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Classilla, a New Port of Mozilla To Mac OS 9
oberondarksoul writes "Every now and then, you hear about a new port of Mozilla to one of the lesser-used platforms. Recently, a new version of Mozilla has been released for Mac OS 9 — an operating system no longer sold or supported, and with no new hardware available to buy. Dubbed Classilla, it aims to provide 'a modern web browser running again on classic Macs,' and the currently-released build seems to work well on my old PowerBook 1400 — despite being a little memory-hungry."
Seriously though, does anyone even use it? If I still had a Mac that old, I'd rather run 8.6 to be honest. 9 added nothing much more than bugs while running slower...
I mean, seriously, who cares?
Somebody will. Most of the projects I work on at home come under the category of "because I want to". I am currently building a digital clock which has been in the planning process for twenty years.
The software I work on in my day job is much older than MacOS 9. A lot of my work involves shoehorning modern stuff into it so this type of project is of interest to me.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It is old code. From the FAQ:
the decision was made to split Gecko off at 1.3.1
schools ... you would be surprised at the number of elementary school class rooms that still have OS 9 apps and machines that run them ...
Not everybody can afford to throw away old computers and buy new hardware. If you're a teacher at an elementary school in Mexico, and all you have in your classroom is an old mac, then this could be very important to you. It turns that mac from something that can't surf the web (or can't do so securely) to something that can.
No, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I run linux.
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Wow. This is the first OS9 story on Slashdot since this one from February 2002. Incidentally, that one is the *only* other one.
Well, either that, or the Firehose is broken.
Maybe someone could port gecko to my System 6-based Apple IIGS?
No, but Apple ported Safari to the IIIGS.
I will not feed the troll, I will not feed the troll, I . . .
Are you out of your mind? The point other commenters are making is that a non-trivial number of folks, with an emphasis on schools and other educational institutions, have old hardware that runs Mac OS 9. It might be that, in some abstract, general sense, Linux or BSD is more usable and stable than OS 9 (although I disagree), but the question is what's more usable on the hardware available to these folks. As somebody who spent too much time in college (computer science program, university known for computer science) trying to get linux to run on apple hardware of this era, I can assure you that getting other OSes to work is nigh-impossible, and that few, if any, of the institutions that are *still* using this hardware could realistically take that option. So this is great for those users.
There are lots of reasons for this. Some people cannot afford the new hardware required for Mac OS X. Some of those who could buy the hardware have a big investment in software that uses Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) dongles that wouldn't work on OS X even if the newer Macs were equipped with ADB - they haven't been for years.
Some software has been discontinued, with the vendors out of business, and so will never be ported to OS X-native. If the software is useful enough to the end user, then they'll keep running Mac OS 9.
Finally, some people simply don't know how to upgrade. Until very recently a relative of mine was running Internet Explorer 5.0 on Mac OS X 10.2 - no doubt riddled with well-known security holes, but she simply didn't know better. I bought her Mac OS X Tiger for Christmas (Leopard won't run on her G3), then visited soon after and installed it for her, then downloaded and installed all the updates.
All of these are reasons that I plan for Ogg Frog to support the Classic Mac OS.
(And there are many Macs out there that are too old to run Mac OS 9; they'll be running 8.6 or some such.)
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I would've cared.
I picked up a free G3 iMac awhile back, just because I've never had an Apple computer, nor does anyone that I know near here.
All I wanted to do with it was turn it into a handy Internet browsing machine. But I couldn't find a decent browser for it. I thought about upgrading to OS X, especially since I found some more RAM for it, but the process (involving a strange shamanistic incantation of multiple serialized firmware and OS updates) was scary.
Right. So, I put Ubuntu on it. Works fine, of course, but it's really not very much of an Apple anymore. A newer Firefox would've helped that.
Kid-proof tablet..
I've got three MacOS 8.6 that are the main production line for our company. Nice to know I still can use a web browser on those machines for solutions made to be used by all other computers (WinME, WinXP, MacOS X, etc..) since IE 5 crapped out a long time ago and nothing else would run half as well as it on the old Macs.
and not supported by the Mozilla Foundation, but it is a Mozilla 1.3.1 based web browser.
Too bad it does not support the 68K MacOS 7.5.X environment, there are a lot of people running Mac 68K emulators and that is the version of Mac System that Apple allows to be downloaded legally for free.Usually the Basilisk II Mac 68K emulator, which seems to be popular.
At least they try for PowerMac Mac OS 8.6 compatibility, which is good for those PowerMac users who cannot upgrade to Mac OS9.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
There is a team working on Amizilla which is the AmigaOS version of Mozilla web browser. But it was last updated in 2006.
The other project is AMozillaX which was announced but no code or web browser was released and it seems to have vanished off the Internet.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Name me one school that still uses old Macs, especially ones in Mexico where the price disparity between a Mac and non-Mac computer is amplified. A couple weeks ago I saw a couple power macs running OS 9 (or maybe even 8) on a local news fluff piece. I think they were being used for the school a/v program.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I care.
My daughter is getting old enough now to use a computer, and I've dug out an old iMac G3 DV that was given to us by a friend, and loaded several older pre-school games my mom had lying around from when my brothers were little.
Now, not only can it be a great little preschool computer for her, but it can also be used online in a pinch.
Or perhaps letting her have access to several of the show based sites that have content for the kids
(Sid the Science Kid, Sesame Street, and several other PBS, Disney and Nick JR. shows)
I could now let her go to those, without having to worry about what she could get into on my computer.
(she decided to rename a good chunk of my songs last time she sat on my computer)
Bottom line:
Is it state of the art, the next big thing? of course not.
but it did just make some older equipment just that much more useful.
Stop over-analyzing your analizations
You're definitely right there, sugarbomb. I used to work at a school district a while back, and although the computer labs were mostly OS X, the older computers from the labs were often pushed out to classrooms for teachers to use. I can't tell you how awful it was to be reduced to using IE (I don't even remember what the last version of OS 9 was) to download drivers or updates if Netscape has been deleted from the system. Though using Netscape 4 to get things of some of today's image/css/flash heavy websites wasn't a cakewalk either. In many cases, the computer is only used to check webmail and browse the Internet, and a modern-browser would go a long way to extending the life of these machines.
I have to side with the GP here. I love linux just as much as any other slashdotter, but the knee-jerk reaction to ANY problem around here is "JUST INSTALL LINUX."
There are a gazillion reasons that it's not as simple as that in all of these cases, first and foremost is COST. Who is going to pay for these installs, who is going to do the research to find someone able and willing to do these installs, who is going to pay for that? What about legacy software you CAN'T run on Linux, what about dongles, what about the network, etc etc etc. What about the cost of training the unionized teachers to use something completely new and unfamiliar as opposed to the same old "window thingy" they used to access their email?Does anyone around here even realize how much of a bureaucratic process it is to something "simple" as installing a new operating system in publicly-funded schools??
Undoubtedly, I'll get modded down as troll of flamebait for pointing out that a solution to a technical problem is not "just install linux" because there are other non-technical factors to consider in each scenario.
By the way, I think it's very cool that there is still active development going on for a legacy system, and that it has an active community, and I am in no way, shape or form trying to take away from that with this post.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
One reason might be that the people who can still run Mac OS 9 like the look and feel better than Mac OS X. I certainly do - the new "shiny" / hyper-animated look and feel is one of the primary reasons why I have little current interest in getting a Mac. I feel the same way about Vista, but at least there I can turn it off.
User interfaces should not be "exciting" - they should be functional, and minimize eye strain and unnecessary distractions, especially for the people that have to use them eight or more hours a day.
Of course few things are quite as bad as trying to read an online article when an animated ad is flashing away in the next column...
the currently-released build seems to work well on my old PowerBook 1400 -- despite being a little memory-hungry.
Some things never change.
If you've never tried to install Linux on an Old World Mac (any PowerPC,PCI based mac older than a Blue and White G3 or iMac G3) then you're in for a treat. Think slamming your balls in a car door fun. Almost all the modern Linux distributions have dropped support for BootX (the MacOS Linux loader) and Oldworld machines. Why not boot from Openfirmware you ask? Because it flat dosen't f*****g work. The details of why escape me, and I don't care enough to look it up. Throw hardware upgrades into the mix (like a modern IDE controller, and a decent graphics card) and really pull your hair out. Needless to say, I dumped the Powermac 6400 off at the recycling center years ago, picked up a cheap, stripped and working Blue and White G3 and never looked back.
If indeed he was mod'ded down then perhaps it was because he didn't contribute anything rather than it was that he criticized something Apple. Any idiot can respond to anything with "who cares?" or "WTF?" or similar, but that's just a lazy dismissal. It's even more lazy and less helpful than a good troll or flamebait. How are you supposed to even respond to that -- "I do!" - ? It's a totally useless comment.
A more insightful response might have been along the lines of, "I had no idea there was still a market for new browsers/applications for what I assumed was a dead or near dead operating system. Could someone enlighten me on the value proposition of MacOS 9 in today's world?"
Now I'd give such a response 2 mod ups for interesting or something.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Name me one school that still uses old Macs
Does a fairly affluent school that is two blocks north of a prominent Canadian university count? Some teachers love making computers available to the children that they teach. Unfortunately, when board policies only allocate two per classroom and place the rest in computer labs, teachers often have to scrounge for what's cheap or free.
While on the note of obsolete technology in the classroom, I recently donated a Pentium 90 to another school in an affluent neighbourhood. In their case, the teacher actually wanted that extraordinarily old computer because many of the good educational games were designed to run on 486's or early Pentiums.
Mac OS 9 did not have memory protection or preemptive multitasking. It crashed a lot.
Just a note here: cooperative multitaking may cause a system to become unresponsive, but it won't cause a system to crash. In both the case of cooperative multitasking and the lack of memory protection, the stability issues were caused by applications rather than the operating system (in virtually every case). As such, it was quite possible to choose applications that did not affect the responsiveness or stability of the system as a whole. Granted, that was virtually impossible to do for web browsers in the case of the classic Mac OS.
This seems likely to lend new fervor to the "Mac SE 30 was the best Mac ever" argument, one that I've been tired of every since...well...colour.
The SE/30 had colour - you just needed an extra video card and external monitor to see it. That's how I used mine...
Those sites use Flash extensively and it runs like a dog on my daughter's hand-me-down iBook G4. I don't think you'll be happy with the results on a G3. Flash isn't written well or at least with the same optimizations as the Windows version.
Just a note here: cooperative multitaking may cause a system to become unresponsive, but it won't cause a system to crash. In both the case of cooperative multitasking and the lack of memory protection, the stability issues were caused by applications rather than the operating system (in virtually every case). As such, it was quite possible to choose applications that did not affect the responsiveness or stability of the system as a whole. Granted, that was virtually impossible to do for web browsers in the case of the classic Mac OS.
It was usually 68k apps running on PPC machines that would cause the more catastrophic crashes, as they were more likely to corrupt the system heap. The classic OS's main stability issues were with extensions, which were mostly fixable with Cassidy-Greene's Conflict Catcher. Reordering the extension loading usually fixes any issues.
I've found that with any PPC-native program, if it becomes unstable and causes the machine to stop responding, force-quitting would usually bring it back from the dead without causing the entire machine to go down. I still tend to reboot after such an event, to clean up memory. But the crashes are few and far- between with PPC- native apps.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Have you heard of iCab? It's the only Acid2-compliant browser that runs on Mac OS 9, and is much more standards compliant than Gecko 1.3 (the version used in Classilla).
Although iCab is no longer maintained for Mac OS 9, its last release for Mac OS 9 was in 2008, far more recently than Gecko 1.3 (2002), and the Mac OS 9 version is still a full-featured modern browser with tabbed browsing, built-in AdBlock, excellent standards compliance (iCab was the first browser with an Acid2-compliant public build) - the only thing it's really missing is CSS3 opacity, and all that good stuff.
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
The latest version of OS9 was 9.2. It was pretty terrible. Supposedly an update to make it more compatible with running in a box alongside OSX.
BUT, if you stuck with 9.1, it was the most solid of all of the early Mac OS's. I dont think OSX approached its stability until the later versions of 10.3. And I ran lots of extensions and oddball programs on it.
And yes, you can drag out all the technical reasons why OSX architecture is so much better but the reality is, where the rubber met the road, OS9.1 worked just fine.
I preferred 9.1 over all of the early versions of OSX and interestingly enough it was the lack of an updated browser that became the main problem. I did take a couple of machine backwards from 9.2 to 9.1.
I am currently resurrecting an older G4 Mac to run OS9 so I can muck around with some of the games. It will share a monitor with my W98 system but you end up needing Mac specific keyboards/mice so the KVM will be a bit underutilized on that position.
I get it now. If you disagree with the majority on
If you're a teacher in Mexico using an old Mac, this is of no interest to you. You don't have Internet access anyway. Nice try though.
Nice try indeed. Harking back approximately two decades, Mexico became the first country in the American continent to begin installing fiber-optic telephone wiring for widespread use, even before the United States. FYI, this happened in Baja California.
Nowadays, the majority of Mexicans hooked up to the Internet do so through the telephone monopoly Telmex, Telnor in the Northwestern states (both owned by one of the ten richest men in the world, Carlos Slim). A minority hook up through TV cable services, fewer still via satellite (Starband), usually in remote rural areas where Telmex or Telnor have not arrived yet.
Nationwide, junior high schools in rural areas have adopted a teaching system via satellite known as telesecundaria, which can easily be adapted for Internet access and may have already done so.
Now, if you go to any urban area in Mexico and peruse the secondhand stores with electronics, chances are that you'll bump into an early generation iMac in working condition, and be able to purchase it dirt cheap, as the casual Mexican computer user has only used Windows in his/her entire life, so these things may sit on the shelves for awhile. As anecdotal evidence, a friend with a graphic design business once found and bought three iMac Graphite models in one swoop, a five hundred dollar deal, at one of these stores.
Therefore, if you're a savvy teacher in Mexico, or just plain a Mac user with a penny to pinch and a little luck, Classilla could potentially be a godsend.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
My district till has well over 400 OS 9 iMacs. There are some education software packages with no PC equivalent, no OS X equivalent, and NO replacement. Most of my job in maintaining the districts macs is 60% legacy support, 40% new system support and server management.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Pretty sure you can install Mac OS X in that thing. Not saying you have to, or if those games are compatible with it, but if you wanted to...
In my experience, "old" versions of Mac OS X (like from five years ago) are very nearly as much of a pain in the ass to deal with, in terms of getting reasonably modern software on the thing, as Mac OS 8 was when I tried it several years back. OS 10.3, for instance, is now old enough that most new software doesn't support it. OS 10.4 is very nearly at that point as well.
Bow-ties are cool.
Since this thread might have some people still using PowerMac 8500 and related machines, I've recently hacked the 7300/7500/7600/8500/8600 Graphics Driver to support resolutions in the 1600x1200 range on a stock PowerMac 8500 (probably works on the other models as well). I now have a 20" 1680x1050 LCD connected and working perfectly, locking on to the analog signal with perfect pixels. I figured out where the timing parameters are stored in the driver, allowing other new resolutions as well (like 1440x900), and fine-tuning of the pixel rate. Even with a CRT, this allows higher resolutions. Contact me if you'd like try the driver or have a different resolution.
Ya, early G3s: but it's good for in-house web pages that I control for sharing access to data and low-level processes (one of the Macs runs FileMaker's Web Publishing, which does enough for my needs w/o javascript or flash or anything client-side) for serving up info on graphic art with thumbnails since their machines can't deal with EPS and TIF or even very large JPGs without freaking out.
I won't be able to use IT's web pages - but that's okay, they don't do it that way (proprietary system interfacing with databases and uploading Excel files via FTP - I know, I know, but that's what they do despite my offers of a better way).
i've upgraded many many old G3 iMacs to run OSX - and they run OSX just fine (so long as you update the firmware first). you need at least 128-256Mb RAM - but you should be able to get at least OSX 10.3 on ANY old G3 iMac.
once you got OSX installed on your old imac, its a piece of cake to install Firefox -- now the caveat is -- if you only have only OSX 10.3, then you can only run up to Firefox v2 -- to get Firefox v3 or later, you will have to have Tiger (OSX 10.4) installed.
now, unless you got one of the really old pre-firewire iMacs -- you can run OSX 10.4 on them -- but you may have to use target disk mode (CMD-T at startup) and install Tiger (OSX 10.4) from a second machine that has a DVD drive (because Tiger 10.4, unlike Panther 10.3 is the first version of the Mac OS that comes ONLY on DVD!!) -- but because of Target Disk mode -- this is not half as hard as hacking an xorg.conf file... so why you complain??
therefore -- because all old G3 iMacs will run OSX (with a firmware upgrade) -- it means that all old iMacs will also run firefox -- at least to version 2, and if you manage to get tiger installed -- up to firefox 3.
2cents
jp
Have you ever used a Mac OS X machine as your main machine for an extended period of time?
Yeah, I dual-booted between 10.2 and Classic, and then ran 10.3 and 10.4 with no Classic (or Classic emulator) at all. I've had more experience with OS X than I'd like to. I love the insinuation that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, though, that's nice.
How do you feel Mac OS X's let you down, ui-wise?
The main thing that bothers me, and that only Apple can get away with: version 10 of a product shouldn't have *fewer* features than version 9. Finder in OS X had some features that Finder in OS 9 didn't have, but the real crime is that OS 9 Finder had *tons* of features that OS X didn't-- and some that *still* haven't been added to OS X. (And many of those features were critical to my workflow.)
For example, my workflow in OS 9 was based around labels and folder tabs. OS X *finally* added labels back in, although it took them until 10.4 (IIRC) to do it, but they've still never added folder tabs back into the OS. (The folder tab feature let you take an open Finder window and drag it to the edge of the screen. It would turn into an always-available 'tab' that you could pop-open to interact with.)
I think they also finally added back-in the ability to auto-mount network drives on login, that was a retarded feature to get rid of.
And it didn't help that every new feature they added to OS X had a horrible, horrible UI. Spotlight search might be powerful, if you could figure out the hideous maze of menus and fields. Oh, and I dare anybody to give me a consistent set of rules for when Apple uses Aqua appearance as opposed to Metal appearance. They just roll a fucking dice, to confuse users.
Speaking of Aqua vs. Metal, I also love how there are two entirely different types of Finder windows, one of each-- double-click a folder and try to predict which type of Finder window opens! It's completely non-deterministic, as far as I can tell. (There's probably some rule that governs it, but damned if I could figure it out in 3 years of OS X usage.)
But in my mind, the greatest crime against Classic users was the removal of spatial browsing. The concept of one-folder = one-window is now completely gone in the industry. Sad, because it worked better than anything I'd ever tried before or since.
(Oh, and don't get me started on the Classic emulator/environment. I've never seen a more shitty piece of software passed off as "production quality." It did nothing but eat up your battery life and CPU, while completely failing to run 20-25% of Classic software. What a turd.)
I've never heard of any classic user who left OS X because of the GUI
That's because most Mac users are so brainwashed that they'd use OS X even if it was just a static photograph of one of Steve Jobs' turds.
I, on the other hand, actually *chose* to use Mac after evaluating the other systems available. And when Apple pissed all over their most faithful users by removing all the features that made their OS so great, I left-- like I said above, if I have to use a crummy UI, I might as well use Windows so I can use more software.
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