macOS Outsourcing Vintage Development

[MrCheeto]

While I have experience with coding, I just do not have time to dig my heels in and create what I’d like to.

I very much admire the PPC/Intel transition era of Apple. G4’s, G5’s and early transitional Intel models will always have a special place in my heart. This is why I want to see the lives of such machines extended. There are also countless PPC fans pushing the limits of the architecture and doing incredible things as a hobby.

I’d like to gauge how devs feel about being paid for their hobby.

I’ve always been able to relate to the feeling of ruining one’s hobby by trying to please somebody else but maybe somebody is willing.

I think it is fair that a person be rewarded for the time they invest in such things. I don’t expect everything for free and actually prefer paid apps etc. so long as the licensing is fair. I’m very willing to pay for custom apps, mods, patches etc. if the developer is willing to allow the end-product to be free and open to everybody else.

Recently, I had a discussion about making the Magic Trackpad work in Leopard with all multi-touch functions. It was made clear that there is a lot of underlying yarn to untangle to make this possible. It is doable but isn’t worth anybody’s investment considering it hasn’t been done.

In such a case that a driver could be developed to make the Magic Trackpad work with Leopard and/or even Tiger (the MBA was released with Tiger originally, so who knows) and work with both PowerPC and x86 architecture, I’d be willing to add my backing to the project so long as it is freely available to everybody. The problem is that my investment would be minuscule. For such a project, I may only be able to put in $200 on completion and I believe a developer’s time is certainly worth more than that. So where does additional funding come from?

Something like OCLP should have tens-of-thousands backing it, for instance, all things being fair.

I feel similarly about many other projects. How about Graphics drivers to add support to older Macs? Modern web browsers, NIC’s, USB versions, RAW support, controller device compatibility for old Macs, bringing Rosetta (1) to later Mac OS versions, etc.?

I feel that if somebody were to, say, open a GoFundMe for old Apple development to keep the hobby fresh for all of us, I’d be a consistent backer.

I know of Classilla and TenFourFox etc. but IMO apps like this are tacky and obviously just “good enough” to pass. Any port in a storm, they say. I’d like to help induce production of nicely polished tools on the level of Apple in their prime.

I know I’m dreaming but here’s my shot.

 

[Nygaard]

I'm sure you've read why TenForFox was ended. The short version is writing and maintaining software, particularly something as complicated as a web browser, is a full time job. If you want professional-level quality, you need a source of revenue to sustain it.

Plus, you are developing on an unsupported platform (no security patches in the OS), aging hardware (slow(er), hard to repair/replace), and targeting a small, shrinking, niche user base.

Don't get me wrong, I love the old PPC era and have a couple of G4 PowerBooks and a G5 PowerMac. But they spend most of the time in storage, unfortunately.

 

[MrCheeto]

I agree with everything in your post.

The intention, though, is not to continue to drag the old hardware into the modern mayhem: it is to enable old hardware to use later tools.

Magic Trackpad, USB 3.0, NVME drives, later graphics cards are great additions to somebody's already shiny toys. So many old machines were left behind by one single threshold that just couldn't be crossed. Think of how much more capable PPC machines would have been if given complete Snow Leopard support up to 10.6.8 with Apple not cutting any corners. What if the cMP's got Thunderbolt or, more painfully remissed, SATA 3.0?

There are many Macs that were doomed to obsolescence by the slightest generational boundary.

The only bright side to my endeavor is the fact that the tech is frozen. There is not going to be an update from Apple that breaks some sort of support or kext or something on a G4 Cube or Macintosh Quadra. Once the software or patch or whatever is developed, tested, and QC'd, it is complete. There is no moving target. Every G4 from Apple that will ever be released has been released. The book is closed on the 68k roadmap. In the same way: game developers that release titles for Atari VCS or NES in modern times do not expect to make a living off of their work. These people just enjoy what they do however their work doesn't change in value with the release of a later console or a software update. These systems do not have any means of updating their ROM's in the fashion we patch our modern games every 8-hours and Atari 5200 has already been released and is hardware frozen.

I'm glad to hear all view-points and equally willing to try to back somebody that has a similar passion.

 

[Nygaard]

The intention, though, is not to continue to drag the old hardware into the modern mayhem: it is to enable old hardware to use later tools.

I'm not seeing the distinction you are making. If you want a web browser that supports CSS42 and whiz-bang Javascript, isn't that dragging it into the modern mayhem?

Magic Trackpad, USB 3.0, NVME drives, later graphics cards are great additions to somebody's already shiny toys...Thunderbolt or, more painfully remissed, SATA 3.0?

I think the first is Bluetooth, so that can probably be done with just device drivers. The others would need some sort of hardware retrofit, right?

Also, for graphics cards, modern machines can't even get those working!

The only bright side to my endeavor is the fact that the tech is frozen.

True, this is actually a huge benefit. As you said, it's what allows you to pop in Super Mario World from 1991 into your SNES and it works every time. Compare that with getting a CD of Command & Conquer '95 to run on anything.

A bit of a tangent, but I've thought about this a lot before: if you throw away the operating system, simplify the hardware, and lock it down, you get sustainable technology. Like earlier computers/game consoles, the program is the OS, for the most part. The target platform is the hardware, so once you write the software, it works until the hardware dies. The only modern software I know that somewhat takes this approach is MemTest86.

 

[MrCheeto]

I'm not seeing the distinction you are making. If you want a web browser that supports CSS42 and whiz-bang Javascript, isn't that dragging it into the modern mayhem?

The distinction is that I have no desire to make a clunking steam-powered retiree play YouTube at 4k or even know what TikTok is.

Plenty of people will take a car from, say, the 50s and gut it until it is unrecognizable. By the time that it has A/C, hydraulic suspension, keyless entry, a 12" screen in the dash, all digital gauge cluster, remote start, fuel injection, heated massage seats, and one of those reminders that says "the door is ajar" in an English accent, you may as well have bought a Honda Civic.

I don't want to dress a PowerMac G4 Cube as a Monterey or Ventura machine or, an even greater waste of time, plop an M1 Mac into the Cube case. I want the G4 to be released from certain constraints. Namely: unlocking some more I/O. A G4 Cube with USB 2.0 would be quite a treat. It's the same machine doing the same thing, just quicker. Much like people installing SSD's into their machines, a bit of snappiness really makes these things shine. It's not Thunderbolt but it's crossing a reasonable threshold. The same can be said with improving WiFi in one of these.

How about unlocking RAW compatibility for a somewhat later camera in an older OS? Imagine using a nearly modern camera to capture images that can be directly manipulated on your G4 DP and with a GPU from a G5 to boot.

These may not be my actual ambitions but just illustrating that I'm not looking to bring those devices into this mess of Web 3.0, oops 4.0, oops now it's 7.2.1 with S.M.A.C.K. QuaCsar fabric integration 🙄

...just expanding some capabilities so the old hardware can do more of what it used to do. I suppose it's hardly different from tricking MacOS to install on unsupported hardware. It's a threshold and just crossing that one gap opens great possibilities.

 

[sevoneone]

Namely: unlocking some more I/O. A G4 Cube with USB 2.0 would be quite a treat. It's the same machine doing the same thing, just quicker. Much like people installing SSD's into their machines, a bit of snappiness really makes these things shine. It's not Thunderbolt but it's crossing a reasonable threshold. The same can be said with improving WiFi in one of these.

There are hardware limitations to a lot of the things you are mentioning. A G4 Cube doesn't support USB 2.0 because it lacks drivers for it (A cube running 10.4 Tiger supports USB 2.0 in the OS), it's the actual USB chipset on the logic board that is the limitation, and there is no PCI expansion. An SSD doesn't go very far on a G3/G4 PPC machine because they are limited to 66 or 100MB/s ATA buses. Even if you had a G4 tower with expansion slots and could write the drivers, you'd be bottlenecked by the capabilities of the old PCI/AGP bus trying to connect anything modern, the best you could get from a standard 33Mhz 64bit PCI slot would be SATA 2.0 speeds... There is also a lot more to decoding a RAW file from a modern digital camera than there was back in 2002. Not only is there more pixel data, but lossless compression algorithms and encodings that were calculated on chip in your modern camera that alone has 5x the processing power of the 500MHz G4 in the cube. Meaning, even if you got the software working, it would be a painful experience.

I do get what you are saying. There is for sure some unrealized performance from G3 and G4 Macs by virtue of highly optimized code. The most recent rover we sent to Mars is powered by a radiation harden version of the same 233MHz G3 as the original iMac. I mean, it is not like there is a lot of choice when it come to selection for a CPU able to survive a trip to another planet, but the point is, if NASA and other agencies can use a 25 year old PPC chip on Mars, on the Moon or in orbit, there is probably some potential in it for me as an ordinary nerd too.

I can't say it wouldn't be nice if someone continued to maintain a somewhat modern browser and basic productivity apps for these old systems so they could serve some purpose, but everyone knows there are diminishing returns trying to do that with every second that passes. It would also be cool to see some possibilities for using a super old machine in place of a Arduino/Raspberry Pi in some Maker type projects, especially as the chip shortage continues to rage. A Titanium PowerBook G4 running as the controller for a 3D printer, or CNC/laser would be very cool and fun, or able to run something like HomeBridge. It doesn't have to be Mac OS either. I'd be happy to run a semi-modern Linux build that gets security updates...

What really bothers me though are old iOS devices. I have an original iPad mini sitting on my desk. It still functions fine, but I can't do a thing with it because the last version of iOS released for it made it pretty unusable for much of anything. It's worthless in value, so I just keep it here and charge it every now and then on the off chance that some day someone will come up with a way for it to do something useful again before the battery inevitably inflates and it takes itself out.

 

[MrCheeto]

your modern camera that alone has 5x the processing power of the 500MHz G4 in the cube

Hahaha, that's a fine way to put it. I think by the time the A4 came around we were carrying the power of a DP MDD G4 in our pockets.

The most recent rover we sent to Mars is powered by a radiation harden version of the same 233MHz G3 as the original iMac.

This is something I wish we could take better advantage of: almost everything we would ever want to do could be done on a very old machine, short of high-bitstream media. We rarely or in some cases never tap the potential of our hardware. AutoCAD, music production, word processors, spreadsheets, composing emails, playing your iTunes library and general mathematical computation can be done with little pain so long as your expectations are realistic. There was a time when these pieces of software were the latest and best things out there and people weren't besmirching the performance then. I have people give me equipment and tools etc. for nothing at all and they act as though they're throwing it out in disgust but it tends to work as well as it did when new. I don't see the problem. It's the same reason I recently bought a cMP. In 2008, I really wanted a Mac Pro to run Win XP in Parallels in Leopard while I edit photos and video and listen to music or create my own music all at the same time. What do I plan to do with my 2009 Pro in the year 2023? Exactly what I wanted to do in 2008. So long as the machine performs as it did in 2008 and is still capable of running exactly the same software it did in 2008, I am getting exactly what I wanted. Wasn't this machine good enough for professionals in 2009? Why does the world's standards dictate my personal satisfaction? Just because there are games currently that surpass anything that existed even ten-years ago, I'm not going to enjoy SW:Battlefront (2004) or COD4 any less. Just the way the world goes.

A Titanium PowerBook G4 running as the controller for a 3D printer, or CNC/laser would be very cool and fun

Around 2011, a customer called and said they wanted help repairing their Macintosh. I think it was an SE or SE/30 but I can't remember exactly. I thought it was odd that a manufacturing company needed this thing running but I stopped in to see what's up. Turns out they need their Macintosh running because it's the only machine that they can use to program the Apple II that is running their CNC. Sure enough, they showed me a cardboard box with an Apple II inside and a window A/C unit with air filters taped to it blowing into the box to keep the machine quite cool as they have been doing for nearly fifteen or twenty-years at the time.

Due to the exponential growth of media and content, computers are aging faster than ever. A CNC driver or word processor could be used for decades or until the machine died but a media player needs daily tending or else the new codec will leave it in the dust or the CPU won't have the particular decoder on-chip and it will be unplayable.

I have an original iPad mini sitting on my desk. It still functions fine, but I can't do a thing with it because the last version of iOS released for it made it pretty unusable for much of anything

Same experience with the same model. I was utterly disappointed. At this point it's too late to even roll it back because there's just no compatibility supporting it. It's just an e-reader. Luckily my iPod Touch 2nd Gen is just like I left it back when it was supported, holds a charge, plays my music exactly as it did back then and so won't be replaced until it dies. I see literally no reason to change iPod models at this current time.