I've gone down a deep rabbit hole working on a strange new project: a standalone After Dark module player for modern macOS. No OS emulation or ROM required -- just the original classic Mac OS AD module files! I can't believe this is working!

Hi there @csilverman @root42 👋

In brief, the approach is:
1. Load the code and resources from the original module
2. Execute the original 68k module code using https://github.com/kstenerud/Musashi (Thank you kstenerud!)
3. Add handling for unhandled traps to draw to a Metal view, reimplementing the behaviors of QuickDraw one at a time (setting pixels, drawing rects, sprites, etc)

Huge thanks to the M.A.C.E project for demonstrating this approach might be viable.

GitHub - kstenerud/Musashi: Motorola 680x0 emulator written in C

Motorola 680x0 emulator written in C. Contribute to kstenerud/Musashi development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

@halcyon @root42 That's fascinating. Hadn't occurred to me that you could trace the operation of a classic Mac OS app by watching what illegal instructions it calls, but based on my admittedly slim understanding of how the APIs behind 68K Mac OS worked, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Very much looking forward to seeing this in the world. I've been missing After Dark for nearly 20 years at this point.

@csilverman @root42 @halcyon Every now and then, I reinstall Win3.1 on DosBox, install After Dark, and play a few rounds of Lunatic Fringe.