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Using Modern Internet on Old Mac?

B

Bodhi395

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
817
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This may seem a crazy question, but I was curious if you could get on the Internet of today using an old Mac. The Mac in question is a Performa 630cd and its running OS 7.5. I wanted to somehow hook it up to my Comcast cable modem but was unsure if that would even be theoretically possible. Anyone try similar things with old macs and have any success?
 
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It would be possible, but slow. You'd have to use Classzila or iCab. An Ethernet card would be the best option for connecting the two.
 
You'll need an LC/PDS ethernet card. I also agree with the above post... iCab works great. I even got a 1989 Mac SE/30 to load the google homepage a few years back!
 
macEfan said:
You'll need an LC/PDS ethernet card. I also agree with the above post... iCab works great. I even got a 1989 Mac SE/30 to load the google homepage a few years back!
Click to expand...

Any idea where I could get an LC/PDS ethernet card?
 
They are 15+ year old cards. You can also look for a COMM slot Ethernet card. Just make sure you get the right COMM version for your machine. I think you need COMM I and not COMM II.
 
So I got the ethernet card installed on my Performa and hooked it up to my router. Yet, I'm a bit unsure what settings I need to get it working with my internet. Anyone know the steps I should take, or can point me to a good resource? I'm using system 7.5 and using Comcast internet.
 
Ethernet

First you should go into the Internet control panel and make sure Ethernet is active. Then you should find out what your ip is or have it check for DCHP. Once it has an IP address it should basically just work. If it can't find it dynamically call Comcast and ask for legacy info like subnet mask and all that ip info that must be typed in. It will be slow but it should work. If you can max out the ram and find a cheap full 040 processor to put in it you will be better off.
 
Bodhi395 said:
So I got the ethernet card installed on my Performa and hooked it up to my router. Yet, I'm a bit unsure what settings I need to get it working with my internet. Anyone know the steps I should take, or can point me to a good resource? I'm using system 7.5 and using Comcast internet.
Click to expand...

Actually, the control panel you need is "TCP/IP". Set it for "Connect Via" "Ethernet" though it may be called "Commslot". Next set it to "Configure" "Using DHCP Server".

If that doesn't work, there are a couple of possibilities.

1. Your System 7.5 is still using "Classic Networking" instead of "Open Transport". You'll know this if the TCP/IP control panel is missing and you have a "Network" control panel instead.

2. You need specific drivers for a third party Commslot ethernet card.

3. As havokalien says, you'll need to consult comcast as to how to manually setup TCP/IP.
 
Thanks for the responses. So, my computer did have the classic networking, which I couldn't get to work. So I managed to find a copy of Open Transport and installed it onto the computer. Then I simply set it to configure automatically and it worked!

You weren't joking about it being slow though, its really slow. I only have 8 mb of ram though. I did try out WannaBe, which is a text only browser, and that's fairly quick, but very limited and formats things strangely most of the time. iCab is pretty good, but just very, very slow. I actually managed to log onto my gmail account and send an email, using the basic HTML version of gmail. I also tried out an RSS program that seems to work, although again formats things strangely. I'm looking into what else I can do.
 
havokalien said:
Thank you for clarifying for me mac tech. Been a few years so the jargon is a little off.
Click to expand...

No probs. I had to cheat a little myself! :eek:

Bodhi395 said:
Thanks for the responses. So, my computer did have the classic networking, which I couldn't get to work. So I managed to find a copy of Open Transport and installed it onto the computer. Then I simply set it to configure automatically and it worked!

You weren't joking about it being slow though, its really slow. I only have 8 mb of ram though. I did try out WannaBe, which is a text only browser, and that's fairly quick, but very limited and formats things strangely most of the time. iCab is pretty good, but just very, very slow. I actually managed to log onto my gmail account and send an email, using the basic HTML version of gmail. I also tried out an RSS program that seems to work, although again formats things strangely. I'm looking into what else I can do.
Click to expand...

Good to see it's working, but as you're already aware, lots of stuff just won't render correctly.

Slow isn't slow until you've seen one of these old machines on the internet. Just imagine how slow it would be over a 33.6K modem. That's 0.033Mbit/sec internet speeds by today's jargon. Additional RAM might help, but it's still pretty buggy stuff.
 
MacTech68 said:
No probs. I had to cheat a little myself! :eek:

Good to see it's working, but as you're already aware, lots of stuff just won't render correctly.

Slow isn't slow until you've seen one of these old machines on the internet. Just imagine how slow it would be over a 33.6K modem. That's 0.033Mbit/sec internet speeds by today's jargon. Additional RAM might help, but it's still pretty buggy stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did kind of think it might be a little faster because its hooked up to high speed cable internet, but I guess the power of the computer itself it a severely limiting factor, no matter how fast your internet is. At least back when they had 33.6k modems, most websites were extremely basic. Today, even websites that seem to be mostly text have all kinds of hidden junk in them that slows down an old machine.


dastinger said:
Could you make a video of that, please? I am so curious to see it right now.
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Good idea, I might try to do that. I actually want to make my experience using this old computer on the modern internet a post for my blog. I know I'll at least put in some screenshots of what some modern internet pages look like on the old machine.
 
Slow is slow with a 2400 baud

My performa 638CD came with a 1200 baud modem that was replaced with a 2400 baud modem as they ran out. I used that on aol until I got a G3 and DSL years later. By the way my Mac plus with a power cord spliced off a keyboard wire could use AOL and get on the net for a long time. Try that in black and white!!!!
 
If you can throw a bit more ram in there it should help the browsing speed a bit. 8mb can barely handle the OS let alone a web browser!
 
Bodhi395 said:
I finally got around to writing up my article about using my Performa with the modern Internet. It includes a bunch of screenshots, including Macrumors home page. Thanks for all the help everyone gave me on this thread.

http://vintagezen.com/2013/4/15/a-computer-of-a-certain-age
Click to expand...

Great post! Very eye-opening indeed!

Acuity looks like a great program - I can actually see myself buying an old Macintosh Classic simply to serve as a little retro RSS Reader. Stylish & practical, 20 years on!
 
misformatted*

I think part of the problem is the browser is designed for much more powerful hardware AND it has a very obsolete/buggy CSS layout engine.

I'm sure with the right love and care, someone could write a modern browser* that performs acceptably on such an old computer. This type of project is interesting to me.

*Some CSS features like opacity, fuzzy shadows, rgba, animation, fixed background/positioning, and AA would need to be intentionally left out since they are CPU hogs.
 
Bodhi395 said:
This may seem a crazy question, but I was curious if you could get on the Internet of today using an old Mac. The Mac in question is a Performa 630cd and its running OS 7.5. I wanted to somehow hook it up to my Comcast cable modem but was unsure if that would even be theoretically possible. Anyone try similar things with old macs and have any success?
Click to expand...

You would need an ethernet card for the system. Also, I am not sure what browsers are compatible with 7.5... Also pages would not be displayed the same as on a modern system due to it not supporting current web standards.
 
macalec said:
You would need an ethernet card for the system. Also, I am not sure what browsers are compatible with 7.5... Also pages would not be displayed the same as on a modern system due to it not supporting current web standards.
Click to expand...

The question has been answered and the thread resolved. Why bring it back up?
 
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