Infinite Mac – Now you can emulate the Classic Mac OS online!

You thought SheepShaver, Mini vMac, and Basilisk II are too difficult to set up for the casual user. Right?

Well worry no more! Using your modern web browser, and an Intel Core i7 computer with 16 GB of RAM the minimum for acceptable speeds, you can now emulate the Classic Mac OS experience with the help of Infinite Mac! (Works on any computer platform too!)

No more of the complex ROM setup! With Infinite Mac, you can customize your Mac OS configuration from a Mac 128k to a Power Macintosh G3 depending on what software you would like to run, and it will select the appropriate emulator based on your choices. It can also use ISO images from the Internet Archive, but I prefer mounting my own ISO images because it’s much more reliable than providing a URL.

So far, it’s really interesting to do Classic Mac OS emulation on modern internet browsers, but if one of my Macintosh computers breaks down, or if I don’t want to turn on my vintage Macintosh computers because of my electric bill, but want to do it on my iMac Pro or my Custom Built Windows 10 High Performance Ryzen 5 PC, then I’m sure I’ll count on Infinite Mac for most of my Classic Mac OS software that I have in my collection!

Why not try out Infinite Mac and let me know what you think! You’ll have a blast from the past running old Macintosh software on your modern web browser on any computer that you have! And if you like this blog post, stay tuned for more! For now, take care!

Computer Legend: Syd Bolton (1971-2018)

The Brantford Personal Computer Museum’s Opening in 2005-2006. The good ol’ days of YouTube!

Syd Bolton (1971-2018) was the former owner of the Brantford Personal Computer Museum in Canada. Every month on one Saturday, visitors from his neck in the woods used to come here to check out his largest collection of computers and video games that he amassed since 1981, and was also one of the largest of its kind here in Canada. In the 2020s, the contents were acquired by the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Syd Bolton is a computer legend here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, and we all remember him during the mid-2000s up to his passing in the late 2010s.

The Circuit Interview with Syd Bolton about his video game collection.

A television clip of Syd Bolton’s Video Game Collection on EP Daily in 2010.

The 5-minute documentary of Syd Bolton’s Computer and Video Game Collection.

Syd Bolton was famous for resurrecting the Extra Terrestrials Atari 2600 game from an Ontario based video game developer of the early 1980s. (Foreshadowing my earlier blog posts of when I got the E.T. movie on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray!)

Syd Bolton’s discovery of the Extra Terrestrials game.

A CTV News broadcast of Syd Bolton’s discovery of the Extra Terrestrials game.

Syd Bolton featured on Inside Brant on the Extra Terrestrials game.

Syd Bolton’s Video Game Collection was featured on InnerSPACE. (Television broadcast)

The Extreme Collector’s Documentary on Syd Bolton’s Video Game Collection.

In the last few years of the Brantford Personal Computer Museum, they had offered transfer services of analog tapes, such as VHS tapes and audio cassettes to digital formats. Nowadays, I prefer to do it at home with the equipment I have, courtesy of thrift stores.

Inside Brant Interview on the Brantford Personal Computer Museum’s analog tape transfer services.

Unfortunately, Syd Bolton passed away on June 2018 due to an illness at a Toronto Hospital. He was 46 years old at the time.

I actually remember Syd Bolton. I used to go on the Brantford Personal Computer Museum website as a late teenager in the mid-2010s to check out his inventory of computers and video games, and I actually gave feedback to him of his stock based on what I got second-hand, and even in my childhood! Nowadays, it’s just a placeholder website saying that the website will be back online soon, but no word at all!

But his legacy still lives on thanks to the University of Toronto Mississauga, who is also responsible for the back catalogue of master tapes of the Canadian Singer Anne Murray that were donated to the university due to her retirement in the music industry.

Syd Bolton will still be remembered as a Canadian legend of computers and video games. And that’s what started the foundation of Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection during the mid-2010s. This was the source of inspiration.

To me, Brantford will never be the same without Syd Bolton, but I think this is my teenage-hood’s memory dream came true! R.I.P. Syd Bolton 1971-2018

And if you like this blog post, stay tuned for more here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! For now, take care!

I am a member of the AfterSleep Community!

Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection has recently been honoured by the AfterSleep community, where retro computing meets the modern generations of people, especially here in Canada where the domain was hosted!

If you want to stop by and say Hi to us on any computer that you have from the 1990s to now, visit us at aftersleep.org! (Of course, we are Clifford the Big Red Dog fans too!)

The guy who was working on the website is named PowerDVD3000, and he has a website called dvd3000.ca! I encourage you to check this guy out, because he has a lot of retro computing goodies, television recordings off of VHS tapes (under his BACKV YouTube channel), and more! (We have more or less the same interests for both of us!)

And don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! Since it was a quick one, I’ll be back to working on my computers, so take care!

Going Old-school with a Blu-ray or DVD drive in a modern gaming PC! What’s the outcome?

Thanks to the folks at Smokin’ Silicon for providing this video!

You might’ve heard about a new YouTube channel called Smokin’ Silicon, where they make computer-based videos mostly in the modern era. I have recently found a video that is unusual in a way because they have found a computer tower case that can accept a Blu-ray or DVD drive. Of course, optical drives are a rarity in 2024, so you thought it would be too old-school for a modern PC like the one they are building in the video.

What I wanted in my Custom Built High Performance Windows 10 PC is those flashy RGB lights that make it look cooler than the boring ones with the optical drives installed, and that’s why I picked one from Deepcool that seemed to look cool, but they had gone away with the optical drive bay. It seems a shame that many PC’s nowadays don’t come with that sort of thing, but in 2020 I bought two LG Blu-ray drives attached to an OWC Mercury Pro enclosure with USB 3.0, and that was a great alternative to getting a computer with an optical drive bay. (Well, the only exception is a 2007 PC that I got at at thrift store, and it is the HP Pavilion a6010n, and that came with a LightScribe DVD drive.) The LG Blu-ray drives with their OWC enclosures are currently attached to my Sonoma iMac Pro from 2017, and my Custom Built Windows 10 PC. One of them was previously attached to my original 4K Ventura iMac from 2017, but I think Sonoma did not kill the optical disk drivers fortunately, so that I can burn my CD’s, DVD’s and Blu-ray’s without any problem with Roxio Toast and the open-source Burn software for Mac. (And I can even play my Blu-ray movies too, courtesy of MacGO Blu-ray player and Leawo Blu-ray player.)

It’s also a bit of a shame that Laptops nowadays don’t come with an optical drive anymore, such as my Retina MacBook Pro from 2013, and my HP Pavilion 15 Gaming Laptop, where I have several portable external USB DVD and Blu-ray drives hiding in my office closet drawers, the most interesting are the Kingbox USB-C DVD drives, and the Verbatim USB 3.0 Blu-ray drives. My Acer Aspire 5552 is on the fritz when reading my burned CD-R’s though…

2024 is such a sad time for CD-ROM software. In the age of digital downloads such as Steam and GOG, the CD-ROM medium is waning. Whenever I go to a retail store nowadays, all I get is not a lot of interesting PC software and games in their displays. The only place I can find them is at thrift stores, and I actually found the Mac OS X version of the Living Books title from Dr. Seuss: The Cat in the Hat, ported by Software MacKiev in the late 2000s.

I also found Disney’s Active Play, A Bug’s Life from the thrift store as well. Not a lot of CD-ROMs being stocked in 2024. That’s why I didn’t do much thrift store acquisition logs in the past couple of years!

So I wanted to ask a question once more: Why would anyone make a modern gaming PC with a DVD or Blu-ray drive? By the time DVD and Blu-ray drives are no longer being manufactured, there’s not much of choice from a reputable manufacturer such as LG, and they have been making high quality DVD and Blu-ray drives since the 1990s!

So it’s interesting that some people like Smokin’ Silicon are making gaming PC’s with internal DVD and Blu-ray drives. To me, I really enjoy CD’s, DVD’s and Blu-ray’s on computers, and I hope it will last longer on a high note for future generations to come! When we got our new HiSense 4K TV’s, we also needed the Sony UBP-X800M2 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray players, and we think that CD’s, DVD’s and Blu-ray’s are going to have one last chance in our home theatres and TV setups, and it is going to be the last model that Sony is manufacturing and releasing before the streaming boom and 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray players being discontinued in the next few years.

But anyways, if you like this blog post, stay tuned for more, and hopefully I will keep on being active in 2024 depending on my schedule, but for now, take care!

P.S. I had my Valentine’s Day and Family Day celebrations this February! Amazing, isn’t it?

Updated for 2024: Photos of Katie Cadet’s Workstations

As I acquire new equipment, sometimes I tend to update my photos of my workstations to reflect what I have accomplished in my collection. 2024 is going to be a great year, and with some new acquisitions in the last year, I decided to reshoot the pictures of what I have in my collection since last August of 2022. This time, I took these pictures with an iPad Air 4 camera for better quality than my GitUp Git1 which had blurry quality (and yes, I had to use AI to improve the quality a little bit on those old shots, but didn’t do much with some of the blur that was on the lens.) and the reason for using the iPad Air 4 camera is that it seemed to outperform my Git1 in several ways, especially the resolution (4K to be exact).

You can also see my workstation photos on DeviantArt as well! To my surprise, it was an improvement since 2022, but when it comes to acquired equipment for these new shots, the newbies that I got are the Nintendo Wii from Halloween 2023, the Atari Arcade System that I got at Christmas 2023, the Blue Microphones Yeti, the iMac Pro, the PlayStation 4 Pro from Valentine’s Day 2023, the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player, the Sony UBP-X800M2 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray player, the Panasonic LX-K770 Laserdisc player, and the Hisense U6 4K ULED HDR Roku TV, and to me, it was fun!

Let me know what you think, and take care!

Happy 30th Anniversary to Sammy’s Science House!

The last two years of posts were about Millie’s Math House and Bailey’s Book House, part of the Edmark Early Learning House Series for Windows PC and Macintosh.

Sammy’s Science House takes the series a step further by covering science topics for young children. Most of the releases were using the 512×384 screen resolution unlike the previous two entries which updated the graphics for the Windows 95 releases.

But to me, I had a lot of fun playing it as a young child. I had a lot of fun with helping the rabbit make a movie in the correct order, making weird weather using the weather machine, exploring Acorn Pond, and playing with the Sorting Station. It helped me learn about basic science facts along the way!

Boy, 1994 was a long time ago. Time files… but I really enjoyed Sammy’s Science House during my childhood! Those memories would never be forgotten with the help of Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! And I found some additional versions of the Edmark titles courtesy of second-hand shopping. Isn’t that something?

But anyways, did you have any memories with Sammy’s Science House? Let me know down in the comments! Don’t forget to check back for more blog posts too! For now, Take Care!

Happy Holidays 2023!

Merry Christmas to everyone reading my work at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection!

Whether you are playing Jazz Jackrabbit Holiday Hare or Xmas Lemmings, or watching Christmas Classics such as the Peanuts Holiday Specials or the Polar Express, or listening to Christmas music such as traditional carols or modern hits like Michael Buble, there’s something for everyone, even if you are computer fans after all!

This year, one of my readers of my blog from Alberta, Canada decided to donate a powerful 2017 iMac Pro running macOS Sonoma. It’s now in my office and I really enjoyed using it in anticipation of 2024! It took some time to personalize my iMac Pro, but in the end, it’s a replacement to my 2017 4K Ventura 21.5-inch iMac (non-Pro) which is now being moved to my Bedroom. Amazing!

Oh, and we do have a new sponsor of Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection: EcoFlow

EcoFlow provides portable power stations for anything, whether you are camping or using it as an uninterruptible power supply when there is no main AC power in your house. I have a River 2 Pro installed in my office last July, and a River 2 Max installed in my bedroom last October-November, and I will still work on my computers for a good two to six hours before the main AC power comes back on and recharges my EcoFlows via the wall outlet. I also have the entry-level River 2 model as a floater. You can use the app for iOS and Android to change settings too! Of course, there is X-Boost, which can prevent overloading by intelligently reducing the voltage of your high-powered devices. So if you want to provide backup power to your computer equipment and charge your tablets, look no further from EcoFlow! Check out their website for more information!

So, there will be some gift unwrapping soon! I wonder what kind of gifts I will unwrap!

But anyways, have a nice time with your family on this festive day, and check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! For now, see you in 2024, and enjoy the last days of 2023! Take Care!

2023 Wrap Up

Well, it’s been a wild ride for 2023 here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! With Christmas on the way, I just want to recap what I’ve learned in this year of experimenting, thrifting, and playing with my computer and video game collection. My first acquisitions of this year are the Nintendo Switch OLED (White Model), and a PlayStation 4 Pro. I’ve really made use of the PlayStation 4 Pro playing Pinball games with the DualShock 4 controller, and I’ve actually had fun playing the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic table featured on Pinball FX, and some retro tables of FarSight’s Pinball Arcade.

I’ve attached the PlayStation 4 Pro and the dock of the Nintendo Switch OLED to my new HiSense 4K QLED HDR Roku TV, and so far, it works great, even when playing HDR games like Pinball FX, and some non-HDR games like Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone and The Sims 4. (And non-video game related is my Panasonic Laserdisc player LX-K770 which performed better than my previous Pioneer CLD-990 for most discs, and added dual outputs to connect to my 4K Roku TV and my Toshiba DVR630 using composite and S-Video inputs and outputs.)

I also did my experimenting with decoding closed captions via a Windows 10 computer program called CCExtractor from various VHS tape rips from non-copy protected DVD-R’s (MPEG2 streams), and from Over-the-Air Digital HD Broadcasts.

I also made my little anniversary post of Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection highlighting several moments since 2018! I’ve also written a discovered treasure article on Keshet Orion’s Junior Science Series, after someone uploaded a gameplay video on YouTube and thanked me for the donation of the games as disc images courtesy of the Internet Archive!

Then there’s Cibal Multimedia’s Pipo, which is a Spanish educational game series that is quickly becoming inactive due to Flash being discontinued in 2021, causing the website and games to become broken as of 2023-2024.

Oh, and there is the eJay series of music creation programs featuring mostly Electronica-based genres for Windows 95/98/NT, and the original CD-ROM versions of the later entries work without a hitch on Windows 10 32-bit, but earlier entries are very problematic on Windows 10. I’ve used Windows 95 and 98 virtual machines on my Power Macintosh OS X computers using Connectix/Microsoft Virtual PC to test the CD-ROM versions too, but recently, the eJay series was relaunched with better compatibility with Windows 10 64-bit (as a digital download), with free trials available at the official eJay store website. (the original non-store website hasn’t been updated since 2011-2013, not mentioning Windows 10.)

I spent Halloween buying a Nintendo Wii at the thrift store with some games, and subsequently went to the flea market to find accessories and a GameCube game to go with the Wii (and yes, I also found another Wii at another thrift store, and comes with matching accessories too! Both of the Wii’s that I got are GameCube compatible.). The two GameCube games that I got are Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and Disney-Pixar’s The Incredibles.

November is when I was on a hunt for a FAT PlayStation 3. (And yes, doesn’t have to be backward compatible with PS2 games. More of an optional model, but close.) My first model, the CECHH01, started to show a Yellow Light of Death when turning on. I did my usual fan test when buying FAT PS3 consoles second-hand (It’s that easy! Turn off the power using the switch at the rear, put your thumb on the eject disc button that is touch sensitive, flip on the switch, and when you hear a beep, let go of the touch sensitive eject button, and you’ll hear another beep, and you’ll hear the fans going at high speed for 15 seconds to blow some dust out of the internals, similar to a sound of a blow dryer.), but nothing worked. I then exchanged for a CECHL01, and it worked fine, did the same fan test, but then we have a faulty hard drive, so diagnostic mode to the rescue! (While selecting to restore the PS3 system to factory settings.) Once that’s done, I’ve updated the firmware to version 4.90, and played a few minutes (or laps) of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (thank goodness for the automatic in-game aspect ratio for my Commodore CRT!), and it hasn’t YLOD’d on me! The faulty hard drive was replaced with a brand new WD Black 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (My Super Slim on the 4K Home Theatre is a Seagate Barracuda 500 GB SATA Hard Drive), and now everything is working better than before! (Yes, I’ll have to monitor for the Yellow Light of Death the next time I turn it on! It’s iconic those FAT PS3’s, but prone to capacitor issues and random shutdowns.)

I’ve been starting to become familiar with the E.T. movie from 1982 (A Steven Spielberg film) when I first got a computer game from the 20th anniversary era for Windows 95: Phone Home Adventure! (From a thrift store!) That year, I got the 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray release of the original theatrical release of the film in a 40th anniversary set released in 2022 with a 2017 HDR transfer and DTS:X Immersive Surround Sound audio. (I also got the 20th Anniversary version of the film on VHS and DVD second-hand that Spielberg does not approve.)

That Spring, I got myself a FAT PlayStation 2, with better compatibility with older PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 games such as Jak X Combat Racing and ATV Offroad Fury 3 that I cannot play on my Slim SCPH-75001 PlayStation 2. (The one that I got this year is a SCPH-35001 model, so it was manufactured in 2002, and that was over 20 years ago!)

I gave my opinion on the recently discontinued Google Stadia, and celebrated 30 years of Edmark’s Bailey’s Book House. Hey! In 2024, I should do Sammy’s Science House, because it will be 30 years just like the other two that I did in the past two years!

And finally, I would like to thank my loyal DeviantArt users poinkbubble and Lavender Vomit for creating fan art of me (Katie Cadet from the StarFlyers) for some of my posts! I appreciate your lovely work!

But anyways, Christmas is coming! We will be doing gift unwrapping on the 24th to the 25th of December! I hope this will end 2023 on a high note! Be prepared to be festive here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! For now, take care!

New Thrift Store Acquisition: PlayStation 3 FAT Model (and more!)

I’ve recently acquired a PlayStation 3 FAT Model (CECHL01), and I’m really happy with how it performs! (The hard drive needs to be replaced at some point!) I previously got a CECHH01, but it suffered from the Yellow Light of Death so I had to exchange it for a CECHL01 that worked.

At first, the hard drive seems buggy. When I turned on the console, it asked me to check the system storage, but when it reached a certain point, it caused a black screen or froze the console entirely, and the only way to do another check is to force turn off the PS3 FAT with the power switch at the back, and turning it back on! Painful process!

But then I had an idea! I just had to put the PS3 FAT in diagnostic mode, and restore the PS3 FAT to factory settings, then update to the latest firmware (4.90). It worked fine without any issues so far! I then put a PlayStation 3 game (Gran Turismo 5 Prologue) and played a little bit for 5 laps on a race at Daytona to see if it will YLOD on me, so far it’s not, so far so good! I then played a Standard Blu-ray (Minions Rise of Gru, came with the 4K set), DVD-Video (Jason Bourne), Audio CD (Billie Holiday), and a PSOne game (Sabrina the Teenage Witch Twitch in Time), and passed all tests! The only problem with both the CECHH01 that I returned and the CECHL01 that I currently have with the dead hard drive is that they cannot play PlayStation 2 games. But other than that, I’m happy with it, if not for the dead hard drive! (We are currently investigating the issue with the hard drive, but as you know, used hard drives on PS3 Fat models can be a bit finicky, for my PS3 FAT, my hard drive only recognizes the first half of the storage, but the second half wouldn’t read at all causing freezes and black screen issues. Older hard drives can age after a certain amount of years also, but we have some hard drives laying around, so it has to be a 2.5″ SATA hard drive that the PS3 FAT uses, and that’s why the investigation process will begin soon!)

That’s all for the PS3 FAT! But wait there’s more!

I recently found two additional Wii games since the last post, Disney’s Tangled, and LEGO Batman the Video Game. I also found another original Xbox game: Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge (also compatible with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One/Series). And I finally found my childhood favourite in the original packaging: Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body (Hybrid CD-ROM, 1994-1995, 68040, SSW 7.5, 486DX2, Windows 3.1 up to XP Service Pack 3)!

And finally, I completed my platform collection of the 2010 remake of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (Limited Edition) for the PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, and now, for the Xbox 360!

As for another earlier post, I picked up a QSound DVD player from Toshiba, the SD-1800 model from 2002-2003! DVD-Video discs and Audio CD’s work, as well as MP3 CD’s and Video CD’s! One of the unusual value-priced DVD-Video players out there from the 2000s with QSound spatial audio via the analog RCA ports from any Dolby Digital 5.1 source!

And finally, more LightScribe CD-R’s from Verbatim to label on my HP Pavilion a6010n Windows 10 machine! I’ve been always a fan of unusual recordable media, and LightScribe is one of them! As a bonus, I’ve found the Angry Birds movie from 2016 on Standard Blu-ray, based on the video game series from Rovio of Finland! (Rovio is recently acquired by SEGA, makers of Sonic the Hedgehog, Medieval II Total War, Daytona USA, and the Hatsune Miku Project DIVA series at the time of writing!)

Well, that’s all for the acquisition log for today here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! I’ll get back to getting my PS3 FAT to work with a better hard drive! Remember, check back for more blog posts, because there’s more to explore about computers and video games from the 1980’s to the 2020’s! For now, take care!

Happy Hallo(Wii)n 2023!

Happy Halloween to everyone visiting Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection!

This time it’s going to be different, because on my recent thrifting, I found a GameCube-Compatible Nintendo Wii from 2006 in acceptable condition!

I plugged the Nintendo Wii into my Toshiba DVR630 via composite, which is being fed through an HDMI Switch Box and into the Vizio 5.1 Sound Bar and outputting to the Hisense 4K Roku TV. I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but the video and audio both work as well as the optical disc drive for starters.

When I put the Wii Fit Plus game that I found while thrifting, it booted straight away to the menu, but I’m on a look out for the Wii Remote, so I’ll let you know when I find it!

Take a look at the games I got:

Go Diego Go Safari Rescue
Safari Adventures Africa
Toy Story Mania
Wii Fit Plus (with board)

Seeing that I liked the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, might as well have a Wii for Halloween! Keeping with other older Nintendo consoles of the time, the Nintendo Wii has backward compatibility with GameCube games on the original 2006 model, much like my Game Boy Advance having backward compatibility with Game Boy Original and Game Boy Colour games (I picked a Donkey Kong original Game Boy game from earlier thrifting to try out the backward compatibility as well!).

Other finds include a Hardy Boys PC Game, and MX Unleashed for the Original Xbox, now that I got the hang of getting the backward compatibility of my two Xbox 360’s to work with original Xbox games by applying an update. (MX Unleashed is also backward compatible with the Xbox One original model, the Xbox One S, the Xbox One X, and the Xbox Series X too!)

So I’m still having candy as always, but it’s a ‘scary’ deal getting a Nintendo Wii at a thrift store! How is your Halloween like? Any comments welcome! And remember, check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game collection, and I’ll see you in November! For now, Have a nice Halloween, and take care!