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rainbowlit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2021
3
0
So I currently have a vintage macintosh plus (1 MB) with system 6.0.8. I wonder what materials will I need for it to connect to the internet. I have bought the SCSI ethernet adapter so it can connect through ethernet, but what additional materials will I need?

I heard that I need at least 2GB to surf the internet, but this vintage computer only has one. I heard something about Raspberry Pi, but I'm not entirely sure if that's something required.
 

Riku7

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2014
208
95
What websites exactly are you planning to 'surf'?

Bear in mind that the biggest problem probably isn't connecting to the internet, but the fact that the internet today is nothing like the internet of the 90s or even 2000s; The internet today is ultra heavy and full of background scripts and interactive junk, stuff that even vintage Macs much newer than a Macintosh Plus can't handle anymore either.
 

Anonymous Freak

macrumors 603
Dec 12, 2002
5,563
1,255
Cascadia
I heard that I need at least 2GB to surf the internet, but this vintage computer only has one.

LOL. You need two GIGAbytes of RAM to surf the internet. Your Macintosh Plus only has one MEGAbyte of RAM.

Conventional "browsing the web" is all-but-impossible on a Macintosh Plus. You can't just load a web browser and wander modern websites like you can on a modern computer.

There are alternatives, such as using FrogFind or a locally-hosted Web Rendering Proxy where a modern system "re-packages" websites that will work on older systems. But even then, a Macintosh Plus with only 1 MB of RAM has a *VERY* limited set of web browsers it can possibly run, MacWeb being probably the "most usable" of them, although I'm not sure it'll run on 1 MB. MacWWW is less "usable", but might be at least possible on 1 MB.
 
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rainbowlit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2021
3
0
There are alternatives, such as using FrogFind or a locally-hosted Web Rendering Proxy where a modern system "re-packages" websites that will work on older systems. But even then, a Macintosh Plus with only 1 MB of RAM has a *VERY* limited set of web browsers it can possibly run, MacWeb being probably the "most usable" of them, although I'm not sure it'll run on 1 MB. MacWWW is less "usable", but might be at least possible on 1 MB.
I'm planning to install the MacWWW. What external cables would I need to transfer MacWWW download from my PC to a vintage macintosh?


LOL. You need two GIGAbytes of RAM to surf the internet. Your Macintosh Plus only has one MEGAbyte of RAM.
I meant two MB, not GB. XD


What websites exactly are you planning to 'surf'?
Lightweight sites would suffice. Generally, just google.com or Wikipedia.
 

Riku7

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2014
208
95
Lightweight sites would suffice. Generally, just google.com or Wikipedia.
Google is actually very heavy and it's one of the cancers that's contributing to making the modern internet so heavy in the first place, with its tentacles in the code of most websites that on the surface seem to bear no affiliation to Google. Google also most likely uses encryption protocols that your Mac Plus has no idea about, and the pages just give you an error message.
FrogFind is the closest thing to Google you can have. It allows you to search the internet and enter websites by parsing just the plain text and removing all the clutter. But it's completely random which sites it works with, and to what degree. When it displays a page, it gets rid of all the page's styling, so if the page has lots of information all over the place, getting it displayed to you in plain text might end up into a really unhelpful mess of information because you can't tell what's the content of an article, what's a caption, and what's something else. That's actually not too far from how a blind person has to surf the net: some pages are better designed with accessibility in mind, when it comes to navigating the text and differentiating between different types of information on the pages.

For full listing of available pages to try, see this post.
Wikipedia can be accessed via the Old Net.

Back in the day when we had a Macintosh Performa, we got an internet service for it. We let it go very soon because it was just unusably slow to load anything.

I'm planning to install the MacWWW. What external cables would I need to transfer MacWWW download from my PC to a vintage macintosh?
If I had to guess, it might be easier to find a 3.5" USB floppy drive for your modern PC, than cables. But whether a System 6 accepts files that have gone through a PC, I don't know. It depends on whether the files actually get there without the PC modifying them. If not that, I think it might even be more likely to be able to transfer files over the local network, than directly with a cable from Mac Plus to a PC. Their connection protocols are just so very far out.

Maybe MacintoshGarden or MacintoshRepository have a guide on this, they're the dealers of old Mac software after all.
 

rainbowlit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2021
3
0
But whether a System 6 accepts files that have gone through a PC, I don't know
Are you more confident that System 7 or 8 would more likely to accept files that have gone through a PC?

Also, if I were to download FrogFind, where would I get access to the install link?
 

Riku7

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2014
208
95
Are you more confident that System 7 or 8 would more likely to accept files that have gone through a PC?

Also, if I were to download FrogFind, where would I get access to the install link?
I only have Mac OS 9 and it manages to establish a network for file sharing by using software called Thursby Dave. Looking at the earlier versions available on those abnadonware sites, 7 and 8 might work too, but another problem might be how you transfer this software to the Mac Plus in the first place. See comments on Dave 2.1.2, don't know if even earlier ones are out there. Note that Macs had the concept of a computer desktop and that visual interface much earlier than Windows machines had, so I have no idea how much sense file sharing even made back in the MS-DOS days.

FrogFind is a website, not software. If you clicked the link, you can just see how it works.
 

longofest

Editor emeritus
Jul 10, 2003
2,925
1,695
Falls Church, VA
Even more modern G3 or G4 macs have a hard time handling the crypto that the web modern web demands. There is simply no way you are going to be able to make that work on that Mac Plus w/ System 6 and only 1MB of RAM. I mean, the size of most end entity public key certificates alone is literally a quarter of your RAM, not even including the running programs and OS, and then you still would have to walk the chain.

Without a proxy, there is just no way of browsing the modern web on something this old.
 

WakelessFoil

macrumors newbie
Dec 11, 2019
6
4
I did this project last year. Don’t pay attention to the naysayers. I used my plus as my main machine for over a year, even for web browsing and email.

New developments have been made. I suggest running the WebOne proxy on a rpi somewhere. It’s what makes the experience useful. I’d also recommend getting:
-10-base-T only Ethernet hub (10 mbps)
-4mb ram (super cheap)
-Floppyemu (makes file transfer a breeze)
-some kind of scsi2sd (makes system much faster)

In case you needed proof:

 
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