Thread

Macintosh Garden offline?

Macintosh Garden offline? Software 53 posts Sep 13, 2008 — Apr 14, 2009

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#1 Sat, 13 Sep 2008 - 13:29

Wow one day it was up, now for the last couple of days it has been offline. Anyone know what the deal is?

#2 Sun, 14 Sep 2008 - 20:32

I don't know, but I noticed the same thing. I had been there two weeks ago, now all of this week it has been down.

#3 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 - 23:08

http://web.archive.org/web/*/mac.the-underdogs.info/

I actually did try to leech the site via wget, but archive.org doesn't have it complete. Does anyone have a complete mirror on disk?

#4 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 - 22:16

Thanks for the link, but the web archive does NOT record downloadable files such as .ZIP, .SIT, etc.

I have some files from there which I've downloaded in the past, but not a complete mirror.

#5 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 - 20:00

Wait... if the Macintosh Garden is offline, then that means the entire Home of the Underdogs, the greatest source for Abandonware known to man (outside of a few rogue FTPs) is offline! 8-o

#6 Sat, 20 Sep 2008 - 03:07

Oh wow. Now preterhuman better get up soon.

#7 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 - 00:19

Oh wow. Now preterhuman better get up soon.

I tried contacting the owner of the site (Macintosh Garden) via xar@the-underdogs.org, but it didn't get through. Anyone know of an alternate address where I can contact him (and possibly one for the owner of HOTU itself)?

#8 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 - 05:36

Just to let you know, the Mac Garden is working fine for me.

#9 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 - 06:30

anybody know when preterhuman.net is coming back?

#10 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 - 16:08

Just to let you know, the Mac Garden is working fine for me.

Nice. Thanks for the status update! :beige:

#11 Fri, 19 Dec 2008 - 06:48

Thanks for the link, but the web archive does NOT record downloadable files such as .ZIP, .SIT, etc.
I have some files from there which I've downloaded in the past, but not a complete mirror.

This is a bit of a closed thread, but I just wanted to mention that the archive does actually archive non-HTML pages. Not sure if it's accidental or whatever, but this philosophy will probably cover all bases: If it looked like something just downloaded from the web archive and it worked, back it up in at least 16 places.

As an aside, I've been noticing that some files seem to be truncated at $SIZE - 1 bytes, so for example wgetting a 142368 byte file will cause wget to notify me of the connection being closed at byte 142367. :-/ [?]

-dav7

#12 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 - 22:12

For a (possibly temporary) solution, I'm assembling a Mac site in the vein of Mac Garden for some of my favorite software and games, many of which are grabbed from MG from when it was around.

http://mac.thebasingers.com

#13 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 - 17:33

GREAT. I, and this army of macs, applaud your effort!

:beige: :b&w:

;D :lol:

:beige:

:b&w:

;D

:lol:

:beige: :b&w:

;D :lol:

:beige: :b&w:

#14 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 - 17:45

For a (possibly temporary) solution, I'm assembling a Mac site in the vein of Mac Garden for some of my favorite software and games, many of which are grabbed from MG from when it was around.
http://mac.thebasingers.com

Nice one - I hope it grows to the size of the Macintosh Garden! :O

#15 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 - 21:35

It's not how big, but how long it will stay online. Extra points for rare software

#16 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 - 22:26

It's not how big, but how long it will stay online.

Also connection/download speed. Slow sites are the worst. *cough*LINE*cough*

#17 Fri, 20 Feb 2009 - 23:53

I would also be interested to hear if there is an archive of the Macintosh Garden files somewhere. It was such a great site and it is going to be very difficult to hunt down those old games without it. It is just a shame that there are no other sites with such a large archive as theirs, I guess we are now seeing one of the effects of having all your eggs in one basket... :-/

#18 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 - 00:03

*ding!*

Anyone remember that on the download page, it would pop up a

"Download from which server?

Mirror 1 (europe)

theunderdogs.org"

thingy???

Maybe 'mirror 1' is still up :b&w:

Quick, search your history and find that mirror! (i can't because i recently "nuked" my web-mac)

I'm gonna run over to my other web-mac and see if i can find it there!

#19 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 - 00:12

Unforunately, both mirrors are down as far as I can tell.

#20 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 - 00:19

Unforunately, both mirrors are down as far as I can tell.

...Have you checked???

The closest i have had in luck (stupid google) is getting a google cache of http://mac.the-underdogs.info/download.php?id=258

I need a cache of http://mac.the-underdogs.info/download.php?id=258&loc=1

archive.org doesnt even have that much

Grrrr...

#21 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 - 08:18

It's not how big, but how long it will stay online.

Click to expand...

Also connection/download speed. Slow sites are the worst. *cough*LINE*cough*

I disagree. Speed is totally irrelevant. I can get a file with 5kb/s or 5000kb/s, but i get the file in each case. If a site is offline however, then i would call this the worst kind of site

#22 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 - 16:20

Unforunately, both mirrors are down as far as I can tell.

Click to expand...

...Have you checked???

The closest i have had in luck (stupid google) is getting a google cache of http://mac.the-underdogs.info/download.php?id=258

I need a cache of http://mac.the-underdogs.info/download.php?id=258&loc=1

archive.org doesnt even have that much

Grrrr...

Yes, I have checked.

Here's the file index.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080106023835/mac.the-underdogs.info/index.php?show=all

And here's a game download page, for Oregon Trail.

http://web.archive.org/web/20061125095903/mac.the-underdogs.info/download.php?id=101

Each "mirror" is really linked through the-underdogs.info, which obviously is down. Neither of them work. The links themselves use a script, so I'm not even sure what domains they actually link to.

?id=101&loc=0 theunderdogs.org

?id=101&loc=1 Mirror 1 (Europe)

#23 Sun, 22 Feb 2009 - 20:24

It's not how big, but how long it will stay online.

Click to expand...

Also connection/download speed. Slow sites are the worst. *cough*LINE*cough*

Click to expand...

I disagree. Speed is totally irrelevant. I can get a file with 5kb/s or 5000kb/s, but i get the file in each case. If a site is offline however, then i would call this the worst kind of site .

Nope, I'd rather have an offline site than a site with slow as heck downloads.

#24 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 02:05

Thank you so much for MacHut and The Macintosh Conservatory.. We should start something to get Macintosh Garden back up..I for one was so close to finally grabbing all the games I wanted back..and then BAM! it hit me as hard.. as hard as I'd imagine it hit some of you..

I'm gonna ask my family/friends if they have any old mac software lying around that I could borrow. I'm turning an old G3 iBook into my gaming machine. It runs Mac OS 9.1, so in my mind, that's good enough to run a significant number of old PowerPC era games..and maybe some 68K..I wish my dad hadn't got rid of our old LC575.. (my username is a reference to a childhood computer)

I have a buncha games on my family's old first-gen iMac, mostly demos and freeware I collected..will see about exporting those to the Conservatory and MacHut.

Bumping this thread to say that we really need to revive the spirit of Macintosh Garden as best we can..I miss certain games that you could find there and not other places, and I hope anyone who finds new software to share with us can do so. It's pretty tricky when you're using an Intel Mac that has no support for Classic, much less the oldies..

#25 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 02:08

I have a buncha games on my family's old first-gen iMac, mostly demos and freeware I collected..will see about exporting those to the Conservatory and MacHut.
Bumping this thread to say that we really need to revive the spirit of Macintosh Garden as best we can..I miss certain games that you could find there and not other places, and I hope anyone who finds new software to share with us can do so. It's pretty tricky when you're using an Intel Mac that has no support for Classic, much less the oldies..

LC 575... that's actually the machine I'm using to upload the files to the site. :beige:

Thanks for the support! If you run across any oldies, PM me here or contact me at Mac Conservatory. Just found a good one myself, Space Madness. It's on the site now, and I recommend it!

#26 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 07:56

I emailed someone who is familiar with the Macintosh Garden situation, and asked if it's going to get back online or not.

Here's the reply I got:

Hi Josh,

It looks pretty grim. The webhost for MG's parent site Home of the Underdogs has declared bankruptcy. The MG and Underdogs admins haven't touched their sites or answered our pleas in years, and UD's only public statement about the bankruptcy was a one-sentence Twitter post. I doubt either of them have backups of MG's database, with its 10,000 threads of community discussion (and 1.2 million of automated spam.)

(Seriously... those are the actual numbers. If the average spam was only 100 bytes, that works out to several dozen novels' worth of spam.)

Meanwhile, the moderators and regulars have copies of all 900-odd games between us -- we just have nowhere to put them. (We were in contact with a web developer who offered to build and host a more robust site, but haven't heard from him in a couple months. So it goes...)

Dax

#27 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 09:18

DAMN!

#28 Mon, 2 Mar 2009 - 16:00

Preterhuman is back on hotline again. :b&w:

#29 Tue, 3 Mar 2009 - 07:18

Preterhuman is back on hotline again. :b&w:

It has been for a few months...

#30 Tue, 3 Mar 2009 - 23:41

Try emailing the person back and showing them that hotline site, I am sure they would agree to upload what they do have.