[HN Gopher] My Favourite Computer, an Old Mac ___________________________________________________________________ My Favourite Computer, an Old Mac Author : cpsns Score : 171 points Date : 2022-10-07 18:14 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (muezza.ca) (TXT) w3m dump (muezza.ca) | Bud wrote: | The SE/30 is basically like this, but faster, 32-bit bus, and | supports Ethernet. So same charm, but even more useful. | pazimzadeh wrote: | A slightly more modern equivalent of this is a 2009 Mac mini | running Snow Leopard. You can find these machines for around $50 | on eBay and they are very snappy. | | I am waiting for someone to start a business turning old Mac | mini's into dedicated retro gaming machines. This would be done | by pre-installing OpenEMU and HaloMD on one partition, and Mac OS | 9 on another partition to run old games like Lemmings, etc | although emulation could also work for some of these. | | If anyone is interested in this project, please let me know. | | https://openemu.org/ | | https://www.halomd.net/ | goosedragons wrote: | I don't think it makes much sense as a business. AliExpress is | littered with retro devices that have as much emulation oof as | a 2010ish Mac Mini. There are a lot of little emulation focused | Android/Linux boxes as well as emulation focused Mini PCs out | there these days. | derefr wrote: | I would love to know if any of these have the oomph for | running Dolphin with hi-res texture packs. That sort of | "going beyond the original experience" is the main reason I'd | bother to use "real hardware" for emulation over something | like a Pi or a jailbroken Switch. (Or, for that matter, a | MiSTer.) | | I know that the sweet spot for "enhanced emulation" of | (N64|Gamecube|Wii, XBox|XBox360, PSX|PS2) is somewhere higher | than "my M1 Macbook Air", but lower than "Ryzen 4 and an | RTX4090" -- but figuring out exactly _where_ this sweet-spot | is, seems to be left as an exercise for the player; with the | assumption that anyone who wants to do this already has a | beefy gaming computer laying around, and wants to play on a | monitor, rather than on their TV. | | It'd be nice if there were prebuilt appliances for playing | enhanced early-3D-era games, that had been tested and shown | to achieve a smooth 60FPS playing them at 4K or 1440p. | OttoVonBizark wrote: | for emulation a midrange graphics card and a i7 or i9 intel | chip with high single core speed from the last few years is | best - you can get something second hand for very cheap | that will perform emulation as well as the ryzen 4 4090 | ricardobeat wrote: | An M1 macbook is actually extreme overkill for emulating | those consoles, it is on par with a GTX 1660. | derefr wrote: | To be clear, I'm not asking about just "emulating these | consoles", but rather emulating these consoles _with_ | injected 4K assets; three-pass RDMAed 8K stencil- | buffering for emulation of GPU-unified-memory in | compositing of shadows + reflections; 16x SSAA to smooth | off all the jaggies; etc. Y 'know, all those options | that, when turned on, make a four-generations-old game | into a game that looks like it came out yesterday. | | You still don't need a 4090 to do all that -- but you | need more than a 1660, I promise you. (For one thing, | just for holding all those 4K assets, for a game that | never unloads anything because _it_ thinks it has rather | _small_ assets!) | gnicholas wrote: | I still run a 2008 iMac, booted off an SSD over Thunderbolt. | Websites are slower to load than on my M2 MBA, but for most | local tasks it is perfectly snappy. | tinytoon wrote: | I also still have one of theese. I added more ram and ssd is | comming. It's still a great device for Music, Photos, the | Web. I did use it for video-conferencing, because the webcam | can still hold up. And the little remote is still so great | mhd wrote: | > A slightly more modern equivalent of this is a 2009 Mac mini | running Snow Leopard. You can find these machines for around | $50 on eBay and they are very snappy. | | I just did that, last Mini that still has a optical drive, the | Core 2 Duo is fast enough for a lot of things. If the optical | drive isn't important, I'd go for the 2012 mini. Last one that | still was user-upgradeable. | insane_dreamer wrote: | I still have one collecting dust in a drawer. Should pull it | out and put it to some use. | mistrial9 wrote: | MacOSX 10.4 Mail working right now! | | ssh needs the RSA key-exchange enabled | | forget the web-browsers, just enjoy the personal applications.. | almost as good as Macs previous to that IMO | bitigchi wrote: | One day, someone will make great bucks recreating these machines | with modern components. | kls0e wrote: | people in Berlin, Germany, fyi: Vintage Computing Festival Berlin | (VCFB) October 8th and 9th, 2022 | | The Vintage Computing Festival Berlin (VCFB) is an event about | historic computers and computing technology. In exhibitions, | presentations and workshops, participants from all over Germany | and beyond present many different aspects of Vintage Computing. | In addition to retro computers, also historical operating | systems, programming languages, network technology as well as | pocket and mechanic calculators will be shown. Most of the | exhibited devices are in working condition. Established in 2014, | the VCFB has steadily grown and has attracted nearly 3000 | visitors in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, the VCFB took place as an | online and hybrid event respectively. | | source: https://vcfb.de/2022/index.html.en | QuadrupleA wrote: | Thanks for sharing, enjoyed this. I tend to approach retro | computing stuff from a nostalgia perspective, sort of assuming | there's not much practical reason for using it. So it's | refreshing to hear all the good qualities of the thing in its own | right, from someone who isn't just reliving old memories. | | The modern world of incessant trivial updates (interrupting what | you were doing), surveillance, distractions, etc. is a bit sad, a | far cry from lovingly engineered products intended to improve | your life. Hopefully the market will curtail some of this BS in | time, once we all collectively get sick enough of it. | behnamoh wrote: | > I can edit my website and manage my servers from it... | | Ironically, isn't an old Mac even more secure than today's | computers? Because it's so old that so much of the attack surface | (e.g., libraries) just don't exist on it. If there's no code, | there's no exploit either. | | Moreover, hacker groups might have a much less practical | knowledge of dealing with these old machines. In contrast, a 2015 | MBP might be even less secure than the one used in this post. | aliqot wrote: | You're telling me you don't fire off a PHF exploit at random | machines just for old time's sake? I was under the impression | we nerds could be more honest with each other. | behnamoh wrote: | The OP manages their servers on this mac, but the mac itself | isn't used as a server. | dhosek wrote: | I do remember that viruses on Macs back in the 80s were a huge | problem thanks to the fact that the Mac would automatically run | code on any disk that was inserted in the drive. | drooopy wrote: | I have no nostalgia for System 7 as my first computer was a | Windows 95 PC, however it is my favorite OS ever made. Whenever I | have to use a new computer, be it Mac or PC, I always aim to make | the OS look and feel like classic Mac OS. | the-printer wrote: | This was a quality web log! Wholesome simple computing. The | quintessential glass of milk filled 3/4th high on the kitchen | counter. | daggersandscars wrote: | Thank you. I had not really thought about how much notifications | hurt my computer enjoyment / productivity. I'm reconsidering my | home computing strategy in light of this. I have one machine I'm | most productive on. Reading your article made me realize it's the | only one I have configured without notifications. | | At work, I cannot turn off the apps that pollute my day with | notifications. The firm got rid of their phone system - there is | only <popular corporate messaging app>. Previously, I could turn | it off and tell people to call me if there's something important. | I suspect others are stuck in this position as well. | anthk wrote: | >I can even chat with friends on it via IRC | | With Bitlbee you can connect to far more services with just an | IRC client: | | https://bitlbee.org | | Public servers: | | https://www.bitlbee.org/main.php/servers.html | | On each server, join the "&bitlbee" channel (not a typo), and run | the "commands" plugins in order to see the supported protocols. | | Usage upon connecting: | | https://www.bitlbee.org/user-guide.html#quickstart | | You can also put a RaspberryPi in your LAN with Alpine Linux | "diskless" install (the best solution to avoid wearing out the SD | card) and the bitlbee daemon. Then you would just connect to your | RaspberryPi IP instead of the public server one. | | Finally, I forgot: sites like http://68k.news, | http://frogfind.com will run on legacy browsers for System 7. | | And if you get a Gopher browser, head to gopher://hngopher.com | | MacLynx works: https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2020/11/maclynx- | beta-2.html | | Open it, press g, enter gopher://hngopher.com and have fun. Also, | gopher://magical.fish and gopher://gopherddit.com | | There is Crypto Anciennce, TLS for legacy systems, but I didn | try: | | https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2020/11/fun-with-crypto-ancienne... | | On the utf-8 issue for Lynx visiting this site over HTTPS, just | choose the Mac Encoding in the options (press "O" under Lynx | (capital O) and then configure it for the Mac Encoding and save | your settings). It might solve it. | cpsns wrote: | Very cool, somehow I've never heard of this, but it looks like | it could be very handy. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look | into it and try it out on my home server. | anthk wrote: | Also: https://github.com/cy384/ssheven | | You connect to SDF.org and power boost that MAC to the | extreme :D | | https://github.com/cy384/ssheven/releases/tag/0.8.9 | anthk wrote: | Ah, paradoxically I made a typo on my comment. The correct | command for bitlbee it's "plugins", not "commands". But as I | pointed a link to the Bitlbee wiki at the Quickstart section | , I think everyone would figure it out. | anthk wrote: | Yeah, bitlbee rocks, I use it under an i386 OpenBSD netbook | (Atom CPU), it's much faster than Pidgin. Also, I use | m68.news everywhere, as it can be read with no issues. | | Lynx on Gopher protocol will work "as is" for Mac OS 7 I | guess, and it's very fast. 68k.news it's over HTTP and not | HTTPS, so it will work as is too. | | This is the most recent version | http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/mac/lynx/download.html | | The interface it's weird and not so Mac like, I know, but it | will fly for sure. And, well, you have Turbo Gopher too, but | for your Mac version you would need the Threading extension. | | Gopher URL for Lynx: | | gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/gopher/clients/mac | | Proxied for the rest of machines (send it to the Classic Mac | via AppleTalk or FTP or whatever). | | https://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.floodgap.com/1/gopher/. | .. | | Gopher it's the perfect "web" for your legacy mac in order to | find alternative media. No ads, no trackers no MB sized | pages. You can even find news mirrors with ease. | | For instance: gopher://magical.fish:70/1/news | | Recommended portal for lots of Gopher "holes": | gopher://magical.fish | | Blog aggregator: gopher://i-logout.cz:70/1/bongusta/ | | Old software for classic Macs | gopher://i-logout.cz:70/1/software/Apple/Software_MacOS | | As you can see, if you can connect to the internet your Mac, | you are far from obsolete. You can chat over IRC+Bitlbee to a | big chunk of protocols, browse news, read "phlogs" from tech | people, and even visit HN and Reddit over Gopher. HTTPS would | be another issue, but you might be able to contact the Crypto | Ancienne folks for help. | | EDIT: Well, now I focused into your shot, you already knew | over Gopher. Still, Lynx with HNGopher (and a potentially | well configured cryptoancienne) makes a seamless HN and | Reddit browser over Gopher+HTTPS. | cpsns wrote: | I've got the Mac hooked up via an esp8266 running a SLIP | server. Most of what I do on it web wise is through Gopher, | it's just the best overall solution for a computer of that | age imo. | | Things like HNGopher and 68k.news are great, those kinds of | services make it very usable even in the modern world. I | had no idea lynx ever had a 68k release, but I suppose I | shouldn't be surprised. | | I have an HTTP proxy setup[1] which will downgrade https to | http so that Netscape on the Mac can load sites, if for | some reason I need to do so. | | Thanks again for the links. Someday I'd like to get a | version of my site on gopher too. | | [1] https://github.com/atauenis/webone | anthk wrote: | What I miss from Gopherpedia it's math support. It if had | some support thru aamath it would be heaven. | | https://github.com/gchudnov/aamath | cpsns wrote: | Hi HN, I've been ruminating of this a little bit and figured I'd | write and post my thoughts (I'm not a good writer, sorry in | advance). I don't expect this to get much traffic, but if it | somehow does my cable line probably won't handle it well so | here's an archive: https://archive.ph/VIbMD | | I really like this little computer and I'm sure some of you enjoy | (or enjoyed) them too. :) | e-_pusher wrote: | Love this stuff! What is the tablet that is standing to the | left of the Mac? | | Shameless plug to a blog post I wrote a while back, where I | sung the praise of my old laptop that is running Windows 3.1. | | https://iskender.ee/2022/05/16/Laptop-1992.html | cpsns wrote: | It's not actually a tablet, it's a blindingly bright white | LED, one of the lights that is supposed to help with seasonal | affective disorder. | | I'm still not sure if it's pseudoscience or not, but as we | head into the dark half of the year I'll try anything at this | point. | | I have no affiliation with Canadian Tire, but this is the | exact product: https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ottlite- | clearsun-led-ligh... | joshspankit wrote: | As someone who's been using f.lux and refining sleep | hygiene for over a decade, if this helps you please take | it: | | - Chewable Vit. D3 can help, especially if taken in enough | dose (studies showed minimal downside from "overdoses" of | 100,000IU for months, so I'm comfortable recommending | 5000-7000IU as a starting does), and at the right time | (after ingesting it takes about an hour for your body to | bring that all in to your bloodstream, so I like to take it | around 8AM. A bit earlier if I'm trying to wake up extra | early, and a bit later if I forget. The latest I've taken | it is 12pm since afternoon sun is normal and healthy) | | - Lamps for seasonal affective disorder can be a bit of a | crap-shoot since there are no regulations around the term. | If you get one and it barely (or doesn't) help, it might | not be any good. Things that are important here: the | spectrum of light output, and the lumens. If there are any | sharp peaks in the wavelength it might be as helpful as an | LCD monitor on full brightness. For a true test of whether | the concept itself helps, you can use halogen worklights | short-term. With those there are concerns of heat and UV | radiation, but they provide very bright full-spectrum | light. If those work, it would probably be worth shopping | around for the higher-end SAD lights. | wainstead wrote: | Ah memories. My first machine was a Classic ii. I think it | might be in a friend's garage in Ohio, will have to check with | him. Thanks for the great post! | janfoeh wrote: | > I'm not a good writer, sorry in advance | | I found your writing style to be concise, pleasant to read and | certainly nothing to apologize for. | joshspankit wrote: | Thanks for the post, for adding it to HN, and for providing an | archive link right off the starting line. | | Also thanks for posting the comment because now I get to help | correct a typo: "This Mac is uncharging ..." | hartator wrote: | > it never begs for your attention and its applications never try | to distract you from what you are doing, begging you to look at | them instead. | | This. | | In the modern world, it feels everything and everyone's apps have | a good reason to beg for your attention. I think it even | transcends OS. On GitHub, my notifications are spammed by | Dependabot. Who cares if my benchmark repos from 5 years ago have | security issues. | [deleted] | halikular wrote: | What you said can also be true with a modern linux or bsd | install. Use something like arch linux or nixos and only install | the bare bones like a windows manager, text editor, irc client | and a web browser. You'll have no notifications, it's all up to | you and you'll also have an updated and secure machine. | aj7 wrote: | It's very amusing to see "young people" be into retro computers. | At 71, I'm the opposite. Because I deal with actual (slow) | functional degradation, I can't be bothered with old computers. | That's a young man's game. 2017 iMac Pro, soon to be supplemented | with an M1 something. | protomyth wrote: | I will say the form factor of the classic Mac (in my case a Mac | SE/30) was amazing for writing. The height was perfect without | the ability of the text to go to just above the keyboard like a | conventional monitor on a stand. I end up duplicating it by using | half a window or finding a text editor that holds the current | line at a certain height. It was also a very portable design. I | have an old Color Classic II case that I sometime think I might | mod into something a bit more modern (since it is DOA anyway). | dhosek wrote: | I remember in college in the late 80s (when laptops were mostly | exotic and expensive) seeing someone walking across campus, | carrying his Mac by the handle on the top and thinking that it | was so cool to be able to transport a computer like that. | alana314 wrote: | I taped a tote bag to my imac and traveled with it as a carry | on once. | https://twitter.com/alana31415/status/1578492366201098240 | protomyth wrote: | The original Mac mini fit perfectly in a camera case I had. | That thing probably had more miles on it than some of the | portables I've owned. | bluedino wrote: | I never had one of those but came across them at school and | friends houses - I could never get past that damn 9" monochrome | screen. | gbasp wrote: | My favorite old Mac has to be the iMac G3. IMO it was the first | truly user friendly computer, requiring almost no setup or | technical knowhow. I know people who are hard core Mac/Apple | users for life because the G3 was the first computer that ever | clicked with them. | subliminalcut wrote: | I still have a 2012 MacBook Pro as my main laptop :( | JALTU wrote: | Oh, I was happily happily using my 16GB mid-2012 15" MBP as my | main machine until the motherboard developed some issue with | power and died a month ago. | | I fired up a 15" 2008 MBP to run some non-CS Photoshop and you | know, it works great as long as I'm not using the Internet! | It's a solid machine, and I miss it. | | Now typing on my work machine, an 8GB M1 13" MBP. I wouldn't | say I've been blown away by this and it's probably because I | need 16GB to deal with Chrome and its zombie Electrons. | tjr225 wrote: | This is why I am a Mac devotee. They are the Toyota of the | computer world. Sure there's a premium, but it's worth it for | peace of mind. | Ian_Macharia wrote: | 2012 MacBook Pro gang! Mines 10GB RAM though. Had to switch to | neovim from VSCode and it's still sorta snappy for my normal | workflow, just can't open tons of apps at the same time. Also I | avoid any electron-based apps | johndoe0815 wrote: | ...and a very cute kitty! | | Most Classic II suffer from leaking capacitors which should be | replaced and it's a good idea to replace the onboard battery, | which is prone to leaking and destroying the board: | | https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2014-05-24-Classic... | | There are two different versions of the mainboard which require | different numbers and types of capacitors: | | https://recapamac.com.au/macintosh-classic-ii-a/ vs. | https://recapamac.com.au/macintosh-classic-ii-b/ | cpsns wrote: | When I bought this Mac it was actually completely fubar. The | internal battery ruptured and ruined the main board, so I had | to source a "new" one. The new one came recapped by the seller | and I recapped the analog board myself, so it should be good | for a long time to come. | | You can see the rest of the gang here: | http://muezza.ca/cats.html | bombcar wrote: | Heh I had a cat named Dog at one time (one named Rat also). | tomxor wrote: | If you also had a dog named cow it would be very on topic | ;) | bink wrote: | I have never heard a thing half as crazy as that. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | We had one named Puppy. | rob74 wrote: | I once had a cat named Tom and one named Jerry... both | female. | Maursault wrote: | My complaint about the Classic II is that it is a degraded | SE/30, with a maximum of 10MB RAM, no coprocessor, and no | expandability except through the external SCSI, compared to | 128MB RAM, a coprocessor and a PDS with the SE/30. | Restoration isn't any more difficult on SE/30, and network | cards are not hard to find. Plus it can run A/UX and a modern | OS, NetBSD 9 (but without a GUI, which is fine for many | purposes), so the SE/30 is well worth the slightly higher | investment price for a fixer-upper, and once restored, it is | worth a $1000 or more, so easy to not only recoup investment, | but make a tidy profit. | [deleted] | johndoe0815 wrote: | The Classic II is more or less just using the LC chipset in | a compact Mac form factor, whereas the SE/30 was a | repackaged IIcx and came out almost three years earlier. | The initial price of a basic Classic II was US$1900, | whereas the SE/30 cost a staggering US$6500. | | And don't remind me of the prices in Germany :). I remember | seeing my first IIfx at our local Apple dealer, it cost | about 35k German marks IIRC... a new VW Golf car was around | 25k marks back then. | | More details on everymac.com: https://everymac.com/systems/ | apple/mac_classic/specs/mac_cla... https://everymac.com/sys | tems/apple/mac_classic/specs/mac_se3... | Maursault wrote: | Apple's initial price for the SE/30 in the US was $4369, | but price came down rapidly in the first year, ultimately | costing less than a Mac II with greyscale card and | monochrome monitor by the end of 1989. But that was 30 | years ago. Today, there seems to be a Mac mafia buying up | the lower priced auctions and then jacking up prices of | these ancient machines on turnaround, but you can still | find an untouched SE/30 within spitting distance of the | cost of a Classic II. They're both attractive machines in | the compact format, but I wouldn't accept a Classic II | for free, where I'd be tempted to buy certain particular | SE/30 models, depending on condition, for few to several | hundreds of dollars. | tomxor wrote: | I also love the feel of using these old systems, but I wonder | how much of it is also to do with the physical experience. | | Do you think you would get a similar or diminished experience | with e.g a raspberry pi and a little LCD screen etc that | booted straight into a minivmac emulator? ... I must admit I | get a sense of satisfaction from turning on certain old | electronics, like the resonating "clung" of the e transformer | in my amplifier when I flip the switch, so maybe that's all | part of it, the sense of an appliance, something less | fallible, and also the absence of all those layers of | complexity under the emulator. | cpsns wrote: | I'm really not sure honestly. I think there is something to | be said about having the real thing, but I'm not really | convinced in the physical hardware over emulation debate. I | get the same enjoyment in emulated SNES games as I did as a | child on a real SNES for example. | | In this case? I enjoyed saving the Mac, fixing it, making a | few minor upgrades along the way. Apple hardware and | software integrates so well together and I think there's a | lot of reason to have the whole package. That said when | using it I'm looking primarily at the screen alone. | | I think it's really subjective and depends on the person | ultimately. | kitsunesoba wrote: | For me it's not so much any of the physical properties of | the machine in question (though those can be nice in their | own way), but more of an intangible sense of "realness" | that's difficult to attain with an emulator. It may just be | placebo effect but I think that long time computer users | can probably pick up on subtle differences, and that likely | shapes the experience more than is often thought. | | Certainly, pulling out my PowerBook G3 Pismo is a | significantly different experience than firing up | SheepShaver or qemu_ppc running the same operating system. | rob74 wrote: | > _...and a very cute kitty!_ | | Yeah, I guess that's actually the main advantage of a classic | Mac with its built-in monitor - try fitting a cat beside a 4K | monitor on that tiny desk! Plus the Mac probably emits more | cat-attracting heat than a modern monitor... | rtpg wrote: | Something that is super easy to do nowadays too is to get various | XP-era software and run it in windows XP in a VM. | | Honestly I feel like trying to connect to the net on some of | these devices feels a bit silly, but you can get lots of work | done and wear nostalgia goggles. All at blazing fast speeds | anthk wrote: | Most XP software will run as is under 7 and older OSes. | robalni wrote: | My current favourite computer is a Fitlet2 that runs Debian. I | have two of that computer: one server and one desktop. It's tiny, | silent, beautiful and with an operating system that doesn't try | to do anything other than letting me do what I want. I can get | the same feeling about that computer as what I read in this | article. | | I want there to be more nice computers. | insane_dreamer wrote: | I really should get one of these these. I sadly never owned one, | though I had an Apple IIe and an Apple IIc. | | My favorite though would have to be the G4 Cube. | dhosek wrote: | I bought one of those refurbished in 2001 and it was a | fantastic machine. I used it for live recording setups, | transporting it in a suitcase along with keyboard, monitor, | mouse and 8-track A/D system, padded with towels. I only gave | it up when I bought my first PowerBook. | [deleted] | intrasight wrote: | Mine is my favorite computer that I never use. Hasn't been | plugged in for about 35 years. | shadytrees wrote: | I hope the author has found their way to joshua stein's blog: | https://jcs.org/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-07 23:00 UTC)