Get an old Mac on the web?

[jeffmr4]

Here is a link to a site that uses a Web Rendering Proxy on a modern computer to get an older Mac to surf the web. I haven't tried it so I can't vouch for its usefulness but it looks like a good solution to surfing the net on a classic mac.

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

 

[slipperygrey]

WRP is definitely a solid choice for a server side rendering solution that will give you a good visual representation of modern websites on an old computer. The drawback is some level of latency due to bitmap images of the web pages being transported over the network, webforms not functioning reliably, and binary file downloads not working, among other limitations of this kind of browser proxy technology.

Your option is web content transcoding proxies, which processes html/css/javascript (and sometimes multimedia contents) in various ways to make them palatable for old browsers. There are a quite a few to choose from, each of them with various pros and cons. I handful that I have some experience with:

• WebOne
  • Pros: Tries to faithfully transcode modern webapps in their entirety. Has sophisticated on-the-fly patching of popular websites. Support for re-encoding images and video contents. Great for PPC era Macs.
  • Cons: Produces too complex code for 68k Macs, very slow to parse and reflow pages, browser running out of memory easily. The proxy itself is bulky, and relies on Microsoft's .NET runtime if running on Linux.
• 68kproxy
  • Pros: Uses the Mozilla Readability library to create a semantic representation of the DOM with unnecessary cruft removed which is light-weight enough for 68k Macs, while maintaining usable navigation links. Re-encodes images on the fly. Translates common typographic symbols to ASCII.
  • Cons: Readability doesn't always get it right, stripping out too much valuable contents. The [X] link to disable Readability doesn't always work. Binary file downloads aren't supported. Hard-coded to port 8080.
• MacProxy (disclosure: This is the fork that I made and improved)
  • Pros: Super light-weight, very aggressively stripping out external contents, while retaining the layout of "retro" websites. Supports binary downloads. Translates common typographic symbols to ASCII.
  • Cons: Makes modern web pages look ugly, with massive exploded navbars taking up the first one or two viewports worth.

TL;DR -- All four are great options! It's just a matter of playing around with them and finding that sweet spot that works the best for your system, and expectations.

 

[Cashed]

The Mozilla Readability Library were used for FrogFind! -that lets any old tech browse the web using any old web browser.
Unfortunately I see the site has been hit with URLhishing, so editing my sig.

 

[slipperygrey]

@Cashed You're right, they're leveraging similar technology. The main differences are that 68kproxy uses the JavaScript version of Readability, while FrogFind uses the PHP version. Also, unlike FrogFind, 68kproxy enables you to disable Readability on the fly, which makes it fall back to an external content stripping approach similar to MacProxy.

While I applaud Sean's initiative and effort to keep it running, to me FrogFind is too limited and static, and more often than not strips away the content I want to access. FrogFind's limitations was actually the trigger for me to research and write code for vintage web proxy applications myself.

 

[Cashed]

Thanks -for the input! Yea now you mention it, I do recall he mentioned using the PHP version when I watched his YouTube.
Had it not been for this thread, I wouldn't have noticed FrogFind! in my sig, had been hit with URL: phishing -which is new, so I alerted him by mail.

@slipperygrey I can't wait to see how your web proxy progresses ya!

 

[slipperygrey]

@Cashed Oh, I consider my MacProxy fork "feature complete" at this point. It does what it does with regards to stripping away external content, and making modern websites look ugly but content-complete on vintage browsers.

68kproxy is a nice middle road there between MacProxy's crude but effective transcoding, and FrogFind's aggressive but destructive approach. However it's still early days and I've found a bunch of bugs and limitations that I've reported to the author. Improving on 68kproxy might be the way forward, but JavaScript is not really my favorite language to code in...

 

[Cashed]

Cool! -looking forwards to try it out.
Yea, I'm off the same opinion. I only do use FrogFind & TheOldNet for an additional search sometimes. As an afterthought, when searching for old web archive finds.

 

[DarthNvader]

Here is a link to a site that uses a Web Rendering Proxy on a modern computer to get an older Mac to surf the web. I haven't tried it so I can't vouch for its usefulness but it looks like a good solution to surfing the net on a classic mac.

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

Hey, that works on Qemu-system-m68k too!

So special configuration need, just the standard SILP networking found it right out of the box!

 

[ironborn65]

I've been using this for a while, the problem I have is that it can not save bookmarks.
Also editing text on a web page, like in a search box, is a little cumbersome, but for point and click it's ok

 

[DarthNvader]

I've been using this for a while, the problem I have is that it can not save bookmarks.
Also editing text on a web page, like in a search box, is a little cumbersome, but for point and click it's ok

Downloads are an issue too, but just for getting on the web it's pretty good for basically zero configuration.

On my M2 Mac emulation of the Q800 in 68k is ridiculously fast. I just wanted to check it out because I was going to build one of those 3D printed 40% scale Mac Plus that has a Raspberry Pi and emulation for the Mac OS.

I realize most people use minivMac for this to run the older versions of the Mac OS( Systems ), but I wanted to run OS 8.1 just because I like the feel of it, have some ability to use the Web is a great add-on to a fun little project.