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Uploading games to this website

To upload a game, simply create an account and login, then when you click the add game link located at the top right of the website, a form will allow you to enter the new game's details; Game name, file, description, screenshot etc.

Games we're looking for

Please see the list of games we're looking for. If you have one of these games, please feel free to upload your copy or contact us.

Besides Daxeria's list, we're also looking for:

• Alone in the Dark 2 (floppy version)
• Apple Restoration CDs Market Software Series/System Software Series (only 09.94 SSW/06.94 MSS/04.94 MSS are available)
• Arcade America
• Arthur's Reading Race
• Ashland Revolution (non-Demo)
• Can James Be Found? (World Builder game)
• Claris Emailer (app) (can be found at http://www.mac.org/internet/emailer/)
• Drowned God – Conspiracy of the Ages
• Elite Commando
• Hot Dog Stand
• Johnny's Nightmare World DEMO 2
• Kid's Arcade Pack (CD with exclusive kids' versions of WizardWorks/MacSoft titles)
• Level One (World Builder game)
• MACnificent 7.1 (CD-ROM)
• MechWarrior
• MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy (expansion pack)
• MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (expansion pack)
• Peter Pan
• Pirate Attack!
• Registration key for Bob the Fish
• Registration key for Boogaloopers
• Registration key for Galaxus
• Registration key for Microbian
• Registration key for Name That Game
• SnapDragon
• Sorceror's Quest (likely a World Builder game - mentioned in the about box of Quest for the Dark Sword)
• Storybook Weaver
• YWK (series of kids games, came in a set of floppies in purple cases with party streamer patterns)
• ZikTuria II
• Ultra Mac-Games CDROM (500 MB of early Mac shareware games)

Linking up pages

When editing pages, you can use HTML to link to other pages. For example:

<a href="/games/marathon">Marathon</a>

Will become:

Marathon

External links
Internal links use a '/' and link to pages on this website 'macintoshgarden.org', use external links to go to other places on the web:

<a href="http://retromaccast.com">RetroMacCast</a>

Will become:

RetroMacCast

Zipping games for upload - Resource forks

Storing MacOS 9 files in zip will destroy them, because MacOS 9 and older store also an invisible file with its resource fork informations, which will be lost, if saved in zip file format or even opened on a PC. The Resource fork stores the file creator (application the file has been created with) and some other informations.

Thus, it's not recommended to expand the files with Stuffit for Windows. For more information please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork

Also, there are different ZIP formats for storing Mac resource forks. For instance, if you use OS X's default "Create Archive" it will create a __MACOSX folder in the ZIP for the resource fork that I guarantee no classic unarchiver will know what to do with. IF you already have a game that's messed up this way, post it anyway and let us know on the forums, and we'll fix it.
UPDATE: IWishTodayWasStill2004 has now found a new "fix-the-format-yourself" method for which you do not need OS X 10.4 or later

On the other hand, I've heard of Stuffit version 9 and later producing .sit files that some earlier version simply couldn't open. I use Stuffit 8 which seems to produce the most compatible archives.

I am also confident that re-encoding those in .bin and .hqx is not necessary. Those formats are used to put the resource fork into the data fork so that files can be transmitted using just data fork (as it's done over the internet). I believe .sit files already do this, so it should not be necessary.

HQX has a second "benefit" of using bytes in the ASCII range to encode files - which helps if you want to send a file over old email infrastructure that doesn't support binary files - but is completely useless otherwise (and results in bloated files since storing files in this way is a waste of space).

Disk images

It's preferred to upload games stored in a read-only '*.img' wrapper (then stuffing this disk image file with Stuffit (DropStuff) available on this site), because if you get an disk image, you just have to add it to the drives list of your Mac emulator. To create such a disk image, move the files of the game into a folder, drag this folder to Disk Copy 6.3 (which should be automatically installed in MacOS versions 9 and earlier), choose 'Read-Only' because emulators have problems with disk images formated as 'Read-Only Compressed,' and finally drag the '.img' file created with Disk Copy onto the DropStuff window. Be aware, that Disk Copy mounts that file immediately, do not drag the mounted disk image onto DropStuff.
Disk Copy uses the '*.img' format which is compatible with MacOS 9 and earlier, so it's recommended to use Disk Copy 6.3 instead of 'Hard Disk Utility', which is included in MacOS X. The 'Hard Disk Utility' creates '*.dmg' files which cannot be read by MacOS 9 and earlier versions directly.

.img's on Mac OS X

Warning: This has snippet has not yet been tested
OS X can create .img NDIF images, and even disk copy 4.2 images, just run 'defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility advanced-image-options 1' in Terminal.app.

Disk Image file formats: *.img vs *.dmg

Mac OS versions 7.x to 9.2.2 uses the application 'Disk Copy', latest version 6.3, to mount disk images to the Finder. Disk Copy uses the '*.img' file format, which could either be added to the emulator's drive list or directly mounted in the emulated MacOS. Disk Copy should be installed automatically, if not, get Disk_Copy_6.3.3.smi.bin from Older Software Downloads in the Apple, Inc support area.

Mac OS X introduces the '*.dmg' file format to mount Disk images, which couldn't be mounted in Mac OS 9 or earlier. In Mac OS X, if you create such an image, the emulated classic Mac OS (versions up to 9.2) will ask whether to initialize (to format) or to eject the 'disk'. For the first time use, select initialize to made it readable by Mac emulators such as Basilisk or SheepShaver.

Once initialized/formatted, the virtual disk can be filled with content and will mount next time successfully.

Disk Copy 6.1 vs. Disk Copy 4.2

When making disk images of floppy disks, it is better to use Disk Copy 4.2 than Disk Copy 6.1 or later. Disk Copy 6.1 or later, even when saving the disk image in Disk Copy 4.2 format, may destroy some important information for a floppy disk to function. Only use Disk Copy 6.1 or later if you can't use Disk Copy 4.2 (but still save the disk image in Disk Copy 4.2 unless the option for that when saving is greyed out because NDIF images will only open with Disk Copy 6.1 or later, which only works on Mac OS 7.0 or later because it uses the disk image driver in those versions of the system software). However, this is not applicable to images of disks larger than 2880KB because only the NDIF format in Disk Copy 6.1 or later can store more than 2880KB of data.

CD images

CD images can be created in two ways: Either drag the CD onto the 'Hard Disk Utility' icon (place it in the Dock), chosing the 'DVD/CD master' image format when saving.
Second option is to save a 'DVD/CD master' image format using Toast, the standard CD burn application on the Mac (other CD burn software is available, though). If you want to upload a CD-ROM game shipped in Hybrid format (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_CD for more informations), which includes the Mac and PC versions of a game, Toast is the recommended way to keep the PC part of such a CD.

If you create a CD image of a game which runs on MacOS 8.0 or earlier, be sure to save the CD in HFS standard format (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System for more informations), because HFS+, the extended version of HFS, has been introduced in MacOS 8.1, and earlier versions of MacOS than 8.1 can't read the HFS+ file format.

If a game ships on CD, it's preferred to upload a zipped '.cdr' (aka '.iso') image, which is ready to be mounted in Mac emulators such as Basilisk or SheepShaver.

StuffIt vs. Stuffit-X file format

When preparing files to upload using newer versions of StuffIt, be aware to stuff the files using the standard StuffIt format, not the StuffIt-X format introduced very lately, which can't be read from older Stuffit versions so on classic MacOS versions our files needs to run.

StuffIt 5.x vs. StuffIt 4.0

For games that have a Macintosh computer later than the Macintosh SE and a version of Mac OS later than Mac OS 7.1 in the minimum requirements, compressing with StuffIt 5.x is a good choice. But when it comes to games intended for System Software 6 or a Macintosh SE or earlier, then it's not. StuffIt 5.x will refuse to install on Mac OS 7.1 or earlier, so users of Mac OS 7.1 or earlier will not be able to open files compressed with StuffIt 5.x. StuffIt 4.5 or later will crash on a Macintosh computer earlier than the Macintosh II. In that case, use StuffIt 4.0 or earlier instead.

Uploading game manuals & documents

Converting a series of images into a PDF
Mac OS X users can convert images into a PDF using this Automator script.

Converting web pages to PDF
If you have Mac OS X, select File -> Print from the menu bar and use the 'PDF' button at the lower right-hand corner to save the page as PDF.

For more fine-grained control over background images etc. Two services that I've had good results with: Free Web Page To PDF Converter and HTML 2 PDF.

☃Disclaimer: Macintosh Garden does not claim rights to any software on the site. To the best of our knowledge, these titles have been discontinued by their publishers. If you know otherwise, please contact us and we will remove them accordingly. Thank you for your attention.