When you think of the word "abandonware," what comes to mind?
Pirated software? Illegal software? Web sites with illegal downloads?
Here's a site that turns all that on its head: Dan's 20th Century
Abandonware.
This is a site that actually offers legal downloads of software demos,
trial software, and even the Webmaster's personally written software. All 100% legal to download, use, and even share with others.
But that is only a fraction of what this site has to offer. It also features a vast screen shot gallery of vintage legacy Macintosh and other platform titles along with descriptions in a visual museum format.
This site is also one of the few on the Internet where you can get legal copies of classic legacy Macintosh software in its original format as digital disk images. Not for download, this site abides by copyright laws and only offers these classic titles to users who are currently, or at one time was, a legally licensed user of these titles. You must provide confirmation of your licensed status before qualifying to receive them. And then, these titles are not available for download from the Internet. They are sent personally to the legal recipient so as not to violate any copyright laws.
This is where Dan's 20th Century Abandonware sets itself apart from illegal download sites and gives the term "abandonware" it's true, legal definition: software that is years old, no longer sold through normal retail channels, and has had all support for it "abandoned." You will note this term has nothing to do with copyright violations; that is left to people to choose whether or not to break the law. Dan chooses not to.
If you are a classic Mac user, and you have one or more legal legacy software titles whose media has become corrupt, stolen, or lost, this is a place you can be legally reunited with your favorite classics.
Do you have old Macintosh files that you need information from and don't have the original program to retrieve it? Dan's 20th Century Abandonware can either provide you with the necessary software to read them, provided you are, or once were, a legally licensed user of the program, or you can send your files to this site and have them converted to a more "modern" format. This site asks a fair rate to provide these hard-to-find services and respects your privacy.
Even if you don't need software from this site, it is worth the visit to look at a part of Macintosh computing history many have never seen. If you have a moment, stop by Dan's 20th Century Abandonware and take
a nostalgic ride down memory lane.

Dan's 20th Century Abandonware

Submitted by:
Dan Rose
Webmaster and Legacy Software Collector
Dan's 20th Century Abandonware

The fantastic 8-bit Apple II emulator for Mac OS X, Virtual ][ has been updated to version 5.2.

New in this release:
• Improved the bundled A2V2 disk-exchange program: it is now also able to transfer "copy-protected" disk images from an Apple II to the Macintosh.
• The Z80 card was not detected on an Intel Mac, and hence didn't work. This has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue with license key validation when Japanese is the system default language.
• Fixed an issue with keyboard emulation: open apple + esc is now correctly forwarded to the Apple //e.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a ProDOS shared folder to report an I/O error when updating file metadata (like the binary load address).
• On the Apple ][ and ][+, the "Show 80 Column Video" menu sometimes failed to update the screen. This has been fixed.

Virtual ][