Posts tagged “classic mac”.

Newsstand: A Google News RSS Reader for Mac OS 9 – A Conversation with Developer Alex Robb

June 23rd, 2021

Newsstand icon

I saw an interesting post on Reddit this week: someone had developed an RSS reader for Mac OS 9.

That’s my kind of project, so I reached out to the developer, Alex Robb, about how (and why!) he came up with his Google News reader, Newsstand.

Tell us about yourself: Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m Alex Robb, I live in Chicago, and I work for a tech company as an analyst. I’m in my 30s, and I’ve been an Apple fan since I was a kid. My first Mac was a Macintosh Performa 5215CD, and even as a kid I played around with pro-level software like Adobe Photoshop 4 and REALbasic. I hadn’t played with those apps in decades, but quarantine and shelter in place allowed me to pick up this hobby again.

Developing for Mac OS is (a) amazing and (b) anochronistic! How much of a classic Mac user are you?
Developing for Mac OS 9 was a great experience, especially using an app like REALbasic, which is what I used to develop Newsstand.

I have six classic Macs: a PowerBook G3 PDQ, a PowerBook G3 Pismo (which I use the most), an iMac G4, a PowerMac G4 Cube, a 12″ PowerBook G4, and a Mac Mini G4. I also have a few generations of iPods and decades of Apple posters and pamphlets. I’m keeping an eye out for a Newton MessagePad and an eMate 300 to add to my collection too.

While I love playing old games on my Macs, I wish I was able to do more with them. The web is pretty limited on Mac OS 9, so I created Newsstand as a way to get a lot more use out of my Macs. With Newsstand, I’ve used my PowerBooks more than my M1 MacBook Air over the last few weeks.

I saw you took inspiration from the 68k.news site (which I love). What made you think that approach needed to have an app on OS 9?
I love Action Retro’s 68k.news, and I’m a daily reader of Google News on my phone. The inspiration for creating a standalone app though came from Apple’s eWorld service. eWorld’s news section was called Newsstand, which is where I got the name. I wanted a classic app that felt like reading the news in eWorld back in 1995. eWorld’s Newsstand had multiple sections, so I added a little over 200 topics to explore in Newsstand.

I’ve also been a fan of clean, Apple Platinum interfaces. Apps like REALbasic itself and MacAnalysis are some of my favorite examples. By taking the news out of the browser, I was able to create an original classic Mac interface that feels at home in the Applications folder.

Newsstand screen

What were some challenges you ran into in developing this app?
I encountered several. To make things even more difficult, I’ve never written any software in my life.

When I started development on Newsstand, I thought I could take the general idea Action Retro had with 68k.news and render the Google News RSS feed as a web page in an app. But my first barrier was that I couldn’t use REALbasic’s HTMLViewer control to display HTML. I think that’s because Mac OS 9 doesn’t have WebKit like Mac OS X. I ended up using a TCP/IP socket connection in REALbasic to connect to my web server, and then I had to parse the XML into a format that was usable by Newsstand. On my web server, I wrote the PHP scripts to pull the RSS feeds and process them as XML feeds. These were all heavy lifts for me. The end result of Newsstand though looks a lot more natural than an HTMLViewer anyway, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

The second barrier I encountered was a lack of troubleshooting support. StackOverflow doesn’t exist for REALbasic. There weren’t forums where I could work through my technical obstacles. I had to rely on the user guide and language reference to build the app. Some simple things, like figuring out how to get File > Close to actually close a window, took me longer to figure out than I’d like to admit (it’s just: self.close).

The Xojo programming forum is as close as I could get to user help, but they quickly became suspicious of what I was doing since Xojo has a lot of the properties built out that I needed.

The last barrier I had to work through was the graphics. Mac apps can only display PICT files, not JPGs or GIFs. Adobe Photoshop 2020 can open PICT files, but it can’t save them. I ended up creating all of the graphics in Mac OS 9 using Adobe Photoshop 4.0.1.

These barriers pushed me to think creatively and, in the end, I felt I had a good-looking app.

What kind of user did you have in mind for Newsstand?
I built the app for myself. When I finished Newsstand though, I was proud of it and began sharing it. The Classic Apple community is a lot larger than I thought.

Do you see yourself doing versions of Newsstand for earlier Mac OSes? Mac OS X?
I’ve heard from users that Newsstand works on Mac OS 8.6. I may be able to use earlier versions of REALbasic to compile a version from Mac OS 8 too. But if I wanted to create a version for System Software 7.5 or earlier, I think I would need to rewrite the application in C, and I know that will be a difficult undertaking. I think Mac OS X would be a relatively easy port for Newsstand, and I’ll consider it if there’s demand.

Tell me about what else you’ve been working on? Any other classic Mac apps in mind?
I felt like I developed a new skill set and workflow by building Newsstand, and I’d like to keep creating more classic Mac applications. I have future updates planned for Newsstand, like adding your own feeds, and I have a few ideas for other apps I think could be nice additions to the classic Mac library.

I’d love to see others take on Mac OS 9 development too. If you’re even slightly interested in attempting to build your own Mac OS 9 app, definitely try REALbasic 5.5 and see what you can do with it.

Rebooting a PowerMac G4 Blue & White

March 17th, 2021

PowerMac G3 booting

After my inventory of all my classic Apple gear, the first big project was figuring out why my PowerMac G3 Blue & White (Yosemite) failed to boot up.

The symptoms:

  • Mac starts up, and chimes the familiar Mac OS boot chime
  • I hear the hard drive cranking away and the fans kick on
  • The new Apple Studio Display registers that a signal is coming in, but nothing shows up on screen

After leaving it sit for a bit to warm up, nothing changed. Time to troubleshoot.

First thing’s first: start with one stick of RAM and see if that works. I started with the lowest memory RAM stick, and after trying to boot, got the familiar “bad RAM” beep. That one’s out! After a few more tries, I found one RAM stick that let the Mac start the bootup process.

Great! We’re in business! I let the PowerMac boot into OS 8.6, and started a Disk First Aid routine to make sure everything in the hard drive was working properly. Everything passed with flying colors.

Since the Mac booted into the OS, I figured a fresh restart would be a smart idea. But that was a mistake. The PowerMac would not boot back into the OS, even after zapping the PRAM, performing a variety of key commands on startup, and multiple restarts. Nothing.

Thanks goodness for the internet. I found a few tips online about disconnecting the motherboard to reset the power supply, performing a hard reset to the motherboard, and letting the PowerMac sit in a time out and think about what its done (okay, that one’s mine).

I tried these techniques over and over again, in a variety of steps, like conducting some ancient spell. A dash of cuda resets, a pinch of removing the PRAM battery, invoking the Command-Option-P-R incantation – I went through a week’s worth of this witchcraft, trying in vain to get that Mac OS 8 boot screen again.

Then, I started at the beginning. What were the exact steps that worked last time? Let’s try that.

Another PRAM zap, and while the Mac hangs on boot, hit the reset button again. It worked. Magic.

Welcome to Mac OS

And here the PowerMac sits, two weeks after I took it out of storage, still humming along and plugged in – mostly because I’m nervous to shut it down again.

Up next for #MARCHintosh: Syncing up my Newton MessagePad and eMate.

Back In Action

March 1st, 2021

Apple Studio Display

After 10 years of on-and-off tinkering, I’m kicking off #Marchintosh with a fun new project: purchasing and connecting an Apple Studio Display to my blue and white PowerMac G3.

The first step? Finding a monitor! After selling off my CRT studio display, I had no way to view my PowerMac G3. I wanted something small and light, and wanted to stick with the G3-era hardware. Luckily I found an affordable display on eBay.

It arrived in great condition, fully working, and ready to connect to the desktop. However, it’s been seven or eight years since I booted up the G3. I took this as an opportunity to turn on and test all my classic Apple devices: iBook G3, MessagePad 110, eMate 300, and a Macintosh LC II.

I quickly learned I needed to install a couple of fresh PRAM batteries in the Mac motherboards, swap out dead batteries in the Newtons, and buy a few adapters to connect the VGA Apple Studio Display to the LC II.

This month, in honor of #Marchintosh, I’ll explore how my old devices are working, what needs help or fixing, and how this Apple Studio Display helps me classic Mac in style.