Current State of Mac OS 9 Instant Messaging Clients

[reject902]

I was just trying to get an idea of what Instant Messaging applications OS 9 users are using and what's still working. I know AOL is still allowing their native OS 9 applications connections to their servers.

How about Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger? I have what I believe to be the latest versions for both and neither one is letting me connect. Can anyone confirm?

Anyone have a favorite?

 

[bittin]

i often use this with jabber transports: http://jabbernaut.sourceforge.net/

 

[avw]

There is also TVJab for Jabber and ICQ 3.4

 

[ianj]

I used to use AIMM, which was a very clean and simple AIM client for PPC 7.6-9.2, but it relies on TOC (which AOL has discontinued). The AOL client is disgusting and I imagine anything from Microsoft or Yahoo would be the same, so currently I'm not aware of any decent working clients. Of course, by now almost everyone in my social circles has stopped using AIM in favor of Facebook chat, which I think runs on Jabber, so maybe I'll give JabberNaut a try.

 

[reject902]

I'm gonna look into JabberNaut. Thanks guys.

Has anyone tried Yahoo or MSN under OS 9 lately? They both attempt to log in but go nowhere. These were still working not too long ago IIRC.

 

[PowerPup]

MSN messenger (or rather live messenger now,) has updated their authentication certificates among other things a couple times over the last few years. So it wouldn't be surprising that MSN messenger doesn't work anymore. I had to go and download the latest certificates in order to get Pidgin to work a couple months back. Have no idea how one would do something like that for Mac OS 9. I haven't used Yahoo in a long time so I don't know about it.

Making a multi-protocol messenger for Classic Mac would be a pretty neat retro challenge. Starting with one protocol and make it expandable with modules. Oh well. Guess IRC and Jabber are well enough for now.

 

[Watchsmart]

Bitlbee works as a sort of solution, of course. It's a lot of fun.

A setup guide for Bitlbee in OS 7.5.5:

http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/68k_instant_messaging

 

[Unknown_K]

Does ICQ have an old Mac client? I am not one for IM clients but back in the late 1990's I used ICQ all the time on the PC.

 

[protocol7]

http://mac.oldapps.com/icq.php

I know I had some version of it running on Basillisk II back around 2000 or so. Not sure if it still works nowadays.