Your very first emulation attempt!

I was thinking that talking about our very first emulation attempt would be a good way to have a laugh and to learn how we all got interested in the whole emulation ideal. Who would like to participate?

My first emulation attempt was using TopThemeXP, which was basically just a UXtheme patcher, with a jaguar skin. I was using Aqua Dock, which was at the bottom at the screen along with my taskbar, which was using a tacky striped theme. Then i decided to move it up to the top. lmao i've come a long way

#439931

Well, I don't do OS X emulation anymore because I've lost general interest, but I can tell you what my first attempt involved. I used a uxtheme patcher and used Three-Drive's OS X Panther theme. Then, I moved the taskbar to the top (to emulate the finder menu), then I right-clicked on the taskbar->"Toolbars"->"New Toolbar...", made a new toolbar to a folder containing all my shortcuts, then dragged that down to the bottom of the screen - and that was my dock. lol

#439935

My first attempt was like in April 2005, I believe. I use Flyakite and slapped an ObjectyBar theme over it. Then after than I reformatted the ol' PC and stayed with the default theme then got interested in it again in November 2005. Kept continuing it until June 2006 when I got my iMac. It was an addiction, I hardly do it anymore since I'm generally doing work.

#439938

ObjectDock for a long time now..and I moved the taskbar to the top. That was in the fall of '04.

#439940

lmao. well, i got into all of this only last year =

#439959

On my first attempt, started around October, a month after joining this site, it was my goal to create the most perfect look-alike to OS X for completely free, no hacks or cracks here. I ended up downloading over 2500 icons and around 40 programs. They cover every specific detail I could think of, from creating animated progress bars to emulating programs like Force Quit, Address Book, Finder, About, Expose, Fontbbok, Spotlight, etc. I had my friend who owns a Macbook take many screenshots of different activity, so that my dock and shadow etc. would be at the Mac default.

Oh and forget using easy-install programs like FlyaKite... I painstakingly hacked and slashed through my registry and system files with RegEdit, changing titles, icons, placement, and dialogs.

I slowly became opbsessed with emulating, and started going into fields I had never ventured into before, including skining and programming. For the first time, I opened files with what I thought were some of the wierdest extensions: CSS, XML, js, widget, I went to sleep at 2 o'clock in the morning every night, checking and rechecking, configuring, changing, modifying, designing.... I lost sleep due to my desire for my computer to look perfectly like a Mac in every single way.

In the end, I've contributed over 800MB to a single folder titled "Mac OS X", under Program Files. And I'm very satisfied with my 3-month project. So satisfied, in fact, that I am convinced that except for what you can't see, I own a Mac. I've always planned on releasing my collection of 239 screenshots, but never found the time. Plus, every time I turn around, something comes up that is added to "Mac OS X", now mostly tools, utilities, and repeats of emulated programs. ( I own 3 versions of Dashboard, and 2 of Spotlight).

This experience has also transformed me. Heck, I thought I knew a lot about computers beforehand. And nowadays, .ini files and XML are like second languages to me.

So how's that for a first-timer? (Also, I like it when people test me. "Bet you don't have this...")

#439963

Alpha....my road sounds similar. And after all that, I got a MacBook and guess what. I don't like it as well as my HP that I emulated.

#439967

I figured that's exactly how I would feel. I always said to my friend, "You know, if I got a Mac right this minute, I'd love it, but stillI would prefer my [strangely]HP over it" Felt your pride sinking away, did you? lol

#439968

wow. lmao and to think i started out with a company that wanted me to pay 'em to patch my UXtheme :slant: figure that one out.

#439973

this thread is lame.

its like... 'where and how did u first do the nutty?'

ohh hell...

my first.... StyleXP came installed on our new computer (in 2001?), and I changed the theme to coughdrop... that got me interested in theming.

later updated StyleXP, and it came with an OSX style theme, so I tried it out. Not satisfied with the extent of the theme found 'Aqua extreme' by (Max?) and then tried it.

having used macs at school I fell in love with the dock and wished I could find a program that did the same thing so I googled and tried "y's dock"... that was my FIRST bit of actual program emulation.

then on and on it goes.

#439983

There is also already a thread for this, I don't know the name, but I know it's there.

#439986

this thread is very similar to this one

#439988

Yea, but that's 2 years ago. This is an updated thread. And Levi, if the thread is lame, then ignore it.

#440032

@alpha2zulu

I learned a lot from emulation also. Tweaking Firefox requires tinkering with some CSS, which is how I got into CSS in the first place. I've since coded several sites with XHMTL and CSS.

But anyway, I did my first emulation attempt around 2005 from utter boredom. I already had my first mac computer then, but it was slow and old to boot. I didn't want to spend $300 to upgrade it, so I got a new PC instead, but missed the mac interface a lot. That's when I got started skinning.

My first emulation attempt was horribly done. I didn't even have cleartype on, so all the fonts looked messed up. I installed Flyakite, and was awed by the features, even though I had a lot of errors. Then over the summer, I got even more into emulation and wanted to be even more detailed. My second attempt was much better; I ended up buying Windowblinds and Objectbar lol.

Now, I think, compared to my very first emulation attempt, I'm a lot better at this. haha

http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/member.php?u=53956

#440036

I used Flyakie 2.0 and it worked pretty well. Of course, I have found problems with 3.5's boot screen, so now I'm stuck with the 2.0.

#440072

mmy first attempt was actually with an unreleased version of niqu though i feel kinda bad since i didnt know about all the hoo haa around unreleased themes....daaaamn that was a while back....oh yeh i had to manually patch uxtheme.dll as the patcher i found didnt work (now we have the tiny universal awesome one ha)

#440137

this thread is very similar to this one

I'm rather fond of this thread, actually. I think future posts should still be in there.

//Thread Closed

-NC

#440447