Further Reading Those of us who love technology aren't likely to forget our first desktop operating systems. But the OSes of yore don't have to live only in your memories.

While it might be difficult to fire up the today, some computer enthusiasts have made it easy for us to relive what it was like to use them again with almost no effort at all. If you want to be able to use all the features of an old operating system, you'll probably have to find the software and load it in a virtual machine.

That is a PowerPC software based NES Emulator for running NES games on older Mac OS variations including Snow Leopard and in advance. It is able to additionally be run on Mac OS X Lion the use of Rosetta, however, can’t be run on the today’s Mac OS X versions at all. Since Virtual Box is open source, the developers can take a look under the hood and improve the overall functionality if required. For this reason, there’s a lot less bug than any other emulators for Mac OS.

But there are a bunch of browser-based emulators that show you what the old OSes looked like and let you click on a few things. It's a lot easier, and it may satisfy your urge to relive the past. Here are a few such websites to fuel your technostalgia.

Tip • If you don't feel comfortable using Terminal to make changes, consider using one of the free firewall programs like Little Snitch, WaterRoof or NoobProof (links in Resources). How to block internet for virtual dj. NoobProof provides a user-friendly approach without many of the advanced options available in WaterRoof. Little Snitch works well if you're an advanced user who wants to monitor all incoming and outgoing connections in real-time. WaterRoof provides options if you want to keep the OS X firewall active and still use advanced rules to configure dynamic rules, NAT and port-forwarding, bandwidth managers and other options. These applications provide a user-friendly interface that allows you to easily disable outgoing applications for specific applications or all network activity.

Windows 1.0: It’s older than the World Wide Web. Coder provides a functional version of Windows 3.1 from 1992, which he says he made in ' JavaScript and strict XHTML 1.0, with AJAX functionality provided through PHP.'

Vincent recommends using Firefox 2 or 3, but it worked fine for me in Chrome 33 and Firefox 26. 'The goal of this site is not to create an entirely complete mirror image of Windows 3.1, but rather keep the spirit and omit features when they are not justified by an effort to usability ratio,' he writes. 'For example, Notepad lacks a find and replace feature because it is not worth the effort.

Where features do exist, every effort is made to present them in exactly the manner that they existed in Windows 3.1.' This is one of the more functional browser-based emulators. You can use applications, open files, and even surf the 2014 Web on a browser (apparently one Vincent designed himself). This one isn't totally usable. I couldn't resize or move windows, and not all of the icons are clickable.

But the included functions work smoothly, and you can open enough applications and menus that it provides a nice look at a long-gone OS. Windows 95: Start it up!

Offers a bunch of other versions of Windows and Mac, including one of the most fondly remembered operating systems, Windows 95. This one also isn't totally functional, but it's worth firing up to see the first version of Microsoft's iconic Start menu.

Just for kicks, here's one other ' version of Windows 95 that may provide you with a frustratingly familiar sight. OS X 10.2: The classic Mac OS is retired VirtualDesktop.org also comes through with one of the earliest versions of OS X, Jaguar. You can navigate through some of the system preferences, see an early version of the OS X dock, and start up Mail or Internet Explorer for Mac. Once again, if you want a fully functional version, you'll probably have to install a copy on a virtual machine.

Nostalgia nothing. I'm going over to a house right now where the primary desktop runs W2K to do a little light tech support. I am gently working it into the owner's mind that the old OS (and the XP that runs on a laptop) is simply no longer safe to use. A lot of modern, security-patched versions of software like web browsers won't even install to it anymore. The irony is that the W2K machine is still more powerful than the one I'm typing this on. It's probably not even able to use the CPU's other 3 cores, so they're likely not even getting much out of it. 9227 posts registered Jan 17, 2009.