I would like to maybe buy a G4 laptop. 2005 model would be interesting to have.


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Re: Macs
By: Utopian Galt to All on Sat Jan 06 2024 07:36 pm

I would like to maybe buy a G4 laptop. 2005 model would be interesting to have.

I recently bought a used G4 Mac Mini. I'm planning to put OS 9 on it (I know it's not supported, but I've heard there are ways to do it). Though honestly, aside from trying to find a couple of retro Mac games, I'm not sure what I'll use it for.

Nightfox
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I recently bought a used G4 Mac Mini. I'm planning to put OS 9 on it (I know it's not supported, but I've heard there are ways to do it).
Though honestly, aside from trying to find a couple of retro Mac games, I'm not sure what I'll use it for.

I have this and love it. OS9 is a trip. It's fun to set up and while it may not have exclusive games, it's a nicely polished OS with a decent library of games you can play in spite of them existing on other platforms.

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Nightfox wrote to Utopian Galt <=-

I recently bought a used G4 Mac Mini. I'm planning to put OS 9 on it
(I know it's not supported, but I've heard there are ways to do it). Though honestly, aside from trying to find a couple of retro Mac games, I'm not sure what I'll use it for.

You could probably find a ton of old software for it - ClarisWorks, old
MS Office, older browsers, Eudora for email...

I don't know about old browsers, but apparently there's a proxy out
there that brokers web traffic between old browsers and let them work
with modern sites.



... It is quite possible (after all)
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Re: Re: Macs
By: esc to Nightfox on Sun Jan 07 2024 09:12 pm

I recently bought a used G4 Mac Mini. I'm planning to put OS 9 on it (I
know it's not supported, but I've heard there are ways to do it). Though
honestly, aside from trying to find a couple of retro Mac games, I'm not
sure what I'll use it for.

I have this and love it. OS9 is a trip. It's fun to set up and while it may not have exclusive games, it's a nicely polished OS with a decent library of games you can play in spite of them existing on other platforms.

Yeah, I liked the UI in OS 7 through 9 (and early OS X as well, through Tiger). The G4 that I bought had OS X 10.4.11 on it, and I upgraded it to 10.5.6. I rememebr those versions of OS X having an OS 9 compatibility layer (which I think was an actual copy of OS 9), and I've debated whether I'd want to just do that (so I can use OS X stuff as well) or actually have it run OS 9 natively. I'm not sure if it has the OS 9 compatibility layer currently though, and I think you'd have to have OS 9 installed and then upgrade to OS X?

Nightfox
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Re: Re: Macs
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Mon Jan 08 2024 06:32 am

I recently bought a used G4 Mac Mini. I'm planning to put OS 9 on it (I
know it's not supported, but I've heard there are ways to do it). Though
honestly, aside from trying to find a couple of retro Mac games, I'm not
sure what I'll use it for.

You could probably find a ton of old software for it - ClarisWorks, old MS Office, older browsers, Eudora for email...

I don't know about old browsers, but apparently there's a proxy out there that brokers web traffic between old browsers and let them work with modern sites.

I've heard about that.
I was initially thinking of buying a 90s beige Mac G3 (such as an 8500 or 9500), but then I had the thought of the G4 Mac Mini - The Mac Mini is small enough to fit on the same computer desk I'm using, and also modern enough that it has a DVI video output (which I can easily plug into an HDMI monitor), and it has USB and ethernet built-in as well.

Nightfox
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I have a 2005 iBook G4. It's a cool little machine. I just re-celled the battery last month, so I can take it down to the Starbucks and glower at all the people using inferior computers. ;)

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Yeah, I liked the UI in OS 7 through 9 (and early OS X as well, through Tiger). The G4 that I bought had OS X 10.4.11 on it, and I upgraded it
to 10.5.6. I rememebr those versions of OS X having an OS 9
compatibility layer (which I think was an actual copy of OS 9), and I've debated whether I'd want to just do that (so I can use OS X stuff as
well) or actually have it run OS 9 natively. I'm not sure if it has the OS 9 compatibility layer currently though, and I think you'd have to
have OS 9 installed and then upgrade to OS X?

OS X 10.4.11 is the last version with Classic mode. Essentially you install 10.4.11 and then install Classic mode inside it. There are stripped down ways to install, I would shar elinks but typing from iPad :) google should help you out here.

10.4.11 is, IMO, the best PPC OSX release. It is the most up to date with good performance and Classic mode. 10.5 is nice but slows things down quite a bit and also kills Classic mode.

I think if you look at the macrumors forums you'll find a 10.4.11 upgrade bundle which streamlines the OS quite a bit and should be the first thing you do after a fresh install.

On the other hand, if your goal is to use OS 9 (which I encourage!), go to the os9lives forums and snag an ISO. I think you can install directly from the ISO but can't remember the most recent instructions. You may need a little USB audio adapter unless they fixed the onboard audio issues, but other than that, you'll have a screaming fast OS 9 with all the bells and whistles, a supported GPU, networking, and game compatibility. It's amazing.

I don't personally like OSX on a G4 as much - I have a G5 for OSX. I find the G4 just lacks in performance.

MorphOS is another great OS to use on a Mac Mini G4. You can actually multi-boot. I have MorphOS, OS9, OS X 10.4, OS X 10.5, and Gentoo all running on mine. That said I only really use OS9 and everything else exists there due to all the effort it took me to get it installed :P

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
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I have a 2005 iBook G4. It's a cool little machine. I just re-celled the battery last month, so I can take it down to the Starbucks and glower at all the people using inferior computers. ;)

How'd you re-cell the battery? This is the first I've heard of this and you've piqued my attention :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)

Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

I've heard about that.
I was initially thinking of buying a 90s beige Mac G3 (such as an 8500
or 9500), but then I had the thought of the G4 Mac Mini - The Mac Mini
is small enough to fit on the same computer desk I'm using, and also modern enough that it has a DVI video output (which I can easily plug
into an HDMI monitor), and it has USB and ethernet built-in as well.

The Mini sound like a good option.

I worked in mostly mac shops from 1992 to 1997, lived through the IIfx,
IICi, Quadra and PowerMac eras. Good times. I liked the old OS, even
with its limitations.

People thought I was a Mac Genius, when most of what I did was
re-install the network drivers and zap the PRAM. That seemed to solve
most of the problems I'd been handed.




... Are there sections? Consider transitions
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Nightfox wrote to esc <=-

Tiger). The G4 that I bought had OS X 10.4.11 on it, and I upgraded it
to 10.5.6. I rememebr those versions of OS X having an OS 9
compatibility layer (which I think was an actual copy of OS 9), and
I've debated whether I'd want to just do that (so I can use OS X stuff
as well) or actually have it run OS 9 natively. I'm not sure if it has the OS 9 compatibility layer currently though, and I think you'd have
to have OS 9 installed and then upgrade to OS X?

I thought they just emulated a 68K mac, not that it was a separate OS
running.




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Re: Re: Macs
By: esc to Nightfox on Mon Jan 08 2024 06:35 pm

Yeah, I liked the UI in OS 7 through 9 (and early OS X as well, through
Tiger). The G4 that I bought had OS X 10.4.11 on it, and I upgraded it to
10.5.6. I rememebr those versions of OS X having an OS 9 compatibility

OS X 10.4.11 is the last version with Classic mode. Essentially you install 10.4.11 and then install Classic mode inside it. There are stripped down ways to install, I would shar elinks but typing from iPad :) google should help you out here.

10.4.11 is, IMO, the best PPC OSX release. It is the most up to date with good performance and Classic mode. 10.5 is nice but slows things down quite a bit and also kills Classic mode.

I don't personally like OSX on a G4 as much - I have a G5 for OSX. I find the G4 just lacks in performance.

Maybe I should have kept 10.4.11 on it. Oh well, I can always do a fresh install of 10.4.11.. I did notice 10.5.6 seemed a bit slower.

I think if you look at the macrumors forums you'll find a 10.4.11 upgrade bundle which streamlines the OS quite a bit and should be the first thing you do after a fresh install.

Thanks for the tip. :)

On the other hand, if your goal is to use OS 9 (which I encourage!), go to the os9lives forums and snag an ISO. I think you can install directly from the ISO but can't remember the most recent instructions. You may need a little USB audio adapter unless they fixed the onboard audio issues, but other than that, you'll have a screaming fast OS 9 with all the bells and whistles, a supported GPU, networking, and game compatibility. It's amazing.

I thought I had heard something about the internal speaker not working but it works with the audio output jack, so you could plug speakers into it. And I'd heard you have to hold a key down to boot into Open Firmware to be able to boot into OS 9 on the Mac Mini.. I wonder if that works if I have a Windows keybaord, as I don't have a Mac keybaord right now. I planned to use a USB switcher and use the same keybaord & monitor with the Mac Mini and my Windows PC.

Nightfox
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Re: Re: Macs
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Tue Jan 09 2024 06:38 am

I worked in mostly mac shops from 1992 to 1997, lived through the IIfx, IICi, Quadra and PowerMac eras. Good times. I liked the old OS, even with its limitations.

I also liked the older Mac OS. I thought it looked nice, and also felt fairly user-friendly. And in older versions, I remember it displaying an exploding bomb when there was an error/failure, and I always thought that was funny.

Nightfox
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Re: Re: Macs
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Tue Jan 09 2024 06:40 am

Tiger). The G4 that I bought had OS X 10.4.11 on it, and I upgraded it to
10.5.6. I rememebr those versions of OS X having an OS 9 compatibility
layer (which I think was an actual copy of OS 9), and I've debated

I thought they just emulated a 68K mac, not that it was a separate OS running.

Around 2004, I bought a used Mac with OS X and it had the OS 9 compatibility, and I remember it starting a separate environment to run OS 9 apps, and it looked like a VM or similar. And some OS 9 apps could run on PowerPC too..

Apparently it was called the "Classic Environment":
https://shorturl.at/dmsEU

Full link: https://everymac.com/mac-answers/mac-os-9-classic-support-faq/last-macs-to-supp ort-macos-9-classic.html

Nightfox
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*** Quoting Esc to Abbub dated 01-08-24 ***

How'd you re-cell the battery? This is the first I've heard of this and you've piqued my attention :)

In the case of the iBook G4 (and a decent number of laptops from that era), if you crack open (carefully!) the battery, you'll see that it's just a bunch of 18650 batteries spot-welded together. I ordered some decent 18650 replacement LiOn batteries, unsoldered the circuit board and the wiring, spot welded (with a cheap amazon spot welder) the batteries together in the same configuration they were connected in the original battery, soldered the wires / circuit board back on, and stuck it all back in the case and snapped it back together. There are videos of people doing this on YouTube you can watch for getting the general idea.

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* Origin: Telnet: bbs.WalledCTTY.com:1989 - Fort Collins, CO USA (21:2/145)

I don't know about old browsers, but apparently there's a proxy out
there that brokers web traffic between old browsers and let them work
with modern sites.

Really? I will follow this thread to learn more.

Mike


* SLMR 2.1a * How do you know if you run out of invisible ink?

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I have one of those but the HD ribbon cable was torn. I also have 2 old iMacs (a smaller screen and a larger screen) that were given to me in non-working condition. I then decided to grab an iMac mini (it doesn't have displays) and use that to remote desktop to the two iMacs. That was a fun project. I just recently grabbed a new iMac mini and enjoy it for what I'm using it for. Especially with all this WIN11 B.S.

--
Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
admin@f4fbbs.com
bbs.f4fbbs.com:2323 or :62323

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MIKE POWELL wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

I don't know about old browsers, but apparently there's a proxy out
there that brokers web traffic between old browsers and let them work
with modern sites.

Really? I will follow this thread to learn more.

I think the site I was thinking of was https://protoweb.org/features/



... What do you think of the guests?
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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frogfind? it's very useful
FF proxies Google searches for one thing.
http://frogfind.com/

-andy

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* Origin: Massive BBS | bbs.diller.org (21:3/178)

³ > I don't know about old browsers, but apparently there's a proxy out
³ > there that brokers web traffic between old browsers and let them work
³ > with modern sites.
³
³ MP> Really? I will follow this thread to learn more.
³
³ I think the site I was thinking of was https://protoweb.org/features/ ÀÄ[PF=>MP]

That is pretty neat. I will have to try setting it up with an older
browser. They also have a custom, apparently up to date, browser for older Windows versions (98+). It sounds like they mainly deal in restored
historic websites. They didn't mention how the process works with modern sites, so I will be interested in finding out.

I have noticed that Firefox on a lower-powered modern machine, like an
older Raspi or clone, tends to choke on some modern sites (and even crashes
the machine). I am curious to see if using this service with Firefox or
Links2 (which often cannot really load modern sites like startpage.com)
will improve my luck there.

Also want to try it on an older machine with an older os. They mention a
DOS web browser called Microweb that was updated as of 2023. ;)

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 1-12-24 6:11
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I have this and love it. OS9 is a trip. It's fun to set up and while
it may not have exclusive games, it's a nicely polished OS with a
decent library of games you can play in spite of them existing on
other platforms.

Agreed! I have a g3 iMac (color one) and I swapped OS X for OS9, and it
runs pretty awesome. Macintosh Garden is a great place to load up on
games!


|08.|05j|13A|08.


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massive wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

frogfind? it's very useful
FF proxies Google searches for one thing.
http://frogfind.com/

That's the one - thanks for the pointer!



... ONE OUT OF FIVE DENTISTS RECOMMEND GUM.
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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If you are looking for a semi-modern browser that has a chance of being
locally built take a look at Dillo: https://dillo.org/

No JS - but it's pretty capable and I even worked with a team that ported it over to IRIX a few years ago for something interesting on that platform.

For old browsers that have no hope of JS or SSL use frogfind if you just
simply must browse the modern web with them.

-andy

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