When you install OS 9, it comes with many things out of the box, some of which are cool, and some of which are hopelessly outdated like IE 5 and Netscape 4. So I thought I'd compile a short list of additional software that will bring your OS 9 system more up to date in the age of bell bottoms. Bell bottoms--those are a thing now, right?
Anyway, here's the list:
Audion was iTunes before iTunes and in addition to mp3s also plays ogg files. Attractive, non-intrusive interface.
Classilla is a web browser based on Mozilla and still under development. Comes with NoScript built-in and you can set its user agent to a mobile device to have websites default to their mobile sites for speed.
Acuity is a simple rss reader.
FLVPlayer plays flv files saved to disk.
YTBrowser9 plays Youtube on OS 9! The homepage is in Japanese, so check here for english instructions.
Flash 7 is required for YTBrowser9, I believe.
Divx 5.1.1 plays some divx encoded videos, but not all. It's a bit of a crapshoot.
Xvid Delegate Component delegates xvid files to be played with the Divx codec. I've never tried this, but it's worth a shot.
iText is a word processor that saves to rtf and was updated as recently as 2009.
ATI_OS9_RADEON_Update_9_2_2_jan2005 is the final update for ATI drivers and is required for later cards like a Radeon 9000. The link takes you to a thread with download links and more information.
DVD Extractor is needed to mount .toast images.
NetPresenz provides ftp for OS 9, which may be the only networking option with Macs running Lion.
CreaseProof fixes creator code problems that might arise from networking files.
PrinTtoPDF duplicates the built-in function in OS X.
MacPython is an OS 9 development environment for python, so if you want to write your own python scripts, go crazy.
Mini vMac on OS 9 is a bit of nostalgia within nostalgia as it emulates a Macplus.
And Virtual PC is needed for bittorrent because the only bittorrent clients that still work on OS 9 were for Windows:(
And there you have it. With these titles installed, you'll find the OS to be not quite as ancient. In fact, when I boot into OS 9 to do something specific, I find myself lingering. What, with writing and playing my ogg collection and surfing the web, I can go on using OS 9 much like I was using OS X.
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Thanks for the list, I did not know PrintToPDF
ReplyDeleteI use the following too:
docXconverter - commercial, but converts docx under OS9, still available!
Final Draft 7 - again commercial, but I need it.
WordPerfect 3.5e - freeware now
ADock - freeware now
MS Office 98 - commercial
Transmit 1.7 - freeware now
Actually, Soundjam was itunes before itunes was itunes. But Audion was always my favorite.
ReplyDeleteIt occured to me the other day that while Steve put OS 9 in a box in 2002, it's more alive than he is in 2012.
Theres a copy of transmission 0.90 available here http://www.oldapps.com/mac/transmission.php?old_transmission=14#download-section
ReplyDeletethat works on 9 also a version of 0.90 that is compiled for 8.0
Bittorrent was always possible with Mac OS 9. You have to get a Python 2.22 and the Bittorrent Source, and use the commandline of MacPython. Here you can find an old howto: https://web.archive.org/web/20060315043629/http://btfaq.com/cgi-bin/fom?_recurse=1&file=6#file_11
ReplyDelete