I’ve talked about the first two apps I can’t live without and the first one that I can. Here are the next two Mac apps I can’t live without:
#5 Virtual ][. You need to be a little bit of a geek and more than a few years old to appreciate this app, but Virtual ][ is a full Apple ][ emulator. It will run all of the old Apple ][ software, whether original Apple ][, Apple ][ Plus, or Apple ][e. (You need to have the rights to have the ROMs for those machines.) I use it to code in 6502 assembly language and to run old games, like my favorite, Wizardry. Here is the app’s website and if you use it as much as I do, you should do what I did and buy a license.
And now for the next app I can’t live without:
#4 Terminal. Some may argue that terminal is not an app, but a window into the Mac operating system via a shell. Toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh. I use Terminal multiple times every day to do things that are not possible to do otherwise, or are just easier to do with a command line. I download my latest Apple App Stores sales, ssh into my Raspberry Pi’s, and manipulate files in bulk. I launch every simulator needed to test out an iPhone app (there are 11 different iPhone and iPad sizes to test) and install the latest test version of the app. It can also be fun.
Try things like “fortune | cowsay”.
---------------------------------------
/ Of all the things I have lost, I miss \
\ my mind the most. /
---------------------------------------
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||----w |
|| ||If you don’t have cowsay installed, do this: “sudo apt-get install cowsay” and if you don’t have fortune, do this: “sudo apt install fortune”.
Let me know in the comments what you think so far.
I just moved from Terminal to Ghostty. I’m sure there many others but it’s been a good transition so far. I’d recommend trying it (free).
Thanks for your comment. I have downloaded Ghostty and, at first blush, it is what the developer promised: Fast, feature-rich, and native (to Mac OS for my testing). I’ll use it for a while and see if I notice that it is better, different, or generally the same. Thanks again for the pointer!