This is fantastic. To me, this is one of the greatest side-effects of agentic coding; adding new functionality to vintage, abandoned or obsolete hardware. It gives me hope for a solarpunk future where e-waste gets a more functional second life.
Yes. Discrete 74 series TTL logic ICs were quite obsolete; CMOS versions replaced them. But now with new generations that are not level-compatible with the TTL versions, the TTL versions are even more obsolete.
There's no acceleration here. Vintage Macs are 100% obsolete. They can't get any more obsolete than that. They can, however, become MORE relevant for hobbyists through the development of new software for them.
Apple keeps changing the name of their desktop operating system, so Hacker News has some sort of filter to automatically change "Mac OS" to whatever the newest name is in order to fit Apple's brand guidelines. This has the consequence of making some submission titles read as anachronistic when the sumission is about an old OS version.
Somewhere in Korea there's an industrial overhead crane tracked across an entire 5-story warehouse, operated from a G3 in a network that is about to implement web-based zero trust. It has a twin in Japan. You have just extended the life of these two perfectly functional $100M investments.
Do I know this to be true? No. But I do not know it to be false, either.
Yes, some older version but I've grabbed carbonlib 1.6.1 from macintoshrepository and that helped with launching MacSurf under that premade 9.0 machine
Cool! I've been wondering for some time if a good low-distraction but pleasant environment could be an old Mac OS on a (good looking) Hackintosh. The UI was baked with UX research at least.
This is Mac OS 9, which is pre-hackintosh. The term "hackintosh" refers to running x86 versions of Mac OS X on non-Mac x86 systems, where OS 9 was exclusive to PowerPC.
I always enjoy it when someone makes "obsolete" hardware natively talk to modern network services that it was never meant to talk to. And bringing an entire browser to a system this old is a serious achievement. I don't own any hardware that can run classic Mac OS, but I'm gonna try it on an emulator later, really curious how it handles several of my own websites.
Though the fact that the author uses AI is kinda meh.
Hey everyone! This is my project, I've been working really hard (yes using AI to help) for about two months straight now. I am not just letting it be, I am going to keep tooling with it every day to make it better and better.
The latest version uses real, third-party verified, TLS 1.3 so I am pushing all the limits that I can. Thanks for sharing!
This is fantastic. To me, this is one of the greatest side-effects of agentic coding; adding new functionality to vintage, abandoned or obsolete hardware. It gives me hope for a solarpunk future where e-waste gets a more functional second life.
So, making obsolete hardware relevant by using the technology that's accelerating their "irrelevanceness" ?
Can hardware became more obsolete?
Yes. Discrete 74 series TTL logic ICs were quite obsolete; CMOS versions replaced them. But now with new generations that are not level-compatible with the TTL versions, the TTL versions are even more obsolete.
To me it proves that a technology can be understood and implemented by one person.
Life isn't black & white
How is AI making old hardware obsolete faster?
If anything it's the opposite (by making new hardware unaffordable)
Prices for retro hardware are going up due to hoarders & sometimes social effect, too.
You are aware that there's a huge retrocomputing community around the world that with hearts and passion preserves old machines and software?
Being part of it myself, I think I've heard of it.
But I fail to understand how using the very thing that's shortening hardware life nowadays is "passionate". Different values I presume.
There's no acceleration here. Vintage Macs are 100% obsolete. They can't get any more obsolete than that. They can, however, become MORE relevant for hobbyists through the development of new software for them.
What could be better than that?
When I owned a iMac G3, the Classilla browser was surprisingly good. Looks like development ended in 2021.
Also, the branding was "Mac OS 9".
Exactly. I don't know why some people'd change the branding.
The project didn't, only the HN submission title.
Not the submission title, just the automatically revised submission title. Pretty sure I submitted it with the proper casing/spacing
Apple keeps changing the name of their desktop operating system, so Hacker News has some sort of filter to automatically change "Mac OS" to whatever the newest name is in order to fit Apple's brand guidelines. This has the consequence of making some submission titles read as anachronistic when the sumission is about an old OS version.
HN has this thing where it would automatically "fix" submission titles.
Very cool, congrats on the release. Looks fantastic, wish I had a G4 to test it on!
I've just added it to the Web Browser Directory (Corrections and additions welcome)
https://www.webbrowserdirectory.com/browsers/macsurf/
That's impressive, too bad modern web requires more than 2000x the transistor density to run JS at decent speed. We really f*** up.
WebAssembly can run without needing an interpreter, as it’s a binary and not a scripted language.
May JS die a quick death so that WebAssembly can take its place.
Somewhere in Korea there's an industrial overhead crane tracked across an entire 5-story warehouse, operated from a G3 in a network that is about to implement web-based zero trust. It has a twin in Japan. You have just extended the life of these two perfectly functional $100M investments.
Do I know this to be true? No. But I do not know it to be false, either.
I was expecting to see PowerPlant with C++, given Codewarrior, or even better MacApp with Object Pascal being used.
Anyone had luck running it under infinitemac? I can't boot anything beyond 9.0 and it throws some error upon launch - seems it needs at least 9.1.
It needs carbonlib - is that installed on the OS? I was able to get it to work on 9.1 with the last released CarbonLib.
Yes, some older version but I've grabbed carbonlib 1.6.1 from macintoshrepository and that helped with launching MacSurf under that premade 9.0 machine
Cool! I've been wondering for some time if a good low-distraction but pleasant environment could be an old Mac OS on a (good looking) Hackintosh. The UI was baked with UX research at least.
It's a significantly newer Mac OS than Mac OS 9, but this is basically my life. Mavericksforever.com.
That's awesome, thanks for sharing.
This is Mac OS 9, which is pre-hackintosh. The term "hackintosh" refers to running x86 versions of Mac OS X on non-Mac x86 systems, where OS 9 was exclusive to PowerPC.
That would be "Mac OS 9"
Freaking love it! Gonna put this on my 1998 Bondi Blue iMac G3 today.
Let us know how many minutes it runs before you get a system crash and a sad-face Mac icon.
I always enjoy it when someone makes "obsolete" hardware natively talk to modern network services that it was never meant to talk to. And bringing an entire browser to a system this old is a serious achievement. I don't own any hardware that can run classic Mac OS, but I'm gonna try it on an emulator later, really curious how it handles several of my own websites.
Though the fact that the author uses AI is kinda meh.
Absolutely love it.
This is what the Amiga is missing!
Have you tried the Netsurf port for it?
Time to fire up the ol PowerMac G4 MDD (last native support for Mac OS 9)
Hey everyone! This is my project, I've been working really hard (yes using AI to help) for about two months straight now. I am not just letting it be, I am going to keep tooling with it every day to make it better and better.
The latest version uses real, third-party verified, TLS 1.3 so I am pushing all the limits that I can. Thanks for sharing!
Always surprising but fun to see a "MPLS" MN state flag graphic in some random github readme. Then I see the username "mplsllc" :) Hello neighbor!