When using older computers there comes a point at which modern software drops support, as for example is happening with builds for Windows XP. Every now and then though, along comes something that bucks the trend. Enter [mplsllc] with Macsurf, a port of the Netsurf browser for classic MacOS 9 on PowerPC. Bring your nineties beige box back online!
The first generation of PowerPC Macs occupy an odd position, being faster and more capable than their predecessors while not sharing the ability to run MacOS X like their G3 descendants. Macsurf has the promise of bringing them into the 2020s, but if you’re expecting the equivalent of Google Chrome you might be disappointed.
Netsurf is a browser that started life on RiscOS, the original ARM OS from the Acorn Archimedes. It’s lightweight and portable, it’s an active project, it has a good rendering engine that does up to date HTML and CSS, it offers native TLS, and it has JavaScript built in. It’s ideal for a 1990s PowerPC, but with the caveat that sites expecting the very latest browsers might struggle. Sadly we don’t have a ’90s Mac to hand so we can’t try this port, but we’re used to it on other lower-power machines so we thing it’ll be a great asset to the platform.
We last looked at Netsurf when we had a look at RiscOS, if you are interested.
Thanks for covering my app! I recently succeed in implementing TLS 1.3 into macssl and MacSurf itself and will be continuously improving rendering speed and CSS support so keep an eye on the github releases.
Thank you, Patrick, for bringing us this amazing app!
I did it it for me! (hehe) I joke, but I just really love my imac and g3 minitower.
nice! I don’t have a ppc myself, but the main impediment of browsing on one is simply most sites requiring https, and dropping support for the older methods. (older than TLS 1.2), while the era-appropriate browsers did not support TLS 1.2 yet.
Well done! :)
“Sadly we don’t have a ’90s Mac to hand so we can’t try this port”
Couldn’t be bothered to install SheepShaver?
Hi, I vahuely remember that SheepShaver doesn’t emulate real hardware.
It rather uses shortcuts in emulation and tries to get the Macintosh Toolbox running, via patching etc.
That’s why it always was so very quick, I think.
It does support Old World and New World ROMs, though.
Ie, it does support both running a real Mac firmware (of a supported Macintosh model) with the Macintosh Toolbox (old world)
and the bootloader firmware (new world, with open firmware?) that basically loads the ROM file from a file located on a MacOS boot medium.
That way it can boot System 7.5 to MacOS 9.0, I think.
The reference hardware is an Power Macintosh 9500, sort of, I think.
The emulated processor isn’t really a true G3 or G4, either, I think.
It’s also not a PowerPC 601, but something synthethic.
There’s no MMU emulation, for example, because of the design of the emulator (uses shortcuts).
Not sure if software that utilizes G3/G4 will run, thus.
There’s also PearPC, which emulates a G3 processor, but it can run Mac OS X only.
I saw Mac OS 10.0 and 10.1 running on it, I remember.
Another project, DingusPPC, might solve issue in neat future.