Orion b4
| Filename | orion-b4.hqx |
|---|---|
| Size | 622.8 KB (637793 bytes) |
| Downloads | 10 |
Orion is a Classic Mac simulation of space flight in a hypothetical starship capable of traveling many millions of times the speed of light, letting the pilot tour the Solar System planets and nearby stars. Robert P. Munafo first released it in 1985, and the "b4" build is a fourth beta of that early simulator.
Faster-than-light tourism
The ship's drive abstracts away the punishing distances of real spaceflight so that Pluto, Alpha Centauri, and other named neighbors are reachable in a single sitting rather than a lifetime, with controls focused on choosing a destination and arriving.
First-person black-sky view
Presentation is a 1st-person perspective: a star field rendered in monochrome on the original 512x342 Mac screen, with the planet or star you have selected growing as you close on it.
System 1 through Mac OS 9
The Macintosh Garden listing pegs Orion as a 68k application running across an unusually wide span, from System 1 up through Mac OS 9, which fits its 1985 origin. Modern users typically run it under Mini vMac, Basilisk II, or SheepShaver.
Beta 4 caveat
The "b4" suffix marks this as a pre-1.0 build. Behavior, UI labels, and the catalog of reachable bodies may differ from any later release; treat it as a historical snapshot rather than a finished product.
This file is part of the MacTrove archive. See the Thank You page for the upstream mirrors we rely on. It is BinHex encoded — use The Unarchiver to decode it.
