my vision for 68k/ early ppc macs

http://www.68kmla.org/projects/ anyone? People here who really love some things here could have their own little pet projects there to maintain or something. If we could implement something like that, I'd totally be on board.

/me starts longingly at ~tl

I'd do a little thing on 68k *nix

...this is a wondrous vision, that old macs can run apps like Firefox...

Click to expand...

Hahaha! _Not_ going to happen. someone already tried to whip up an OS 9 build but it was extremely slow, crashy and all around extremely nasty. On a 68k Mac it would run like someone paralysed from the neck down.

The plan is for there eventually to be some nice, 68k friendly text only themes for the Forums and the Wiki (as well as some nice looking Mac OS inspired ones). However, that'll only happen when I have time to make up some new themes. Which I promise I will do soon. Really.

The projects idea is interesting, I'll look to see what the hurdles in implementing it would be. I'm guessing my (fairly) limited server space is going to be the main one if everyone decides to jump on board and start their own sites.

As for the Abandonware downloads via HTML -- it's not going to happen. The legality is questionable at best, and the last thing we want is the 68kMLA getting or having to defend a cease and desist suit.

I think it is extremely unrealistic to think anyone is going to jump onto a Classic development project at this point - even a "simple port" of something existing. Heck, few enough people did it when Classic was still viable. If you want to, by all means go ahead.

Well, Ok So Here Is The Idea Now:

No Downloads

Text Site Hub For 68k macs

Posibley new apps- I am not a programmer, but I do Know how a good project should be done. Well, How about a new Modern browser for 68k? I am sure it would be popular too.

I am making project plans in mac plan!

I am making the prototype site! On my Powermac G3!

Wish me luck!

It is up:

http://68kmac.bravehost.com/default.htm

Tell me what you think, and here is something i have to say:

Look beyond what cant be done, and and look at what can.

we should revive Mac OS classic as a usable platform! Heck, Be os still gets new apps!

Heck, Be os still gets new apps!

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Yes, but Zeta/YellowTab/whatever is still being (somewhat) actively developed. It's (IIRC) OSS, so it's got that going for it. Apple has put the nail in the coffin of Classic. Trying to get modern-ish Unix software to build in A/UX (like I do) is kinda silly - and I'll admit it - but it's fairly trivial to give it a try. Developing Mac OS apps, or porting them, is decidedly non-trivial.

As of earlier this year, ZETA (YellowTab) is as dead as BeOS itself. They didn't actually have permission to be using the BeOS source code (surprise surprise) and hence had to stop distributing it. The BeOS legacy isn't completely over though, as Haiku still seems to be going:

http://haiku-os.org/

It's a complete, ground up, rewrite that aims to be binary compatible with BeOS...

I think this is a really special idea.

This is something that I wanted to look at not just another 1000 pages of blurb from people I don't know!

It's a really great idea & I love the link from macintoshman

[] ]'>

Well, Mac OS can be modernized. Anything can. And apple put A nail in OS9s coffin. A nail cannot stop us! The binary of classic is in use today! Many people love the mac but cant afford osx! Anyone who knows C++ and knowledge on how classic works, can write a program. A At least the modern web browser can be done. Or adding protected memory to the kernel. I'm sure others have some ideas too. Woudnt you like to have a modern browser on a quadra? Yes.They will be usable by more people than collectors if this project is successful.

As of earlier this year, ZETA (YellowTab) is as dead as BeOS itself. They didn't actually have permission to be using the BeOS source code (surprise surprise) and hence had to stop distributing it. The BeOS legacy isn't completely over though, as Haiku still seems to be going:
http://haiku-os.org/

It's a complete, ground up, rewrite that aims to be binary compatible with BeOS...

Click to expand...

Why can't we get someone to write a ground-up implementation of something cool ... like A/UX???

Do you mean modernising A/UX, or making a new A/UX ompatible with all 68k macs?

I know I would like to see a linux/unix more specially tuned for blazing speed on Mac hardware.. kinda like DSL but 68k.

A never liked linux. I prefer Mac OS. A/Ux might be a good base for the project. we just need to extend support.

Do you mean modernising A/UX, or making a new A/UX ompatible with all 68k macs?

Click to expand...

Something Unix-like (i.e. solid "modern" OS) compatible with classic MacOS apps and such, with our beloved GUI. Kind of like what OS X would have been if they'd gotten started 10 years earlier, or what A/UX nearly was, or what Copland might have been if it hadn't drifted aimlessly into oblivion.

The idea was discussed several years ago in the A/UX newsgroup, and got a name (NouveAUX) but no farther than that.

Ok, I have a name. ClassicOS V 1. Anyone else have a sugestion for a name for a new os?

MachTEN is very close to what you're describing, but it's not open source. You could probably put something together with NetBSD and the JIT build of Basilisk II

Something Unix-like (i.e. solid "modern" OS) ... Kind of like what OS X would have been if they'd gotten started 10 years earlier ...

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Port NextSTEP/OpenStep/GNUstep?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep

http://www.nextarchive.net/

Ok, so not exactly "classic Mac app compatible", but with Objective C onboard, you could code apps that can be compiled to run on either 68k machines or under OS X

A UNIX with a Mac-like GUI?

What a novel idea!

Nah, it'll never happen.

HA! Next thing you know Macs will be running on Intel chips...

Speaking of A/UX I should pull out the IIci I have it installed on and play with it a bit. Installed it years ago and never really messed with it.

Seriously though, a modern *nix that is easy to setup and use on a 68k would be pretty nice.

Okay, a stupid question here:

Unix/Linux with a GUI crawls on even the fastest 68k machine

BUT...

NeXT machines used 68030's and 68040's, were based on a Unix microkernel, and had a gorgeous GUI and very good performance.

SO...

Why can't *nix distros have a resonsive GUI on 68k machines? Is it a lack f optimization for 68k in the kernel? Lack of optimization in the video drivers for X-Windows? Or is it just that NeXT's implementation of Display Postscript was intrinsically more resource-efficient than an X-Window server ever could be?

Matt

I'm on board for the website project. Can offer my documentation-writing skills to it if you want.

Unix/Linux with a GUI crawls on even the fastest 68k machine / Why can't *nix distros have a resonsive GUI on 68k machines?

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A/UX was quite responsive in the GUI. But its display wasn't X11 either.

I would think X11 is the main bottleneck on older machines, along with not so efficient window managers...

So what you'd need would be say a window manager that just calls the Toolbox routines ... ?

Or you could port Kdrive, and, say, mlvwm(Macintosh Like Virtual Window Manager.)

I don't know what the efficiency of mlvwm is, but kdrive is great, I've personally used it with twm on a 486 with 4mb of RAM and it was quite responsive.

Ack...mlvwm hasn't been updated in ages, and I don't think it was all that great to begin with. If you want a fast/light wm, look no further than Blackbox.

Then blackbox. I was just picking one that seemed appropriate.

As of X.Org Server version 7.1, the KDriveframework was integrated into the reference implementation and is now part of the generic source code release of the server.

Click to expand...

So what you'd need would be say a window manager that just calls the Toolbox routines ... ?

Click to expand...

No really ... would this be feasible, and would it help any?

Dillo might work for the browser thing.

I propose... a logo! A smallish, universal image(GIF?) that signifies that the site works with old or less-featured browsers. Possible example:



Pretty much means no frames, no fancy Java or Flash, not overmany images. This means remove the frame from that site of yours, it won't display properly on really old browsers.

I'm going to do the same but centered on both old Macs and PCs. We can link to each other.

I propose... a logo! A smallish, universal image(GIF?) that signifies that the site works with old or less-featured browsers. Possible example:

Click to expand...

Doesn't look so hot in Lynx

Well, soooooo-rry. A lynx logo would be a little harder, but you COULD just stick alt text for the image...

Got up a proto-page for the PC version.

http://oldpchub.bravehost.com/index.htm

Ok, I will remove the frame. Also, I found the source code for system 7.1!!!! Anyone good at mac os internals? We have the key to the project now. I found the link to the source here in the lounge. Anyone who is a programmer, download it!

The problem of basing anything of Apple's source code is that you could be sued into oblivion at any point -- probably as soon as Apple's lawyers get wind of it. It's not an advisable road to go down.

I think it might be interesting to ask Apple about it anyway.

I mean, if they say no, oh well, they still would have been against it even if we had not asked and we would be in trouble. But if they say yes for some reason (with or without limits) then that is totally awesome.

If they say yes but have a reasonable price tag, we had better make sure we know what we are getting into before paying up.

We should just ask and see.

Well, Apple "stole" the television, and Microsoft stole the stereo... we're just going back in for the Betamax.

Seriously, using the source code for any project is a bad idea. There is not a chance in Redmond of Apple allowing you to do anything with it's source code. I suppose you could tinker with it on your own, and NOT distribute it. Otherwise, Apple will shut it down faster than you can say cease-and-desist.

I think the closest you are ever going to get to a modern browser for Classic has already been done with iCab. If you look on the website the author says there are simply things that you just cannot do with OS versions prior to 8.5 which is why there are two downloads. 2.99 for 8.1 and earlier including 68k Macs and 3.xx for systems running 8.5-OS X.

From things that have been mentioned previously here and elsewhere, my impression is that the system versions Apple hasn't released have code in them from other companies that were licensed in such a way that they can't.

Seriously, using the source code for any project is a bad idea. There is not a chance in Redmond of Apple allowing you to do anything with it's source code. I suppose you could tinker with it on your own, and NOT distribute it. Otherwise, Apple will shut it down faster than you can say cease-and-desist.

Click to expand...

But my point was that it would not hurt to ask. There may only be a slim or no chance but it is theoretically possible that they might allow development for use on 68k Macs.I am not saying it will happen, I am just pointing out that it is theoretically possible.

What you could also, theoretically, do, is make modifications to the source code, distribute the modifications, and tell people to find the source itself somewhere else. This is less sketchily legal than distributing the source, though there's still a small chance of legal action.

Indeed. However, that's going to become pretty unwieldy if you are making more than a couple of small changes.

HaikuOS was built by replacing a module of BeOS at a time with their own code. There's no reason you couldn't do this with System 7, since you have the source code. It would be a hell of a lot of work, but you would end up with something that's 100% binary compatible with System 7 and open source... which would be pretty amazing!

What you could also, theoretically, do, is make modifications to the source code, distribute the modifications, and tell people to find the source itself somewhere else.

Click to expand...

Isn't that how the Apache (a patchy) web server got started?

if theres anything i can do to help, server usage, anything, lemme kno!

Same Here!

tmtomh - NeXT machines had a great performance? What planet are you living on, because I'd sure like to go there.

My NeXT station turbo felt sluggish to me - the NeXTs were underpowered for their price. Using the 68k was really the wrong choice.

I dont know what to do. I removed the source from my HD as I dont want to be sued by apple. I do not like icab. Crashes a lot.

You can always run OS X

and hides>

So I looked up HaikuOS. I can't figure out what platform it runs on, is it x86 or PPC?

x86, though according to the documentation they are working on a PPC port.

Haiku would be *awesome* on old Macs. Dunno what it would run like but it's a great system just like BeOS was...

I wouldn't mind BeOS for my PowerMacintosh G3. Does anyone have a copy from the days when PowerComputer went over to them when they were kicked out of the clone licensing by apple? Let's talk if you have it!! i want to see if I can get it to work on my Blue and White!!!

PM me if you have it, and we can work something out

Not a chance. BeOS for PPC doesn't work on anything that originally shipped with a G3 processor in a ZIF socket or soldered to the motherboard. It will work on G3 *upgraded* Macs and clones, but not on genuine G3 systems with PC66 or PC100 RAM.

I've always wanted a BeOS PowerBook, but it doesn't boot on my 3400c, so I suppose I'm out of luck. For the record, I have BeOS PR1, BeOS R4, BeOS R4.5, and BeOS R5.0.2. All are great, but they have no application support, and without a modern browser, they are pretty useless to me for anything other than nostalgia.

Peace,

Drew

I was just looking through the old news topics, and this one just really stuck out…had to reply.

I think this is a nice vision, even if it is a little impossible. It would be amazing if we could create a way for 68ks (and early PPC) to be compatible with the modern world. A web browser more compatible than the existing 68k ones (even if it is not Firefox 3.5.2 ) and maybe some applications compatible with newer file formats. Has anyone ever thought about making a way for .docx to work on classic Mac OS?

Also, I really like the idea of a simple website for 68ks to load. It could cover many topics possibly, except it would be on one simple plain text site. It could be like a middleman between 68ks and the rest of the web!

Anyways, those are just my crazy thoughts. :lol:

To answer your request...

Meet Classilla: http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/

Let me know if it works. stupid internet for some reason fails at web pages.

If only it worked on 68ks. :lol:

Wait, seriously? What was the point of making that browser for "Classic" mac's if the 68k's aren't involved?

There's actually a lot of point in developing Classilla - any Mac running OS 9 these days could be called "classic", hell Apple even calls the Mac OS 9 environment in OS X "Classic". Classilla is the first web browser to developed in the past 5 years that supports any OS 9 system at all.

Actually, iCab 3.0 was released for Mac OS 8.6 and up within the past couple of years. This version greatly improved the renderer.

Unfortunately, with iCab 4.0, the unique iCab renderer was dropped in favor of WebKit.

If only there was a better browser for 68k than Netscape 3/4, IE 3/4. and iCab 2…

It will probably never happen though.

You never know, someone may very well program one sometime (if any programmers are thinking of RetroChallenge ideas, here's one for you). After all, who would have expected Classilla to be released many years after Apple stopped selling Macs that boot into OS 9?

There is work on a 68k port of Haiku in the works, http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/mmu_man/2008-07-21/getting_to_the_kernel_68k_way .

I think some kind of NeXT like environment for 68k Macs would be really cool. I wouldn't know where to start. A long time ago when I looked at the source code for early Darwin before version 1, there were still alot of code references to 68k and I486.

As for as newer browsers and other software, if Atari and Amiga users can do it then we should be able to port it without having to write it from scratch. maybe we are spoiled as Mac users where as they have to keep going or they loose there entire platform.

MachTEN is very close to what you're describing, but it's not open source. You could probably put something together with NetBSD and the JIT build of Basilisk II

Click to expand...

I know it was posted on page 1 of the thread, but if had the cash, I would totally buy this.

Hard to believe they still want actual money for it.

They want USD, so it's not real money.

This bit is even better:

Coupling MachTen with Apple's new G3 and G4 machines creates a high-performance UNIX Workstation

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And installing Mac OS X on a G3/G4/G5/Intel Mac doesn't? :lol:

MachTen predates OS X by quite a bit.

I realise that, but you'd think they'd update the page...especially if they still want to make an impression that they're still in business.

How come it looks exactly like Nextstep??

I think one of the problems with 68K browsers now is that modern webpages are just too demanding of the computer.

Take a look at an average bank website, for instance. You will find the following features used:

- SSL/TLS

- JavaScript

- CSS

- Dynamic HTML (combination of JavaScript and CSS)

- AJAX (combination of JavaScript, CSS, and XMLhttpRequest)

We already have SSL on 68K, so that's not a big problem as long as sites continue to support SSL 3.

The next problem is interpreted JavaScript. Sites use thousands of lines of JavaScript now and interpreting this is slow.

CSS is another problem. Such things as: translucency, dynamically resizing boxes, etc. It requires thousands of inter-dependent calculations to lay out a page.

Basically - more and more work is slowly being shifted to the browser. Imagine a bank website in 1997:

- Basic HTML 3.2 or 4.0 design. Perhaps a simple table based layout. Complex text, etc. is probably loaded in as a GIF image.

- Basic SSL v2 40-bit may have been used.

- No JavaScript. The login form is sent to the server as-is. The server must determine if enough characters were entered, etc.

- You see your online check book and want to view more information about a transaction. You click the transaction and the server sends an entirely new page.

- You want to add a note to a transaction. Clicking add note loads an entirely new page using target _blank. Seeing the note in the transaction requires refreshing the entire page.

Compare to the modern bank site:

- XHTML 1.1 with CSS2. No tables used in the design. The appearance may even be similar to or the same as the 1997 version, but it's much harder to render due to the used of CSS.

- Banks have disabled 40-bit and SSL v2 for security reasons. Minimum is now 128-bit SSL v3 or TLS.

- Heavy JavaScript used. Pre-validate all forms on the entire site.

- Transaction information is shown in-line using a hidden CSS box and AJAX to retrieve the information.

- Adding notes is done with AJAX.

I think one of the problems with 68K browsers now is that modern webpages are just too demanding of the computer.

Click to expand...

That's why we need a server that parses all the big-bad stuff and outputs the html to our macs. Don't they have something like that?

Why can't *nix distros have a resonsive GUI on 68k machines?

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Alas, a responsive *nix GUI on a 68K Mac is an unlikely proposition. Mac graphics cards are designed to display QuickDraw and have drivers (in ROM or INIT) that accelerate QD. 68K Macs have used literally dozens of graphics processors, most of which are proprietary. The NeXT family have graphics interfaces and drivers that optimise Display PostScript. PowerMacs sometimes get reasonable X11 graphics, but only if they the right graphics card.

A modern X11 Server for 68K and low power PPC Macs, that uses all of the wonderful goodness of classic Mac OS, makes more sense to me.

Mac graphics cards are designed to display QuickDraw and have drivers (in ROM or INIT) that accelerate QD.

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Is some kind of Quickdraw wrapper out of the question?

Probably not, but whether anyone is going to code it is questionable.

As for NouveAUX or whatever it is, let's make it.

I don't know about designing apps but I could write a 68K Mac website with news and downloads.

I have NetBSD running on one of my SE/30's. Here is a page with pictures of it from a number of years back:

http://sasteven.multics.org/MacSE30/MacSE30.html

The 68K port of NetBSD is alive, if not very active.

I put a current copy of NetBSD on one of the slot-loading G3 iMacs I bought a few weeks ago. It's nice, with a modern browser, etc.

that almost brought a tear to my eye

please do make a new post with all the juicy details

NetBSD on m68k Macs is doing quite well. Lots of people use it, it works on most m68k Macs (I'm hard pressed to think of any on which it doesn't work), and I, for one, run it on lots of Macs. We even have a distribution which works on Macs with FPU-less LC040 processors with broken trap handling, so all of those machines which until now couldn't run any Unix (A/UX or free) can now run NetBSD just fine.

It's not going away any time soon. Aside from the compiler tools, it's actually gotten faster over time - NetBSD 5 is definitely noticeably faster than NetBSD 4. The compiler is a different story - for obvious reasons, it gets bigger and slower because of the new features and optimizations possible. But if you spend most of your time running stuff and not much compiling it, it's nothing to worry about.

I have two NetBSD 68Ks, a IIci and a Q605 (with a full '040). They have uptime that is so long that the only time I reboot the IIci, which is the apartment DNS and print server, is when it chews through a cache card (it seems to blow every three years -- this system has been running since 2000).

This is exactly an example of the strong points of Unix on m68k Macs or Macs in general - good quality hardware will run forever.

NetBSD is actively developed, and if people here know details about QuickDraw accelerating NuBus video cards, then X under NetBSD can be accelerated using whatever hardware acceleration is available. It's been added for all sorts of other obscure hardware including video cards for VAXen, so why not NuBus video cards?

One of the reasons that X on m68k NeXT machines was so fast was that those machines had hardware acceleration as well as hardware-based PostScript rendering, which was pretty cool. The philosophy was correct - push more work to hardware designed to do it and free up the main CPU for other things, not too unlike OpenCL nowadays. It just goes to show how long it takes for good ideas to get widespread acceptance sometimes.

In any case, if anyone is interested in getting NetBSD running on any of their machines, I'd be glad to help, particularly for anyone who'd like to get some use out of an LC040 system.

if people here know details about QuickDraw accelerating NuBus video cards, then X under NetBSD can be accelerated using whatever hardware acceleration is available. It's been added for all sorts of other obscure hardware including video cards for VAXen, so why not NuBus video cards?

Click to expand...

Just need to get the "real" X server working on mac68k, instead of the old 1-bit or OSFA color ones we have now. IIRC, there was a spurt of work last(?) year with the mac68k framebuffer that looked promising. Dunno what happened with that.

I currently don't have any 68k NB boxes (with the AV SCSI issues, I retired my Q840), but as soon as I get my CC operational again, that's what I'll be running on it.

Yeah, one of these weekends, when I have the whole weekend with nothing to do, I'm going to put NetBSD on both my quad-socket, 16-thread Itanium server, and on my SE/30 that sits on top of it. Then I'll have the SE/30 acting as the X server for apps running on the Itanium, MUAHAHAHA!

(I also need to get a good piece of serial terminal software for the Apple II so I can use my Apple IIc as a serial terminal for the server.)

a good piece of serial terminal software for the Apple II

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yea i need opinions on that as well, eventho i guess anything would work but im a now proud owner of a //c i got from tmtomh, anyway need to pop into the apple 2 forum and see if theres any threads about this and see whats out there

Back on the new/old OS idea: Usual disclaimers apply, I am not a coder, pie in the sky, etc. But how about this for older 68ks?

Take MachTEN's design approach. Make the "new" OS a virtual machine: a process that seizes the CPU from the co-operatively multitasking Mac OS/System software, and runs pre-emptively and with memory protection within itself. All screen drawing and other peripheral device handling is dumped back to the OS/Quickdraw, saving having to write new drivers for everything, and allowing native video acceleration, etc. Once the peripheral task is completed, the CPU is handed back to the VM. So System 6 (for example) acts as the "kernel".

eCos would be a possible candidate, whether using the above approach or running natively. (Yes, I have brought this up elsewhere. Pardon the cross-post; I couldn't find this thread at the time). For starters, there's already a 68k port, albeit for later embedded 68ks, and it is currently developed, supported, and deployed. Given the memory requirements, perhaps (disclaimer above) it could even run on a 128k.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECos

eCos (embedded configurable operating system) is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system intended for embedded systems / It is designed to be customizable / programmed in the C programming language, and has compatibility layers and APIs for POSIX and µITRON./

eCos was designed for devices with memory size in the tens to hundreds of kilobytes / It can be used on hardware with too little RAM to support embedded Linux /

eCos runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms, including / Motorola 68000 / PowerPC /

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eCos Porting Guide

The only M68k port I can find is for the Coldfire. As I understand it from others' comments here, the Coldfire ISA is a subset of that for 680x0s, so my very rough guess is that a backport would be feasible. To run natively, I guess there would be a lot of custom coding involved to get peripheral device support (ethernet, serial, video, SCSI etc)

As I understand it from others' comments here, the Coldfire ISA is a subset of that for 680x0s, so my very rough guess is that a backport would be feasible.

Click to expand...

The original 68k Palms were actually Coldfire CPUs. They were programmed with CodeWarrior. If you look at the internals of PalmOS you can see it's Macintosh heritage.