What did you do to your computer today?

[framling]

I managed to get Kiwix to finally work on OS X 10.5 (PowerPC) even though I don't think they ever had a PowerPC-working build. There are some PowerPC builds around but the components inside the app bundle (contentManager.dylib, xapianAccessor.dylib, zimAccessor.dylib and zimXapianIndexer.dylib) were all build for Intel-only. Therefore, Kiwix did not work.

It does work now after re-building the components and the XUL framework, and I can browse Wikipedia offline from the safety of my iBook G4.

If you enable ZIM indexing, the CPU will surely get gimped for few hours, as seen in my screenshot.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

You can also use Firefox Dynasty, which works with OS X as far back as Mountain Lion.

Anyway, getting the "new" A1286 set up... Did discover that you can't have both a MacOS Extended partition and an APFS partition on the same drive, so going to have to set up an external SSD or hard drive for the currently installed Catalina OS.

If you stick with legacy macos, there are some great still-supported browsers. My favs are Basilisk and Jazzny's Powerfox that was forked from Basilisk. Powerfox focuses on earlier PPC and Intel macos but works just fine on newer old macos like El Cap and Catalina; effectively macos compatibility that mirrors basilisk except Powerfox additionally reaches back to Leopard and Tiger and across architectures from Intel to PowerPC.

I am also a big fan of Wicknix's SeaLion for old macos. He also put together BrassMonkey that has a very nice seamonkey inspired mail suite and other goodies built into it.

There are lots of neat still supported browsers for these old macs & macos

 

[Volvo242GT]

Firefox Dynasty is modern Firefox with the necessary code to allow it to run on the older OS X versions. Am using the 145 version of it, and it seems to work fine with 99% of the websites out there.

So, the A1286 has turned out to be more of a problem child than the first mid-2012 A1286 I owned for myself. That one looked pretty beat and had an iffy headphone jack, plus a temperature sensor that wasn't working right. This one, the board has corrosion in spots, and had corroded case screws, etc. Started cleaning it up with 99% IPA, and installed the 16GB RAM from my old late 2011 system. Powered it up and it's imitating a PowerBook 180 with severe tunnel vision.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Firefox Dynasty is modern Firefox with the necessary code to allow it to run on the older OS X versions. Am using the 145 version of it, and it seems to work fine with 99% of the websites out there.

So, the A1286 has turned out to be more of a problem child than the first mid-2012 A1286 I owned for myself. That one looked pretty beat and had an iffy headphone jack, plus a temperature sensor that wasn't working right. This one, the board has corrosion in spots, and had corroded case screws, etc. Started cleaning it up with 99% IPA, and installed the 16GB RAM from my old late 2011 system. Powered it up and it's imitating a PowerBook 180 with severe tunnel vision.

FF Dynasty is my middle son's favorite too and what he uses on he and his older brothers imac to watch his youtube kids account ( currently obsessed with electric motorcycles ) but I think he likes FFD most because of the colorful theme options he has access to (He is 6). I find my oldest using Basilisk because he likes Epic books a lot and the site runs best on that particular browser for him on the lagacy macos on that box.

This morning I streamed the Popes St.Peter Square Palm Sunday mass at the Vatican on my MX25 09 macbookpro. I've been sick all this week, so didn't want to expose everybody to whatever this annoying viral gunk is.