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No Browsers for NeXTstep?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the if-you've-got-an-itch dept.

Hanul asks this decent question: "I tried NEXTSTEP (3.3/PA-RISC) for the first time a few days ago. I think it still looks great compared to other GUIs and configuration is very easy. While I was surfing the Web with a 4-year old browser, OmniWeb 2.7, I experienced something unsatisfying: No Java, no JavaScript, no Plugins, nothing a surfer needs today. There are a lot of sites which state plainly: no access, your browser is too old. I wonder why the OS where the WWW was invented on by Tim Berners-Lee has no current browser. I know NeXT doesn't exist anymore and there is no (official) support for NEXTSTEP from Apple. But there a lot of obscure OS with decent browsers (AmigaOS, RISCOS) and it seems that every UNIX flavor in the world has one port of Mozilla except for NEXTSTEP. Of course it has no X (natively) and no current Java available, but I expected more geeks out there (with some respect to history) who are willing to give NEXTSTEP an up-to-date browser."

3 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Re:OPENSTEP by vapfy · · Score: 3

    Sadly, no.

    HP-RISC support was short lived - it's only in 3.2 and 3.3. It was dropped from 4.0 before release.

    If the poster's serious about having a modern browser on NeXTstep, he'll have to install X11 and use remote display from another machine. It might - might! - be possible to hack Mozilla enough to get it to build on a NeXTstep + X11 install but you'd have to have a lot of time and patience.

    If you decide to install X11, use Xnext (http://www.peanuts.org/peanuts/NEXTSTEP/X11/serve r/Xnext/) - the other X11 packages for NeXTstep are either horribly broken or commercial dead-ware.

    Best of luck.

    -josh, former SQA geek at NeXT

  2. Omniweb or X11 by Mike+Miller · · Score: 3
    Two general directions. Go get Omniweb or another NeXT based browser from a respectable archive (ftp://ftp.peak.org/next-ftp/next/apps/internet/ww w/) or run a X client/server pair on the box (strangely VNC doesn't seem to be available, but that might be worth further research: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/) and try and get mozilla or some other 'modern' browser running using X for the graphical display. It's BSD deep under all that fancy exterior and display-level postscript, and it will run X11 with some help (ftp://ftp.peak.org/next-ftp/next/X-for-NeXT/).

    Sadly, lack of a decent browser is what pushed me from using my nice NeXT cube with a 19" monitor to a Linux box with a 13" monitor around '96.

    - Mike

  3. $400 for Y2K compliancy?!!?? by green+pizza · · Score: 3

    Hold on there fella... Apple had a huge Y2K upgrade program for NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. Users of NEXTSTEP 0.9 - 3.2 got a free upgrade to 3.3 as well as free patch CDs to bring 3.3 fully Y2K compliant. Users of OPENSTEP 4.0 & 4.1 got a free upgrade to 4.2 as well as patches. Developer tools were thrown an and upgrade as well. When I called to request the updates for my machines, I politely asked if I could get OPENSTEP even though I was using NEXTSTEP, they said sure and mailed me both. Within 3 days I had a huge package from Apple full of CDs, (boot) floppies, and manuals. Where did you get the $400 quote?? Are you talking about the OS itself or the software running on it? Any app that correctly used the NeXT date routines should be Y2K complaint.