News & Opinion
Vintage Mac News is a roundup of news related to vintage Macs* and
other older Apple products. For other Mac and Apple news, see Mac News Review. For iBook, PowerBook, and other
portable news, see The 'Book Review.
iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iOS News Review.
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News & Opinion
A Visual History of Apple's
Mouse
Stephen Hackett shares a history of the Apple mouse complete with
photos on 512 Pixels, starting with the mouse for the 1983 Lisa.
Apple's mouse, 1983 to present.
Link: Apple's Mouse: A History
The Macquarium That Wasn't Meant to Be
The Vintage Mac Museum's Adam Rosen writes:
"A few years back I purchased
a Macquarium on eBay, one actually sold as a kit rather than a DIY
project. All the little pieces of the case internally which needed to
be cut or trimmed were already cut and trimmed, and the kit included a
plexiglass tank, pump, heater, light and some fake plants."
"Like other projects at the Vintage Mac Museum this one was
proceeding slowly . . . I decided it was time to actually get
the thing working."
After sharing his tribulations getting everything to work and
keeping fish alive, Rosen shares the lessons learned:
- this aquarium thing is not as easy as it looks
- a classic Mac looks cool as a Macquarium, but the design is not
optimal
- next time I'll start with just one or two fish (if there's a next
time)
- maybe the After Dark fish module isn't a bad solution after
all!
Link:
The Macquarium That Wasn't Meant to Be
TenFourFox 17.0 Web Browser Optimized for
PowerPC
PR: TenFourFox 17.0 web browser enables PowerPC Macs running
OS X 10.4.11 or later to use (almost) exactly the same code as Firefox
ESR 17, and surf the same sites, but with the code needed to support
Power Macs.
This latest TenFourFox version includes "All supported standard
features of Firefox 11 through Firefox 17, including improved
JavaScript performance, CoreGraphics accelerated canvas, faster screen
updates, additional HTML5 and CSS 3 features, SPDY-enhanced encrypted
networking, a smarter URL bar, integrated downloads and new web
developer features."
Be sure to read the Release Notes, the official TenFourFox FAQ and
the list of known bugs before you begin. Then pick the version for your
processor (older versions also available, or securely download files
over SSL):
- TenFourFox for G3 processors
- TenFourFox for G4 processors: 7400 | 7450 ("G4e")
- TenFourFox for G5 processors
10.0.11 is also available for 10.x legacy users. This is the last
10.x version and will be unsupported after January 2013.
Also note: TenFourFox no longer supports browser plugins. If you
require using Flash, Java or other plugins, do not use TenFourFox.
(However, plugins are not extensions. Most add-ons and extensions will
work.)
Link: TenFourFox
Browsers Update on PowerPC
The folks at Mac PowerPC write:
"A while ago we mentioned Browsers for PowerPC in few of our posts.
We also mentioned a few updates from those Browsers, because we believe
it is important to have applications updated as much as possible. Here
is our list of recently updated Browsers, which are probably the Big
Four for PowerPC, these days."
Publisher's note: Of these four, only TenFourFox still supports OS X
10.4 Tiger. The other three require Leopard. I've been very happy with
AuroraFox on my Leopard PPC Macs. dk
Link: Browsers
Update on PowerPC
A Little About Resource Forks
PPC Luddite's Dan says:
"...I have files with resource forks on my various computers and
hard drives. And when resource forks aren't supported in file transfer
applications like Cyberduck, they get destroyed when transferring
between computers. And when resource forks get destroyed, sometimes the
whole file is rendered unusable."
"Resource forks are mostly a relic from the classic Mac OS, though
they also exist in OS X, that stored data on a file apart from the
data fork. So each file had two forks, only one of which (the data
fork) would be recognized on non-Mac systems. On normal files
. . . this wasn't a problem because whatever was in their
resource forks (custom icons?) wasn't required to open them. But for
applications, Disk Copy images, and font files, this was a big problem
because their resource forks contained data necessary for their
operation."
"So don't move around Mac files on non-Mac file systems, right? It's
not quite that simple. There are a few other dangers to be aware
of...."
Link:
A Little About Resource Forks
Vintage Mac
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