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The End Of TenFourFox
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Someone with better skills than myself should probably do it, LOL
I think this community owes Cameron Kaiser a HUGE thank you for the labor of love in keeping TFF alive for so long and keeping an important aspect of the computers we know and love operational.
I think we all knew this was inevitable-between the evolution of the internet and the fact that it was quite literally a one man operation.
PPC computers became more of a hobby for me than something I used daily right around 2015, and in the past year my PPC use has gone downhill seriously due to-frankly-other things going on in life. Still, though, as I speak I have my trusty 1ghz TiBook by my side, and a few other favorites waiting for the time for me to set them up until I complete a final move hopefully before the end of the year and can get everything out of storage and in some state of at least being accessible.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that this is one additional nail in the coffin for practical PPC use. For the things I do with PPC Macs, they do them as well as they ever have as long as I don't need to get onto the internet, but unfortunately that's where it ends.
BTW, I have now mostly embraced M1 for most of my uses, although some stuff still just needs an Intel Mac to work. My MBP 9,1 may well end up having a longer useable/serviceable life than a lot of PPC computers(it only rolled off official OS support with Big Sur, although until I got my M1 I refused to use anything newer than Mojave as a primary OS because of legacy compatibility).
I think we all knew this was inevitable-between the evolution of the internet and the fact that it was quite literally a one man operation.
PPC computers became more of a hobby for me than something I used daily right around 2015, and in the past year my PPC use has gone downhill seriously due to-frankly-other things going on in life. Still, though, as I speak I have my trusty 1ghz TiBook by my side, and a few other favorites waiting for the time for me to set them up until I complete a final move hopefully before the end of the year and can get everything out of storage and in some state of at least being accessible.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that this is one additional nail in the coffin for practical PPC use. For the things I do with PPC Macs, they do them as well as they ever have as long as I don't need to get onto the internet, but unfortunately that's where it ends.
BTW, I have now mostly embraced M1 for most of my uses, although some stuff still just needs an Intel Mac to work. My MBP 9,1 may well end up having a longer useable/serviceable life than a lot of PPC computers(it only rolled off official OS support with Big Sur, although until I got my M1 I refused to use anything newer than Mojave as a primary OS because of legacy compatibility).
The only problem with asking devs to support old browsers is that most of them will always reply, "Why should I do it?" because most devs with a such arrogance that I have worked with do not bother with old technologies, like some of us do. Being a retro enthusiast myself, I'm more than fine in planning a LB version of my own personal website, just so I can check it from my retro virtual machines. For fun. Also this will help me reconnect with the true old school HTML/CSS and my origins as a web developer when I was just a 14 year old kid playing with the web on my computer in 1995/1996.
But forums and sites with material for retro/vintage machines should definitely support this. It is also a future proof measure. What if Intel browsers in the next decade lose support and we have to use our browsers from the M1 Macs? It's no different from the current scenario with PowerPC Macs.
But forums and sites with material for retro/vintage machines should definitely support this. It is also a future proof measure. What if Intel browsers in the next decade lose support and we have to use our browsers from the M1 Macs? It's no different from the current scenario with PowerPC Macs.
I appreciate all the work that went into TFF, thank you Cameron for keeping it going.
This announcement finally forced me to explore alternative options for the future. I tried out the Web Rendering Proxy, with the server being a 2015 MacBook Air, and wow, I was impressed at how easy it is to set up, and how well it works in general.
I'm not sure how extensive and 'authentic' people are trying to get with their browsing experience, but having used the WRP on my 300MHz G3 Clamshell running 10.3.9 with Safari 1.3, I can immediately say it is the fastest and most effective browsing experience. I just set Safari homepage to my WRP address (http://192.168.1.X:8080) and it's so easy.
I can comfortably and quickly view any website correctly, such as Macrumors or Youtube (good for reading Youtube comments). From Youtube I can easily grab the URLs and put straight into the 10.3.9-supported PPCMC, to watch the videos.
Full graphics web browsing, fast loading times (~6 seconds per page), bookmarks (just save your URLs into Stickies
), and Youtube + Twitch playback. That's pretty "modern" in my opinion.
But yes, I definitely think someone should try and make a simple PPC client app for WRP. It could simply let you incorporate more browser features into the client side.
This announcement finally forced me to explore alternative options for the future. I tried out the Web Rendering Proxy, with the server being a 2015 MacBook Air, and wow, I was impressed at how easy it is to set up, and how well it works in general.
I'm not sure how extensive and 'authentic' people are trying to get with their browsing experience, but having used the WRP on my 300MHz G3 Clamshell running 10.3.9 with Safari 1.3, I can immediately say it is the fastest and most effective browsing experience. I just set Safari homepage to my WRP address (http://192.168.1.X:8080) and it's so easy.
I can comfortably and quickly view any website correctly, such as Macrumors or Youtube (good for reading Youtube comments). From Youtube I can easily grab the URLs and put straight into the 10.3.9-supported PPCMC, to watch the videos.
Full graphics web browsing, fast loading times (~6 seconds per page), bookmarks (just save your URLs into Stickies
), and Youtube + Twitch playback. That's pretty "modern" in my opinion.But yes, I definitely think someone should try and make a simple PPC client app for WRP. It could simply let you incorporate more browser features into the client side.
I like the idea of this - a 'VintageNet' where it's kind of return to the earlier days, with mostly user-built sites made with basic HTML/CSS. The problem is making it into anything more than a novelty or file sharing, and with the vast majority of people having moved on from that era, it seems like it would be difficult to get forums or things like that with a similar population of established ones. It's a cool idea to think about though, and as you said some sites are already working at that goal.
Think we first have to list the reasons to go web browsing on these machines:
1. Forums
2. Download stuff for our old macs
3. read latest news
4. EDIT: Forgot to add e-mail reading
5. go on... complete the list
I think this is necessary to see what would a “VintageNet” need to have.
(IMO social networks like facebook/twitter/instagram are not necessary and Youtube to some extent isn’t necessary either. I think we only knew Youtubes existed between 2002-2006. So no point in forcing it to run).
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Honestly from what I can tell those three things more or less sum up what the majority of people do with vintage (and probably modern) computers on the internet. Maybe throw in some blogs as well. All that stuff was around 20 years ago and none of it had massive amounts of overhead while the sites were perfectly usable. But anyway, I'm getting off topic...Think we first have to list the reasons to go web browsing on these machines:
1. Forums
2. Download stuff for our old macs
3. read latest news
4. go on... complete the list
I think this is necessary to see what would a “VintageNet” need to have.
(IMO social networks like facebook/twitter/instagram are not necessary and Youtube to some extent isn’t necessary either. I think we only knew Youtubes existed between 2002-2006. So no point in forcing it to run).
I absolute agree with Bunnspecial here. Dr. Cameron Kaiser has been able to extend the lives of our faithful PowerPC Macs well beyond their expiration dates. After 11 years since TFF was released, 16 years since the last PowerPC Mac was released, and 13 years since the last version of Mac OS X was released that supports PowerPC-based Macintosh computers, its challenging to maintain something so obsolete. I give Cameron a ton of credit for all of the amazing work he did over 10 years to keep PPC Macs connected to the internet and able to browse the modern web. But after so much time, a steadily shrinking user base and rapidly changing internet (and Firefox code base), at what point does it become too much? It was an impressive run, but at some point a reality must be faced that the newest of PowerPC machines are approaching 20 years old and are beyond outpaced by nearly every modern piece of technology in every capacity other than charm. These devices still work for many other purposes and thanks to this community, a lot of new and renewed life have been breathed into these machines.
I, like Bunn, was actively using PowerPCs daily until around 2016/2017, when my usage habits just became too much for the aging hardware. Following that and some previous frustrations with things surrounding this community and changes in my own personal life, I stopped using PPCs all together and they remained on shelves in my basement. I took a machine out here and there to play with it and make sure they’re still working, but otherwise I changed my focus focus to 68k Macs and Intel Macs. As of this weekend, with the excitement surrounding someone on 68kmla building their own Macintosh SE/30 and getting one of my own on Friday along with an ImageWriter II, my interest in PPC has somewhat been renewed. I fixed up and tested all of my Pre-G4 PowerBooks and fixed up all 3 of my PowerBook G3s back to working order. So it’s pretty coincidental that in the same weekend, Dr. Kaiser announced the end of development for TFF and Classilla. We’ll see what the future holds, but it feels nice to use PowerPC again, especially System 7-OS9.
All of the activities you listed can accomplished quite easily with BrowserviceThink we first have to list the reasons to go web browsing on these machines:
1. Forums
2. Download stuff for our old macs
3. read latest news
4. EDIT: Forgot to add e-mail reading
5. go on... complete the list
I think this is necessary to see what would a “VintageNet” need to have.
(IMO social networks like facebook/twitter/instagram are not necessary and Youtube to some extent isn’t necessary either. I think we only knew Youtubes existed between 2002-2006. So no point in forcing it to run).
It's a real achievement that he managed to keep this going almost a full decade after Apple's attempt at obsoleting those old systems. This was inevitable though. Browsers continue to grow in complexity and modern web is just too heavy for them. Things like WebGL and modern video codecs will never work on them. Even with optimizations trying to browse the web in TFF on my iBook G4 was a miserable experience.
But it was amazing that I could, and sometimes you gotta do things just to say you can.
But it was amazing that I could, and sometimes you gotta do things just to say you can.
Yeah I have a Linux VM for Web development, just saved a snapshot before trying to compile and run Browservice on it. I don't expect great things.All of the activities you listed can accomplished quite easily with Browservice
OK, just tested browservice here. The service was running from my Ubuntu 20.04 VM.
No luck with Classilla on my maCOS 9 VM, but it works with IE 6 on Windows 98 SE. Quite cool, but the speed made the experience not very good. Tried a few forums, Formula1.com website, FCBarcelona.cat, youtube was my last stop to test a video. Scrolling a page is painful.
I'll not keep Browservice on my VM but I've found the experience quite interesting and I think that if this gets more improvements with regards to the performance, I may try again. Meanwhile I'll stick to WRP and (when I find time) try to help tenox7 to improve the GUI he made for the toolbar with the HTML he provided for customization.
No luck with Classilla on my maCOS 9 VM, but it works with IE 6 on Windows 98 SE. Quite cool, but the speed made the experience not very good. Tried a few forums, Formula1.com website, FCBarcelona.cat, youtube was my last stop to test a video. Scrolling a page is painful.
I'll not keep Browservice on my VM but I've found the experience quite interesting and I think that if this gets more improvements with regards to the performance, I may try again. Meanwhile I'll stick to WRP and (when I find time) try to help tenox7 to improve the GUI he made for the toolbar with the HTML he provided for customization.
WebRenderingProxy, by other hand, is really quite good. I have tried it before with Windows 3.11 two years ago.
I just tried it now to log on VOGONS forums and reply to Roytam1 in a post. I might just stick to WRP for the time being. I need to give WRP's toolbar a overhaul, hopefully this weekend I will dive into this. No promises.
I just tried it now to log on VOGONS forums and reply to Roytam1 in a post. I might just stick to WRP for the time being. I need to give WRP's toolbar a overhaul, hopefully this weekend I will dive into this. No promises.
No. That ship has sailed. The HDD that was on died long ago, and i only have a partial non working backup of it. It'd be much easier to just rebrand TenFourFox and add in some basic updates here and there.
As for Arcticfox itself... i havent added any code to it in over a year or so. It's been Riccardo's baby for a while now. I lost interest in it as it's too old for my needs (like TFF). I need sites like github to work, so i moved on to working on PPC Linux and Snow Leopard browsers that support at least FF52.9/UXP instead. These days I just pull in his commits when he's ready to release and then i build the official 10.6 and PPC Linux builds.
Cheers
Just a quick post to express my appreciation to Cameron Kaiser for the work he did with TFF.
Plenty of good posts earlier in the thread and the TFF blog article, so I won't rehash anything already said.
Thanks again. 👍
Plenty of good posts earlier in the thread and the TFF blog article, so I won't rehash anything already said.
Thanks again. 👍
@Bruninho click the link in my sig for a 10.6 version I built.
Yes, I echo the gratitude for Cameron's hard work. He really is a great guy. TenFourFox had some fun twists and turns in the way of surprise features to keep squeezing browsing possibilities for our ancient Macs. He deserves the love and support.
I already see some effort is being made to think about building our own versions down the line per another thread, which is interesting.
The other thought would be to spin it off into some sort of open source project which PowerPC enthusiasts fund out of our own cash to pay a handful of programmers to tackle certain projects - like moving TenFourFox to 52ESR codebase with javascript updates, to start. I'd contribute financially, but on the other hand, we would need to find some very specific programmers who would be able to do what we want them to do and also... hold them accountable.
I'm pretty comfortable using my G5 less for browsing however in the future as TenFourFox quietly recedes.
I already see some effort is being made to think about building our own versions down the line per another thread, which is interesting.
The other thought would be to spin it off into some sort of open source project which PowerPC enthusiasts fund out of our own cash to pay a handful of programmers to tackle certain projects - like moving TenFourFox to 52ESR codebase with javascript updates, to start. I'd contribute financially, but on the other hand, we would need to find some very specific programmers who would be able to do what we want them to do and also... hold them accountable.
I'm pretty comfortable using my G5 less for browsing however in the future as TenFourFox quietly recedes.
Here am I, posting from OS9 Classilla on my iPad Pro (UTM VM) thanks to WebRenderingProxy. However, it is a tad slow (expected) because I am running WRP from my MacBook Pro. The MBP is in clamshell mode, plugged to a HDMI and is also sleeping. I set up WRP as a daemon running on background to try to keep it alive. No luck. The MBP has to be on for it to work.
Actually, I'd also be interested to know what the major blockers are. Obviously, modern Firefox requires Rust, and Chromium essentially requires Clang, but it's not immediately obvious to me why Pale Moon couldn't work. Would it help if you ripped out all the Cocoa code and just used X11?
I'm sure there's a reason, or Cameron wouldn't have done what he did, but it would be interesting to hear more!
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AFAIK Rust is impossible on PPC as is, another disadvantage of modern languages (based on c! Oh the irony. Not that I hate rust, more that I hate when people say rust is the end all solution to every problem...)
Of course not the ancient Apple distributed X11 (Links2 doesn’t care about this though!) but, but newer possibly MacPorts based X11 (never tired this) could fill in the gaps when using something like GCC 7.x?
I honestly think if we can get a modern X11 working COCOA should just be replaced, it’s a loosing battle in the TFF code.
Why would it be impossible? It runs on 32-bit ppc Linux, it runs on 32-bit x86 Darwin. Will not work out of box, but can't see a major blocker either.
Not sure if I'm reading this right, but GCC and X11 versions are not related.
On the server side the Apple X11 does have the Xrender extension, which is usually the only major blocker when trying to get modern things to run on old X servers. The X11 client code will build on almost anything Unix-like.
Sorry folks but if you won't even offer up your first born child for the glory of a depreciated IBM CPU architecture I'm beginning to doubt if you were ever a "real" PowerPC hobbyist in the first place.
