Things to Do With Your Networked Vintage Mac

Byte Knight

Byte Knight

Well-known member
As I posted on FB, but I'm posting here so it doesn't fade into oblivion...

Somebody posted some fun things to do with your networked-vintage Mac a while back on FaceBook, which I totally stole and have since added to. So if you're that guy, sorry I don't remember your name but thanks for sharing the list! I'm sure there are some things I've missed, so please add to it. Here's the modified list:

1. Visit some BBS’s: Bulleting Board Systems are still very much alive via telnet! Captain's Quarters II (cqbbs.ddns.net:6800) and Classic Mac BBS (macos.retro-os.live:23) are two Mac-oriented BBS's. Get full color ANSI graphics with Z-Term (modem-equipped Mac) or MacSSH (networked Mac). Details on terminal setup at http://cqbbs.ddns.net. You can also find hundreds of BBS's at telnetbbsguide.com.

2. Browse some HOTLINE Servers: There are many of them still online! Download the Hotline client from https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/hotline. Sign up at hltracker.com (yep, it still works!) and log into the available servers to find discussion groups, download files, and more.

3. Want to browse the web? Get the Clasilla web browser (https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/) and visit http://theoldnet.com/. Search and download any old Mac software from macintoshgarden.org. Use frogfind.com as a search engine and also for a modern to vintage web page converter. And visit 68k.news for the latest news.

4. Speaking of the latest news, there's a stand-alone Google News RSS reader app called Newsstand for OS 8.1-OS 9 (http://www.getnewsstand.com) that works awesome!

5. Read and participate in NEWSGROUPS: Using Clasilla Mail & Newsgroups Tool, subscribe to the nntp.aioe.org free newsgroup server, search some topics of your interest and have fun discovering the communities!

6. Did you know that Reddit has a static versión that works great under Classilla? Go to http://old.reddit.com/

7. Access Discord from an IRC Client. Yes, it’s possible thanks to a Macintosh Garden proxy. Here’s a step by step guide (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/official-im-gateway-classic-macs).

8. No Youtube but still want to watch videos on your Mac? Visit http://cornica.org. A very nice Quicktime video library organized by categories.

9. Listen to ONLINE RADIO: http://www.surfmusic.de/ is a Clasilla-friendly online radio directory. Choose any radio, click on “Stand alone player”, download the .m3u file and load it with iTunes. Or patch iTunes to work with Nubango server (https://github.com/Floofies/nubango).

10. Visit the Apple eWorld reboot Applefritter (https://www.applefritter.com/content/welcome-applefritter-bbs).

11. Play the old-school network tank game Bolo over the internet (http://bolo.astrospark.com)!

12. Connect to some Mac remote file servers with System 7.5.5 and above! There's vtools.stenoweb.net (http://vtools.68kmla.org/index.html) and Captain's Quarters file server (cqbbs.ddns.net).

13. Set up an AppleTalk file server for your vintage Macs / modern Macs / Apple IIgs on a Raspberry Pi with netatalk/A2SERVER (http://ivanx.com/a2server/). Highly recommended! Once set up, it's the easist way to get files from your modern Mac to your vintage Mac.

14. Connect to local Windows networks (only if you MUST! ;) ) using DAVE (http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/thursby-dave-621).

15. Print to a modern printer over your local network (http://bylenga.ddns.net/index.php?page=68KPrinting.php)!

16. Download some warez from FTP sites like macintoshgarden (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/public-access-file-repository) and macos.retro-os.live (ftp://macos.retro-os.live).
 
C

cheesestraws

Well-known member
You can play with AppleTalk stuff over the 'net as well! bbraun has an AppleTalk VPN thing that you can run over the public Internet
 
Byte Knight

Byte Knight

Well-known member
cheesestraws said:
You can play with AppleTalk stuff over the 'net as well! bbraun has an AppleTalk VPN thing that you can run over the public Internet
Click to expand...
Wait - so can you play AppleTalk games over the internet with this or would it be too slow?

And it looks like the mac68k.info AppleShare file server server is no longer up. Or did this morph into the vtools server?
 
Schmoburger

Schmoburger

Well-known member
Wow, DAVE is a program I havent seen or heard of in a loooooooooong time, not since I was messing around with PIII's and beige Powermacs in the 2000's.
 
Byte Knight

Byte Knight

Well-known member
1. Visit some BBS’s: Bulleting Board Systems are still very much alive via telnet! Captain's Quarters II (cqbbs.ddns.net:6800) and Classic Mac BBS (macos.retro-os.live:23) are two Mac-oriented BBS's. Get full color ANSI graphics with Z-Term (modem-equipped Mac) or MacSSH (networked Mac). Details on terminal setup at http://cqbbs.ddns.net. You can also find hundreds of BBS's at telnetbbsguide.com.

2. Browse some HOTLINE Servers: There are many of them still online! Download the Hotline client from https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/hotline. Sign up at hltracker.com (yep, it still works!) and log into the available servers to find discussion groups, download files, and more.

3. Want to browse the web? Get the Clasilla web browser (https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/) and visit http://theoldnet.com/. Search and download any old Mac software from macintoshgarden.org. Use frogfind.com as a search engine and also for a modern to vintage web page converter. And visit 68k.news for the latest news.

4. Speaking of the latest news, there's a stand-alone Google News RSS reader app called Newsstand for OS 8.1-OS 9 (http://www.getnewsstand.com) that works awesome!

5. Read and participate in NEWSGROUPS: Using Clasilla Mail & Newsgroups Tool, subscribe to the nntp.aioe.org free newsgroup server, search some topics of your interest and have fun discovering the communities!

6. Did you know that Reddit has a static versión that works great under Classilla? Go to http://old.reddit.com/

7. Access Discord from an IRC Client. Yes, it’s possible thanks to a Macintosh Garden proxy. Here’s a step by step guide (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/official-im-gateway-classic-macs).

8. No Youtube but still want to watch videos on your Mac? Visit http://cornica.org. A very nice Quicktime video library organized by categories.

9. Listen to ONLINE RADIO: http://www.surfmusic.de/ is a Clasilla-friendly online radio directory. Choose any radio, click on “Stand alone player”, download the .m3u file and load it with iTunes. Or patch iTunes to work with Nubango server (https://github.com/Floofies/nubango).

10. Visit the Apple eWorld reboot Applefritter (https://www.applefritter.com/content/welcome-applefritter-bbs).

11. Play the old-school network tank game Bolo over the internet (http://bolo.astrospark.com)!

12. Connect to some Mac remote file servers with System 7.5.5 and above! There's vtools.stenoweb.net (http://vtools.68kmla.org/index.html) and Captain's Quarters file server (cqbbs.ddns.net).

13. Set up an AppleTalk file server for your vintage Macs / modern Macs / Apple IIgs on a Raspberry Pi with netatalk/A2SERVER (http://ivanx.com/a2server/). Highly recommended! Once set up, it's the easist way to get files from your modern Mac to your vintage Mac.

14. Connect to local Windows networks (only if you MUST! ;) ) using DAVE (http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/thursby-dave-621).

15. Print to a modern printer over your local network (http://bylenga.ddns.net/index.php?page=68KPrinting.php)!

16. Download some warez from FTP sites like macintoshgarden (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/public-access-file-repository) and macos.retro-os.live (ftp://macos.retro-os.live).

17. Fire up a Gopher client and get on gopher://gopher.busisoft.net/. Or host your own Gopher server (https://github.com/pgodwin/GopherServer)!
 
LaPorta

LaPorta

Well-known member
18. Connect all your vintage macs together, have friends over, and have an old school LAN party playing Marathon, F/A-18 Hornet, aforementioned Bolo, SuperMazeWars, Spectre, you name it!
 
C

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
As a fun aside, it's interesting to see how much stuff there is to do online on old Macs these days. To be straight-up there's almost more than when these machines were new, even late '90s machines like the iMac.

Byte Knight said:
IRC Client.
Click to expand...

My apologies if this is also mentioned but the 68kMLA has its own IRC channel!

Server/network is irc.oshaberi.ne.jp and channel is #68kMLA

Byte Knight said:
12. Connect to some Mac remote file servers with System 7.5.5 and above! There's vtools.stenoweb.net (http://vtools.68kmla.org/index.html) and Captain's Quarters file server (cqbbs.ddns.net).
Click to expand...

Thank you for the shout out! vtools was down for a few days (weeks, alas) but should be back now. mac68k.info was bbraun's project if I remember right and is separate, unless he wants to put stuff on vtools. (I haven't asked or anything.)
 
ArmorAlley

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
LaPorta said:
18. Connect all your vintage macs together, have friends over, and have an old school LAN party playing Marathon, F/A-18 Hornet, aforementioned Bolo, SuperMazeWars, Spectre, you name it!
Click to expand...
There are a lot of LAN games that can be played on old Macs.
There is an Excel spreadsheet on the Macintosh Garden (link below) listing many of the games on LANs of pre-Intel Macs. There is over 200 of them.
It is a zipped Excel 97 file: https://macintoshgarden.org/games/macintosh-network-games-excel-file
 
Byte Knight

Byte Knight

Well-known member
Updated a few of these and added a new one. I'm working on the ability to edit my original post.

7. Instant Message with Discord, FaceBook, and Twitter protocols from an IRC Client. Yes, it’s possible thanks to a Macintosh Garden proxy. Here’s a step by step guide (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/official-im-gateway-classic-macs).

13. Set up an AppleTalk file server for your vintage Macs / modern Macs / Apple IIgs on a Raspberry Pi with A2SERVER (http://ivanx.com/a2server/) or Netatalk v2.x (https://github.com/rdmark/Netatalk-2.x). If you have a RaSCSI, Netatalk v2.x is even easier to install with the easyinstall.sh script (https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/wiki/AFP-File-Sharing).

15. Print to a modern printer over your local network using TCP/IP printing (http://bylenga.ddns.net/index.php?page=68KPrinting.php) or with CUPS which is built-in to Netatalk 2.x (see above). http://localhost:631 to get to the CUPS printer web interface.

21. Chat with other vintage Mac users on IRC using a client like Wallops (https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/wallops). 68kmla has its own server (server/network irc.oshaberi.ne.jp channel #68kMLA).
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
As well as letting you play MP3 files, mpegdec lets you stream audio over the internet using m3u files. Even on a fast 68k mac. I've listened to internet radio on a Quadra :) Note you need a low bitrate stream.

MpegDec - MP3 Player for 68K Macs & PowerMacs

MpegDec is an MP3 player for 68K Macs. If you have a Quadra, Centris, LC, Performa, or Mac II series Mac, you will want this program. There is even a PPC version for PowerMacs.
www.jwgdesign.com
 
M

MindWalker

Well-known member
@Phipli - thanks! Just the other day I was wondering if something like this exists. I just tried this on my 68040@20Mhz can play Radio Paralax on lowest settings (and not locking the machine completely), nice! (y)
 
Phipli

Phipli

Well-known member
MindWalker said:
@Phipli - thanks! Just the other day I was wondering if something like this exists. I just tried this on my 68040@20Mhz can play Radio Paralax on lowest settings (and not locking the machine completely), nice! (y)
Click to expand...
20MHz?!

That narrows it down a bit. Early Centris 610 I assume ;)
 
M

MindWalker

Well-known member
Phipli said:
20MHz?!

That narrows it down a bit. Early Centris 610 I assume ;)
Click to expand...

That's right! :D (Upgraded from LC to a full 040, new one is actually rated 25Mhz but haven't figured out if I could swap the oscillator on board to up it all the way to 25...)
 
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