Loom (LucasArts) on Steam

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Loom along with 3 other LucasArts adventures of the same time period is available on the Steam client store. Google for Steampowered to get the client if you don’t already have it and want to peruse the huge selection of PC & Mac games that they have. I am not sure if the games I just mentioned come setup for Mac OS on Steam. I am also not sure if they happen to be on GOG.com, another PC games online retailer if you don’t already know of them.

In any event, Loom being an old MS-DOS game (Mac OS also once upon a time?) can most likely be setup in Boxer for the Mac, which is a free DOSBox app that simplifies using DOSBox to play old MS-DOS games on modern Macs.

Google for Boxer to grab that if you need it. It’s simple to use and is well documented as I recall too.

I figured I’d share that stuff just in case you want to revisit Loom enough to jump through a few hoops to do so. That game should run on a Mac with a little setup. I did it with many old games and had great results.

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OMGosh - Kaid! THANK YOU!

I shall attempt to muggle through this Boxer… I thought Boxer was a type of dog. I grew up with one… Anyway, the only steam I know is what comes out of my kettle when I heat water for my tea.

And yes, Loom was on a floppy for Macs way back then. At least at the Apple meetings, it was all for Apple machines… I don’t know if they came that way for the tekkie folks converted things from DOS or IBM into Apple language. I just took the floppies and ran with it. :_

I digress…I will most certainly attempt to figure it all out - LOOM and MYST - here I come!

Thank you mochas gracias

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I took a look on the GOG.com store to see if they carry Loom and had already done the work I made mention of and fortunately, they have! So, for six bucks, you can just install it on your Mac, fire it up and have fun!

Here is the link to the relevant store page:

https://www.gog.com/game/loom

I highly recommend this destination for classic and other games that are all free of any copy protection which is often a hassle for legitimate users more than it is for the pirates of the web who crack most schemes soon after a game releases and steal it anyway. So, it’s nice that their games do not incorporate this stuff.

You probably recall that some very old games may ask you to verify a word on a given page of the manual or some similar early form of trying to limit theft of software. In the cases where that is applicable and I have found them to be mercifully rare, GOG always provides the documentation needed so you can play whatever it is.

I know they carry the full line of Myst games but I don’t know if they run on Macs or not as carried by this store today. I will leave it to you to explore the store and find out about that if you like.

It’s sweet though that your old favorite is already inexpensively available in turnkey form. Yay! I always meant to play that one myself. I go back a long time with computer games too. My first step away from a career in nursing was to take on a job at then major software retailer, Egghead Software. Remember them? Well, I am assuming you live in the USA asking that question.

My grand plan was to manage a store in the greater Boston area and thereby meet and interact with folks from various major high tech companies ranging from the local Lotus Development Corporation (Lotus 1-2-3, etc.) to Microsoft, WordPerfect, Ashton-Tate, Borland and others. We carried both PC and Mac software and games and these stores were the place to shop for software until CompUSA put them out of business by offering consumers an all-in-one toystore that sold everything you could want in the way of hardware and software. Eventually, Best Buy put them out of business. Now, I suppose Amazon may drive Best Buy under and so it goes.

I got my lucky break and became a senior software engineer but I’ll save that story which I may have told some of in the other thread this was moved out of. This is getting long as it is. I have a way of doing this. It’s a good thing I don’t post my long stories too often.

Speaking of stories, just one more for you along with a related question. I moved to NC following my sister after helping her to locate a suitable farm down here in a lovely rural area. She fell in love with horses as a young girl. She was active in 4H and much to my surprise and delight, my folks allowed her to pursue her dreams attending an agricultural high school rather than a traditional high school. She continued on after that to get a degree in business. Over many years now, she has become an expert in all things related particularly to dressage riding. She calls it, the dancing ponies. She teaches dressage riding and still goes to shows herself, occasionally runs clinics at her farm which feature an expert guest instructor, and I forget what else. So I am curious what publication you were involved with as she may know of it.

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If the game is older than 2005, chances are you can run it on a Mac; I’m speaking of old PC games running on a Mac using Wine (a PC emulator for Mac).

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@Kaid: Yes, I’ve already purchased it - plays nicely on my Mac Mojave. It really brings back the fun - I enjoyed the music notes puzzles and all. I’ve also purchased the first Myst - haven’t played it yet, but it’s original to the Mac. Both were original to the Mac. In fact, Myst was developed on the Mac Quadra in 1993. I still have the original series, but I can’t play it on my MacO/S 10.14. I remember because I had just purchased a Quadra to replace my Mac LC. I think the main O/S was 7 at the time.

A few years ago, I learned you can get one of the original O/S in order to play an old game and install it using bootcamp. But the ones I found were just too darn expensive and didn’t have any real support, so I nixed that idea. I’m not a geek and don’t understand the technical side of things, but kept my old Myst series. I do have all the Myst documents and the book “Myst The book of Atrus” that I read every now and then, but none of Loom since I got rid of all my floppies about 10 years ago or so.

I think GOG store is going to find me a good customer… LOL Thanks to you…

I published the newsletter called Sundance 500 International - all about appaloosas and progeny of Sundance F-500 (ApHC registration #) to provide lots of history of these spotted horses. I did the newsletter from the 1980s into the late 1990s. Used the Apple II, then Mac machines as they were better built and had better applications for desktop publishing. Sure beat the cut 'n past I use to do every month. LOL The publication and organization is now defunct - I learned a few years later. We had well over 1000 subscribers internationally which at the time was well received for a small publication.