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What is the oldest Mac/browser combo that you would browse the web and download old software with?
- Thread starter Schmoburger
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It is, and I think is also speaks for TBL's original, limited vision for the web as a means of storing research papers.
It was simple, and it made for lots of weird, jimmy rigged infrastructure to make it do fancier things over time. But it's simple enough that the oldest browsers still "get" HTML.
It was simple, and it made for lots of weird, jimmy rigged infrastructure to make it do fancier things over time. But it's simple enough that the oldest browsers still "get" HTML.
I remember using internet explorer 5 for the mac back when it was current, and it sucked then. Plus it was slow as balls. Even on a G3 it was a bit harsh.
I was a somewhat heavy user of IE4, IE4.5 and IE5 for Mac both back when they were new and a few years later, as recently as 2005 or 2006 when I still had my TiBook and was dual booting it, my blue-and-white G3, and later on, my PowerBook G4.
Of all the browsers for Mac OS 9 that existed until Classilla came onboard and fixed a few but not necessarily all of WaMCoM's issues, it was probably the best and the most likely to either successfully render a page, or at least fail gracefully without either requiring you confirm that you received 17 errors 17 times (iCab) or simply crashing (Netscape/WaMCoM.) I also found it to be a lot faster than the newest versions of Netscape and Mozilla that ran on Mac OS 9, though maybe that was an age difference, I do believe that WaMCoM and the newest Netscape for OS 9 were a few years newer than IE5 was.
Of course, the other thing is that IE5 ran on PPC systems running OS releases as old as 7.6, and the Mozilla/Netscape/iCab compatibility changes a bit from 7.6 to 9.2, I never really looked at browsers for OS 9 that much because I spent relatively little time on the Internet in OS 9. I was usually booted into 9 (specifically 9, as opposed to 8.1 on my iMac/233 when it was my only computer, or 7.x and 8.1 on my various beige PPCs) it was for some kind of productivity app, as opposed to network access.
If you're designing a page targeted toward old Macs, I'd say to make it visually as simple as possible, maybe dig out your copy of Claris HomePage 3 and use that? That'll get you pretty good results on version 3/4 web browsers, and something that's likely to be mostly usable on version 1/2 web browsers, just depending on what stuff you end up using.
Of all the browsers for Mac OS 9 that existed until Classilla came onboard and fixed a few but not necessarily all of WaMCoM's issues, it was probably the best and the most likely to either successfully render a page, or at least fail gracefully without either requiring you confirm that you received 17 errors 17 times (iCab) or simply crashing (Netscape/WaMCoM.) I also found it to be a lot faster than the newest versions of Netscape and Mozilla that ran on Mac OS 9, though maybe that was an age difference, I do believe that WaMCoM and the newest Netscape for OS 9 were a few years newer than IE5 was.
Of course, the other thing is that IE5 ran on PPC systems running OS releases as old as 7.6, and the Mozilla/Netscape/iCab compatibility changes a bit from 7.6 to 9.2, I never really looked at browsers for OS 9 that much because I spent relatively little time on the Internet in OS 9. I was usually booted into 9 (specifically 9, as opposed to 8.1 on my iMac/233 when it was my only computer, or 7.x and 8.1 on my various beige PPCs) it was for some kind of productivity app, as opposed to network access.
If you're designing a page targeted toward old Macs, I'd say to make it visually as simple as possible, maybe dig out your copy of Claris HomePage 3 and use that? That'll get you pretty good results on version 3/4 web browsers, and something that's likely to be mostly usable on version 1/2 web browsers, just depending on what stuff you end up using.
Back in the day when the WWW took off (1993-ish), I was one-third of the trio who made it available to users at a UK university. Macs were the easiest and most numerous web clients (Mosaic and helper bundle of applications), followed by Unix workstations. When Netscape 0.9 was released, everything was much better and we were able to support Windows PCs on a large scale.
Development was rapid and Netscape 1.1 became our standard browser. The minimum Mac hardware was a Mac IIcx or SE/30 at a push.
Development was rapid and Netscape 1.1 became our standard browser. The minimum Mac hardware was a Mac IIcx or SE/30 at a push.
I didnt use the web for the first time until about mid to late 1996 or so, on a ALR 386 with windows 3.1, AOL 3.0, and a 14.4K modem. Curious what it was like before then, myself.
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I frequently get on sites like the Macintosh Garden from my Quadra 840AV using Netscape 4 (4.3.2, IIRC). It seems to work quite well if you don’t expect CSS, though it does get “broken pipe” errors if you try to follow an https link. (Not a surprise, it’s too old to have any encryption protocols in common with anything halfway current.) I have every expectation of using even older software when I get around to recapping my Classic II’s analogue board—16MHz on a 16-bit-wide system bus is pretty painful with any program unless you go super simplistic.
And even if it did, I dont think the 68K has enough computational power to handle modern SSL.
Maybe if you got OpenSSL to compile for the 68K, and offload the RSA routines over to the Math CoPro, then maybe...
Maybe if you got OpenSSL to compile for the 68K, and offload the RSA routines over to the Math CoPro, then maybe...
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Up until websites and files got so huge and convoluted. That forced broadbands hand.
I've been pleasantly surprised by what I've been able to see with Netscape 4.8 on my Powerbook 1400 (OS 8.1). I've been hunting around for sites that provide information I usually look for (general information, news, Mac-related sites, and some others) that will render such that a normal reading experience is possible. With CSS and Java off, I was able to comfortably read the day's news on Compuserve's news pages(http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/news/), and visit a PowerPC blogspot page I read regularly. I had not expected to be able to view much of anything, so even these tiny morsels are a pleasant surprise.
