Hello everyone. This is a proud, but also daunting moment for me, as I’ve never done this before. Today I’m releasing an app I have been working on for a few weeks, Pantheon.
I am a collector and tinkerer of Apple computers dating from 1998 – 2006. My long-suffering wife will never understand why I ‘play with those old computers!’, but what can I say, there was just something wonderful about the PowerPC heyday.
Which brings me back to Pantheon. A few weeks ago, I was asking for some help from AI with terminal commands using an app on my phone. And then it occurred to me, it would be so much easier if I could just type the commands in on the Power Mac G5 in question and then copy and paste the code.
So, I went looking and I did find some apps designed just for that task. But they all relied on some assistance or other to work (could be a raspberry Pi, a proxy server, etc), most were rather technical to get up and running and the majority did not work on Tiger. None of them were just download and go, which is what I wanted.
On that basis I decided that I would see if, with the help of AI, I could build the app that I wanted. There is something almost poetic in the latest AI tech helping me build an app for 20 year old+ computers to access their services.
My priorities were as follows:
1. Native code base and look and feel to the platform.
2. Fully featured, with each addition carefully weighed.
3. Independent, future proofed and not requiring any external service or computer.
4. PowerPC only, supporting 10.4+
5. Private and secure.
6. Accessibility built in by default.
7. Pre-built app bundle that non-technical people could use.
So, how did I do?
1. Native code base and look and feel to the platform:
Built in Objective-C and AppKit, no WebKit, no dependencies. Compiled on a Xcode 3.1.4 with the help of some terminal compiles on a G4. It looks and behaves like a Tiger app because it is one.
2. Fully featured, with each addition carefully weighed:
Too many features to list, but some of the highlights would include; OpenAI Protocol support (lots of AI service options), live web search, markdown rendering, ability to search, organise and highlight chats, multimodal, support attachments, persistent history, export of conversations.
3. Independent, future proofed and not requiring any external service or computer.
TLS 1.2 and 1.3 support, direct HTTPS to the provider, open sourced, no relays, no proxies, no intermediate server, no tracking and no charge for the app.
4. PowerPC only, supporting 10.4+
A deliberate choice, as open-sourced others can fork to Intel or other version of Mac OS. I have tested Pantheon on a variety of PowerPC Macs from a 12” iBook G3 500Mhz “Snow” up to a dual 2.3Ghz PowerMac G5 with 16GB of RAM and an SSD. Pantheon worked on all of them, all are treated as first tier systems with full functionality. I hope that your experience has been as good as mine!
5. Private and secure.
Secure salted password protection using Keychain. Forget the password? No problem, but reset is destructive by design. Every conversation is encrypted with AES-256-GCM, no plain text, no shared API keys, all stored on your own computer and conversations only sent to the provider you choose and trust.
6. Accessibility built in by default.
Configurable text size, high-contrast modes (exceeding WCAG AAA standard!), keyboard navigation throughout, native Appkit controls, native speech synthesis, etc.
7. Pre-built app bundle that non-technical people could use.
In the past, I had no idea how to bundle an app from source code. It really held me back if there was not an app that I could just download and use. For those that want to tinker and fork the source code, please do, I’d love to see it be useful and expanded. For everyone else, you’re welcome!
Pantheon is completely free and open source under GPL v2 or later.
Download and full information (macintoshrepository): [https://www.macintoshrepository.org/88642-pantheon-ai]
Download and full information (macintoshgarden): [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/pantheon-ai]
Source code / technical documentation: [https://github.com/yz7hzsrvg9-stack/Pantheon]
I’d really love to hear how it behaves on other people’s PowerPC Macs — particularly different machines and AI providers. If anyone gives it a try, please let me know how you get on!
I am a collector and tinkerer of Apple computers dating from 1998 – 2006. My long-suffering wife will never understand why I ‘play with those old computers!’, but what can I say, there was just something wonderful about the PowerPC heyday.
Which brings me back to Pantheon. A few weeks ago, I was asking for some help from AI with terminal commands using an app on my phone. And then it occurred to me, it would be so much easier if I could just type the commands in on the Power Mac G5 in question and then copy and paste the code.
So, I went looking and I did find some apps designed just for that task. But they all relied on some assistance or other to work (could be a raspberry Pi, a proxy server, etc), most were rather technical to get up and running and the majority did not work on Tiger. None of them were just download and go, which is what I wanted.
On that basis I decided that I would see if, with the help of AI, I could build the app that I wanted. There is something almost poetic in the latest AI tech helping me build an app for 20 year old+ computers to access their services.
My priorities were as follows:
1. Native code base and look and feel to the platform.
2. Fully featured, with each addition carefully weighed.
3. Independent, future proofed and not requiring any external service or computer.
4. PowerPC only, supporting 10.4+
5. Private and secure.
6. Accessibility built in by default.
7. Pre-built app bundle that non-technical people could use.
So, how did I do?
1. Native code base and look and feel to the platform:
Built in Objective-C and AppKit, no WebKit, no dependencies. Compiled on a Xcode 3.1.4 with the help of some terminal compiles on a G4. It looks and behaves like a Tiger app because it is one.
2. Fully featured, with each addition carefully weighed:
Too many features to list, but some of the highlights would include; OpenAI Protocol support (lots of AI service options), live web search, markdown rendering, ability to search, organise and highlight chats, multimodal, support attachments, persistent history, export of conversations.
3. Independent, future proofed and not requiring any external service or computer.
TLS 1.2 and 1.3 support, direct HTTPS to the provider, open sourced, no relays, no proxies, no intermediate server, no tracking and no charge for the app.
4. PowerPC only, supporting 10.4+
A deliberate choice, as open-sourced others can fork to Intel or other version of Mac OS. I have tested Pantheon on a variety of PowerPC Macs from a 12” iBook G3 500Mhz “Snow” up to a dual 2.3Ghz PowerMac G5 with 16GB of RAM and an SSD. Pantheon worked on all of them, all are treated as first tier systems with full functionality. I hope that your experience has been as good as mine!
5. Private and secure.
Secure salted password protection using Keychain. Forget the password? No problem, but reset is destructive by design. Every conversation is encrypted with AES-256-GCM, no plain text, no shared API keys, all stored on your own computer and conversations only sent to the provider you choose and trust.
6. Accessibility built in by default.
Configurable text size, high-contrast modes (exceeding WCAG AAA standard!), keyboard navigation throughout, native Appkit controls, native speech synthesis, etc.
7. Pre-built app bundle that non-technical people could use.
In the past, I had no idea how to bundle an app from source code. It really held me back if there was not an app that I could just download and use. For those that want to tinker and fork the source code, please do, I’d love to see it be useful and expanded. For everyone else, you’re welcome!
Pantheon is completely free and open source under GPL v2 or later.
Download and full information (macintoshrepository): [https://www.macintoshrepository.org/88642-pantheon-ai]
Download and full information (macintoshgarden): [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/pantheon-ai]
Source code / technical documentation: [https://github.com/yz7hzsrvg9-stack/Pantheon]
I’d really love to hear how it behaves on other people’s PowerPC Macs — particularly different machines and AI providers. If anyone gives it a try, please let me know how you get on!
Attachments
Last edited:
