Catalog of Retro Macintosh Software

[marciot]

Hey everyone,

A week or two ago I was frustrated I couldn't find a repository of Macintosh icons on the web, so I ended up going a bit overboard and made one myself:

A Visual Catalog of Retro Macintosh Software

As an attempt to give this thing some semblance of usefulness, added the ability to see where the icons came from, so you can use it as a way to explore apps and then cross-reference them with the original sources. For example, I got curious about this little box:



By hovering over the icon, I found out it was called Mini Servant and had come from the EDUCORP 8.0 #2 CD. Opening that CD in Basillisk II and searching for that name took me to the original app. Much to my surprise, it was something Andy Hertzfield had made a predecessor to the MultiFinder, called Mini Servant. And what a fascinating little app it is! Here is the description from the Read Me file:

Servant is a Finder replacement written by Andy Hertzfeld, author of Switcher. It acts as a multiple application environment, allowing you to open more than one application at a time, and switch between them instantly. All your open applications can be seen simultaneously in their respective windows, and each can be made active instantly just by clicking on the window to bring it to the top. Servant also offers many other features, like a hand cursor for scrolling through your files, multiple zoom levels, resource editing (icons, pict, etc.), and much more.

As someone who spends a lot of time in ResEdit, I find it intriguing that Andy Herzfield wanted to bring the capability to the Finder!

Anyhow, the point is, having a giant wall of icons is a pretty nifty way to find out about retro software you might not know about, so go check it out!

 

[joshc]

I love this period of icon design. A challenge of how much you can depict in 32x32 pixels.

I always really liked any icons from came from The Icon Factory.

Let me know if you'd be open to a mirror of your site. Things like this often end up disappearing.

 

[ptricky]

This is great, just scanning through and looking at all the classic icons is a vibe.

 

[marciot]

I love this period of icon design. A challenge of how much you can depict in 32x32 pixels.

I always really liked any icons from came from The Icon Factory.

Let me know if you'd be open to a mirror of your site. Things like this often end up disappearing.

So, go ahead! Although there is a reason I host all my stuff on GitHub, I figure if Microsoft disappears we got bigger problems!

 

[marciot]

BTW, here is another icon themed blog post I put up:

The Great Fattening of Pixel Art

This was actually the genesis of my big-wall-of-icons idea, the fact that I couldn't find any source for icons in their original sizes!

 

[joevt]

A Visual Catalog of Retro Macintosh Software

Icons didn't load for me in Safari Version 17.6 (17618.3.11.11.7, 17618) on macOS Monterey but do in Google Chrome.