Adding Modern Features to Pool of Radiance Mac Classic (1989)

September 15, 2026 ~2 min read

We are living in a tempest of a time, and my mind seeks the familiar. I picked up an 8” android eink tablet, and was pretty surprised at the lack of really good game experiences built for it’s black and white display. So I did what anyone who grew up in the 80s would do, I installed mini-VMac emulator and fired up “Pool of Radiance”

It’s brilliant, punishing, and an absolute relic of game design long past. No map, journaling, item/weapons/armor stat lists, spell lists, levels, etc. Lots of manual lookup, with the expectation that you have graph paper handy, along with three chunky books and a code wheel.

“It’s a shame gold box companion wasn’t built for the Mac Classic.” I had that thought for about ten seconds. Then I rememberd that it’s easier than ever to turn wishes to horses, so let’s ride. A simple enough plan: fork mini-vmac to include custom views and tools for pool of radiance.

Live New Phlan map with party health bars, armor class and class symbols while Rolf welcomes the party in the original Mac game

The Live Map

It started with the live map, the main view that’s missing. This works well, but I quickly realized I wanted to write notes.

The live map tracking the party to the Temple of Tyr, with the original game's own temple artwork below it

Handwritten Notes on the Map

This was the natural extension. You can place flags on the map, each flag when clicked opens up a scratchpad with a copy of the map you can mark up.

A handwritten note page with TYR sketched by hand, saved against a tile on the New Phlan map

Reading the Game’s Own Memory

From there, I wanted to add in an easy to see tactical view (hp, status, char type).

A read-only tactical overview of a battle, party marks filled and the rest hollow, above the game's own combat view

The notebook's encountered list filling itself in with a tavern tale and a proclamation the game named out loud

Offline Reference Tools

Finally, there’s a lot of lookup tools so you don’t need to leave the game experience to enjoy it all. I added a code wheel lookup, then automated it so it happens automatically on launch, no need to play code wheel lookup or get your reading classes out.

The companion Info tab with offline spell, weapon, level and journal lookups above the running game

Running It on E-Ink

It’s a real joy to play this on an e-ink device. It feels so analog but also kinda futuristic? Retro futuristic.

Captured on the e-ink tablet: the map filled in after a long walk, with the game posting its proclamations below

Captured on the e-ink tablet: a tavern tale overheard across town, with the explored map above it

Getting It

You’ll need a boot disk, apple rom, and Pool of Radiance install. These are easy to find nowadays. Install the APK below, point to your boot disk and rom, and have fun.

The rebuilt boot disk starting straight into the game over a brick desktop pattern

The source, the APK releases and all of the research notes are on GitHub: huntergdavis/poolrad-macmaps.

*Important Note -> This is a proof of concept, heavily written with AI. There will be bugs, and it won’t be perfect. This one is pretty niche, so I honestly don’t even know if anyone will check it out. That’s OK, this one’s for me.