Retrocomputing, how far we've come

I’ve got my MongrelMac up and running, just for fun, it’s an old 17" iMac G4 800, running 9.2.2, with an ancient ADB Apple Extended Keyboard II (Nimitz) and Kensington ADB TurboMouse 5.0 through a Belkin ADB to USB adapter, it’s up and running on my AirPort network, so just for fun, I decided to see how some horribly obsolete browsers would work on the current Internet…

I’m using a Sixteen year old keyboard and mouse, running a ten year old operating system and web browsers (Mac OS 9.2, Netscape 4.7 and Microsoft Internet Exploiter 5.0) on a Seven year old computer…

Netscape 4.7 is by far the most dated of the two browsers I’m running, the Apple webpage renders as mostly text, the SDMB main page renders as plain text, and the SDMB forums render as mostly text (no, the ads do not appear to Guests on this setup), and YouTube? Faghettaboutit, it doesn’t even try to load, however, Netscape 4.7 is clearly the fastest of the two browsers, mainly because it doesn’t have to load all those pesky graphics…

Microsoft Internet Exploiter 5.0, I never thought I’d say this about a Microsoft app, but in this case, IE is the superior browser, most web pages (SDMB, Apple, YouTube even) render pretty closely to what you’d see today, with the right plug-ins IE could be pretty usable today especially for someone who is saddled with ancient Mac hardware and either can’t or won’t upgrade to the current stuff, it’s a tad slower than Netscape 4.7, but it’s not as limited

this post was actually composed in Netscape 4.7, for surfing the forums, Netscape 4.7 isn’t too bad, especially considering I don’t need to load superfluous graphics

So, what’s the oldest machine you surf the net and/or browse the SDMB on?

My grandma’s computer is a hand-me-down (from me) G4/450, still in use. It has 10.3 on it, and Firefox 2.0, but it’s slow as hell and crashes often. I told them to upgrade to the new Mac Mini when it comes out in a few weeks. (Of course, that was six months ago…)

A seven-year-old computer is “retro”, now? My office computer is about that old, and I just think of it as “a computer”. The web browser (Mozilla) is getting rather dated, though, and crashes on an increasingly-large set of sites. I’ll need to upgrade the OS (currently 10.2) before I can upgrade the browser any further, though.

No, a seven year old computer is not “retro”, but a ten year old operating system IS

I just forced a client to upgrade from 8.6 to 9.2.2
I told him I wasn’t going to support him anymore if he didn’t.
Still, 8.6 did everything he wanted.

A few months ago, I connected to the Dope using a Powermac 8100/80 (G1, I think) running System 7.6.1. I installed iCab 2.99 as a browser. It took five minutes to render a page of the SDMB.

I’m interested in that machine if you ever plan on ditching it (I have a NuBus card that I need a machine for).

Alas, I have already given it away to a friend who wanted to play some classic games.

10 steps in the evolution of portable computing

Retrocomputing can include desktops, but to really get a feel for how far we’ve come you need to go back a lot farther. SIMH gives you the ability to emulate computers ranging from the IBM 1401 (1959) through the Altair 8800 (1975), including all of DEC’s PDPs including the VAX, the DG Nova, Interdata 16- and 32-bit minis, Honeywell H316 and H516, Royal McBee LGP-21 and LGP-30, and sundry others. That gets you:
[ul]
[li]batch processing (the 1401, 1130, and 7090) [/li][li]machine code monitors (DDT on PDPs from the PDP-1 through the PDP-10)[/li][li]traditional command lines (Unix on the PDP-11 and the Interdata 32-bit system, RSTS/E and RT-11 on the PDP-11, TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 on the PDP-10, possibly VMS on the VAX with a special Hobbyist’s License from HP)[/li][li]a perverse command line (SCP on the IBM System/3)[/li][li]programming language interpreters (FOCAL on the PDP-8, LISP 1.5 on the PDP-1, APL\1130 on the IBM 1130)[/li][li]and one highly idiosyncratic character-based interface (ITS on the PDP-10)[/li][/ul]

Robert Supnik, the software’s author and former DEC engineer and VP, has a goodly amount of software hosted on his site but little documentation. For that, and some more software, go to Bitsavers or one of the mirrors.

It can’t give you the feel for it until you make mock ups, because your not surrounded by large clunky computer components.

My scariest nightmare has finally come true: my mother wants her own Internet account, instead of going to the library all the time. Her laptop is running Win 98 (not even SE!). I’ve been begging her to upgrade, or let me buy her a new computer. This may be the tipping point; I’m not sure if current cable/DSL setups will run under 98.

I was using Win 95 up until last year with a broadband cable connection.

Sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . .

Just over three years ago I was regularly using NT4, with IE5, to waste time on here while I should’ve been working…

My brother still uses my 12 year old Compaq 1525. Windows 95 at 150Mhertz, 4 GB HD. It can still surf the web but very slowly. He likes it for the old games new computers can’t play like Wolfpack and Flying Corps.

Used to be that netscape was clearly superior to IE but that was a long long time ago. When IE 4 was released somewhere in 1997 it beat the crap out of NS 4 (also 1997) - IE 4 had much better CSS support, it was fast, it was scriptable. Somehow Microsoft had managed to create a decent browser.

Netscape just wouldn’t get better. Though the rendering engine improved, NS/Mozilla 4.5 and 6 were jokes - bigger and slower and unstable with a stupid user interface. Around that time (1999 to 2002), the only browser that you could really rely on to browse the web was IE. Then, in 2002 Firefox was created out of the remains of Netscape/Mozilla and Apple hacked Konqueror into Safari/Webkit and they quickly made IE look horribly old (which it is - IE 5 to 7 were mostly cosmetic updates).

See also Timeline of web browsers - Wikipedia

Just to be clear, the iMac G4 in my OP is not even close to my oldest functional machine, that would be either my Apple IIe or Mac 128K (original non-128K logo model), it’s my oldest usable Mac…

Hmm, haven’t played with the IIe in a while, might be time to fire it up again…

I still like to screw around with a Commodore 64 emulator. It works just like the original and the software is still widely available. There is even a web browser for it and even a simple web server if you want to go hard core.

Fwiw, my aspire one plays quake 3 arena like butta in windows 7 :slight_smile:

My ti99-4/a, however, no longer has a tv around here I can plug it into.