Macsurf, "modern" web browser for macOS 9 (github.com)
110 points by gattilorenz 15 hours ago
bensyverson 6 hours ago
This is fantastic. To me, this is one of the greatest side-effects of agentic coding; adding new functionality to vintage, abandoned or obsolete hardware. It gives me hope for a solarpunk future where e-waste gets a more functional second life.
manytimesaway 6 hours ago
So, making obsolete hardware relevant by using the technology that's accelerating their "irrelevanceness" ?
chongli 3 hours ago
There's no acceleration here. Vintage Macs are 100% obsolete. They can't get any more obsolete than that. They can, however, become MORE relevant for hobbyists through the development of new software for them.
What could be better than that?
pndy 3 hours ago
You are aware that there's a huge retrocomputing community around the world that with hearts and passion preserves old machines and software?
yjftsjthsd-h 4 hours ago
How is AI making old hardware obsolete faster?
pqtyw 2 hours ago
bensyverson 5 hours ago
Life isn't black & white
hyperhello 6 hours ago
To me it proves that a technology can be understood and implemented by one person.
prokopton 6 hours ago
Can hardware became more obsolete?
addaon 3 hours ago
Cyan488 8 hours ago
When I owned a iMac G3, the Classilla browser was surprisingly good. Looks like development ended in 2021.
Also, the branding was "Mac OS 9".
felixding 7 hours ago
Exactly. I don't know why some people'd change the branding.
ndiddy 6 hours ago
Apple keeps changing the name of their desktop operating system, so Hacker News has some sort of filter to automatically change "Mac OS" to whatever the newest name is in order to fit Apple's brand guidelines. This has the consequence of making some submission titles read as anachronistic when the sumission is about an old OS version.
grishka 38 minutes ago
HN has this thing where it would automatically "fix" submission titles.
Springtime 7 hours ago
The project didn't, only the HN submission title.
gattilorenz 3 hours ago
manoDev 6 hours ago
That's impressive, too bad modern web requires more than 2000x the transistor density to run JS at decent speed. We really f*** up.
grishka 41 minutes ago
I always enjoy it when someone makes "obsolete" hardware natively talk to modern network services that it was never meant to talk to. And bringing an entire browser to a system this old is a serious achievement. I don't own any hardware that can run classic Mac OS, but I'm gonna try it on an emulator later, really curious how it handles several of my own websites.
Though the fact that the author uses AI is kinda meh.
pndy 3 hours ago
Anyone had luck running it under infinitemac? I can't boot anything beyond 9.0 and it throws some error upon launch - seems it needs at least 9.1.
mplsllc 3 hours ago
It needs carbonlib - is that installed on the OS? I was able to get it to work on 9.1 with the last released CarbonLib.
pndy 2 hours ago
Yes, some older version but I've grabbed carbonlib 1.6.1 from macintoshrepository and that helped with launching MacSurf under that premade 9.0 machine
LoganDark 3 hours ago
That would be "Mac OS 9"
simgt 8 hours ago
Cool! I've been wondering for some time if a good low-distraction but pleasant environment could be an old Mac OS on a (good looking) Hackintosh. The UI was baked with UX research at least.
Wowfunhappy 5 hours ago
It's a significantly newer Mac OS than Mac OS 9, but this is basically my life. Mavericksforever.com.
simgt an hour ago
That's awesome, thanks for sharing.
gcp123 8 hours ago
Freaking love it! Gonna put this on my 1998 Bondi Blue iMac G3 today.
SoftTalker 3 hours ago
Let us know how many minutes it runs before you get a system crash and a sad-face Mac icon.
Torwald 3 hours ago
This is what the Amiga is missing!
mplsllc 2 hours ago
Have you tried the Netsurf port for it?
hyperhello 8 hours ago
Absolutely love it.
iwontberude 7 hours ago
Time to fire up the ol PowerMac G4 MDD (last native support for Mac OS 9)
mplsllc 3 hours ago
Hey everyone! This is my project, I've been working really hard (yes using AI to help) for about two months straight now. I am not just letting it be, I am going to keep tooling with it every day to make it better and better.
The latest version uses real, third-party verified, TLS 1.3 so I am pushing all the limits that I can. Thanks for sharing!
gazook89 an hour ago
Always surprising but fun to see a "MPLS" MN state flag graphic in some random github readme. Then I see the username "mplsllc" :) Hello neighbor!