SOFTWARE RECOMMENDATIONS

[oracle]

Hello.

The https://occ.deadnet.se/how list could use an overhaul and there is no need for it to be Unix-centric.

Post in this thread your favorite software for old machines and systems - and if you have tips or guides on how to use or configure them to be more usable with old tech, post those as well! Similarly if you are looking for a program, feel free to ask in this thread.

These are some example categories, but don't feel limited by them:

* File browsers
* Image viewers
* Media players
* Music players
* Web browsers (gopher, gemini,..)
* Instant messengers
* Email clients
* ...

Please, be sure to let us know which Operating System your suggestions are for.

[headcrash]

Since I'm doing Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard this year, and software for that is surprisingly tricky to find, I'll chime in with that.

Web browser
InterWeb 60.9.9 2024.03.14 64-bit
A fork of Pale Moon that's been patched by some individual.

Text Editor
Textwrangler 4.5.12 (3398)
There are several, but I like this one. It's lightweight and feature-packed.

FTP
FileZilla 3.5.3
I've tried several versions with no luck, but this one works.

A better terminal
iTerm2 Build 2.0.0.20141103
Because the default terminal is very meh.

IRC
Colloquy 2.3 (4617)
Limechat 2.30

Backup and file cloning/sync
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.7 (737)
A well-featured graphical frontend to rsync.

Battery monitoring
coconutBattery 2.6.6
Gives you more accurate battery info.

System monitor applet
iStat Menus 3
Puts a very extensive and customizable hardware and system monitor in the top bar.

Media player
VLC 2.2.8 Weatherwax (Intel 64bit)
Duh.

Email
The default Mail application works well with most providers without 2FA still. Some SSL tinkering might be required.

DOWNLOADS
Here is a directory with downloads for all the applications I've listed. Apart from the Mail application.
https://deadnet.se/misc/snowleopard/

[tekk]

I sent a reply to the mailing list but I think it got eaten by the internet gods:
I quite like catgirl for IRC. It runs on basically any unix-like.

I'll edit the post later this week to add in my recommendations for MacOS 9. Too tired from my trip home to dig out wherever I put the powerbook now

The promised edit for OS9 software:
ImageViewer for images. Seems to take everything I've thrown at it.
BBEdit is easily the best text editor I've found for classic macs.
Black Night is great for BBSing. Does telnet just fine with every BBS I've thrown at it.
Classilla is the only available choice for a browser I'm aware of.
Fetch has served me pretty well as an FTP fetcher (I think it might also do basic HTTP too?)
I also have something called Virtual CD/DVD-ROM Utility which has worked well enough for ISO mounts and the like.

All of these were just grabbed off of macintoshrepository, so nice and easy.

[82mhz]

I sent a reply to the mailing list but I think it got eaten by the internet gods:

No, it actually came through:

Bildschirmfoto_20240708_075534.png (53.18 KiB) Viewed 10550 times

[oracle]

Yes, I added it to the website list as soon as I got it. Thank you.

[sunoc]

Here is some overview on what I'm running rn, and some stuff I want to try in the future:

Operating system:
Alpine Linux, edge repositories

Windows manager:
dwm, compiled

Terminal emulator:
st, compiled

Text editor:
Emacs, version 31, compiled

File browsers:
nothing / dired in Emacs
Recommendations welcome for a system application!

Image viewer:
feh

PDF viewer:
pdf-tools in Emacs

Media player:
mpv

Music players:
mpv

HTTP browsers:
netsurf, firefox-esr if needed
I need to try more using eww in Emacs and also compiled surf.

Gopher browser:
elpher in Emacs

IRC client:
erc in Emacs

RSS reader:
elfeed in Emacs

Instant messengers:
Nothing set yet; I'm working on using Telegram from Emacs (telega)

Email clients:
I'd like to run it from Emacs but it's very annoying with ProtonMail.
Maybe I'll try a ligthweight mail client. Recommendations welcome!

Files sync:
nextcloud-desktop

[oracle]

Here is some overview on what I'm running rn, and some stuff I want to try in the future:

Fantastic list! Thank you for all those new categories. I added it to https://occ.deadnet.se/how.

There's also a few file browser tips I added.

[jmcunx]

Since I will not have X, this is what I am planning

* File browsers - ls(1)
* Image viewers - n/a but ASCII art will work
* Media players - n/a
* Music players - ogg123
* Web browsers - lynx, amfora, bombadillo
* Instant messengers - irssi on IRC
* Email clients - mutt
* USENET - maybe nn(1), but tin(1) as a fall back. nn is rather old

[rollcat]

PowerBook G4 / Mac OS X 10.5.8 checking in... I might update this post as I go along.

Many stock/system apps work really well, at least for my current needs. These include:

- Finder
- Terminal
- iTunes (playing music, ripping CDs, encoding ALAC...)
- Stickies (great for cheat sheets, drafts/note-taking, etc but no real substitute for modern macOS Notes)

Important to explore the System Preferences. Notably: accessibility, and per-app keyboard shortcuts.

Must-have apps:

- TenFourFox: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/ - discontinued since 2021, but AFAICT the most "modern" browser you can currently find; Safari is too outdated to open many websites, and honestly just too sluggish.

TFF-friendly web:

- Go to https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/ and click the green plus button in the search bar to add it to the browser's search engine list. Set it to default in about:preferences#search
- Some extensions: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tenfou ... es/addons/ (noscript works and helps a lot)

More resources (apps, OS's, downloads, general etc):

- via https://macpowerpc.wordpress.com/recommended/
- via https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=macintosh+garden
- http://www.macintoshrepository.org/48452-ppcappstore (via headcrash)

Games:

- http://www.macintoshrepository.org/13103-starcraft & http://www.macintoshrepository.org/1304 ... -brood-war - I've been playing this game since 1998 recently completed the original campaign (free to play!), maybe I can complete Brood War on MacPPC?

The base system also has Python 2.5, which is already newer than the oldest version of Python that I've used to write production software... So... I might just dive into that rabbit hole of nostalgia EDIT: https://docs.python.org/2.5/modindex.html and ⌘F for "(Mac)" holy moly

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/env python2.5
# coding: utf8
import EasyDialogs
EasyDialogs.Message("hello, world")

I'd appreciate @headcrash chiming in - just found out your G4 died ;< but if you have any ppc32-specific recommendations, I'd love to know.

[headcrash]

I had a peek at your G4 shenanigans, and it sounds like a pretty nice setup, for sure! How well does it drive that monitor? I've found the OS getting sort of micro-stuttery and not very responsive if you drive really high resolutions. At least when I ran dual 1080p monitors on my G5 Powermac I had that issue. Could be GPU-specific though I suppose.

For easy installation of quite a bunch of PPC software you can install PPCAppstore and pick stuff from there.
http://www.macintoshrepository.org/48452-ppcappstore

For a fairly lightweight and feature-packed text editor I'd recommend Textwrangler.
There is an old version of Limechat for PPC if you want a decent IRC client.

There is a re-spin of TenfourFox called InterwebPPC that's at least a little newer, and the most recent PPC browser afaik.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/in ... e.2292691/

You can usually find PPC versions of Mac OS apps if you simply add 'PPC' into your search. Sometimes it's also worth image-searching and dig around to see if you find something to your liking.