Help & credits

Using your Macintosh

Sign Up opens automatically in System 7. Create an account or sign in with your passkey, connect ChatGPT in the browser, then choose Use this Macintosh. New browser Macs link automatically. Reloading requires your passkey before your saved account Mac opens. For a physical Mac or a readable form, use browser account setup. New Macs have a 160 MiB Macintosh HD. Existing 80 MiB account disks expand on the next clean launch. For app updates, quit Chatintosh, open Chatintosh Update, and run Install Chatintosh.

Click the Mac’s input field, then press ⌘V / Ctrl+V or choose Paste text. Basic paste types up to 256 English letters, numbers, and punctuation. Line breaks become spaces; it never presses Return for you. Press Escape to cancel.

Press Return or Enter to send; Shift-Return adds a new line. You can also click Send. Your Macintosh requires sign-in and has a private cloud disk tied to your account. Save documents in the Mac, click Save & stop, then quit to Finder and hold Special → Shut Down. The emulator waits for System 7 to finish, uploads the disk, and tells you when you can close the tab. Only one browser can run your cloud Macintosh at a time.

Disk access uses a fast local working copy, with changes synced to your account. A new browser restores the last complete cloud save. If sync fails, reopen in the same browser after reconnecting; do not clear site data, which would remove unuploaded recovery data. Force-closing the tab can lose documents still in System 7’s memory. An existing pre-login Mac can be imported without deleting its original disk.

For setup, use Readable view if you prefer a larger, unfiltered form.

Chicago Kare

The setup’s classic lettering is by Duane King, distributed under its MIT license.

Snow

The SE/30 is emulated by Snow by Thomas W. and contributors, using Mihai Parparita’s Infinite Mac frontend. Licensed under the MIT license.

Chatintosh adds a virtual modem bridge to the frontend. It forwards opaque Chatintosh device frames only. The emulator is otherwise a hardware-level Macintosh SE/30, not a desktop imitation.

Infinite Mac

Media sources and disk layout are based on Infinite Mac by Mihai Parparita, licensed under Apache 2.0. Macintosh ROM, System 7, and driver media remain the property of their respective owners and are fetched directly from that archive. These media are not covered by the emulator’s open-source license.

CRT rendering

The monochrome WebGL renderer uses Gaussian beam reconstruction and curvature principles from Timothy Lottes’ public-domain CRT shader. It adds output-pixel beam integration, linear-light diffusion, and a monochrome preset. It does not incorporate CRT-Royale code or simulate an RGB phosphor mask.

Chatintosh

The original application runs inside the emulated Mac. Its browser-specific transport replaces physical MacTCP connectivity; encryption, pairing, conversation handling, and saved device credentials remain in the guest application.

SE/30 case artwork

The shared vector housing is a photo-derived approximation of a Macintosh SE/30. The Apple silhouette is from Simple Icons, under CC0. Apple names and marks belong to Apple Inc.; Chatintosh is not affiliated with Apple.