Wednesday, December 28, 2016

BitTorrent for Mac OS 9 (!?!)

The Macintosh Garden forums had a bit of a Christmas surprise this year with news of a new BitTorrent client called MacTorrent. Not just any BitTorrent client, but one that runs on Mac OS 8-9.2.2 (a separate OS X version runs on 10.3-10.6.8). Somebody should tell these developers that the Classic Mac OS (the real Mac OS) already had its funeral and there's no reason to write useful and awesome applications for it. After all, the only reason Mac OS 9 isn't quite useful and awesome enough to run as an everyday system these days is a lack of useful and awesome modern applications. Or something like that.

In my limited testing so far, MacTorrent seems to work. It's bare at this early stage, but the developers are working on adding features such as magnet links in the future. Be part of the testing and give it a download. Download the .sit file labeled "Classic" for the Mac OS 8-9 version, and the .zip file labeled "PPC-OSX" for the OS X version.

If someone wrote an h.264 decoder for Youtube streaming on OS 9, I swear I'd switch back permanently.
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11 comments:

  1. rican-linuxDecember 30, 2016 at 3:58 PM

    Whatever happened to that Japanese YouTube viewer?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DanDecember 30, 2016 at 10:11 PM

      I don't know. The website is gone and they didn't leave word. Japanese developers seem to like their anonymity, and when they quit or move on, they're like the wind and become legend.

      Delete
    2. zenMarch 16, 2017 at 11:09 AM

      The MacTubes developer does note on the site that it ids no longer developed.

      Currently, I use a FireFox/TenFourFox addon called "Download YouTube Videos as MP4". It gives you 360p and 720p options.

      At the moment my professional needs have caused me to only use PowerPC systems as headless, since my software needs require an intel Mac now.

      I even have a new Pro Mac desktop now, but it's not Apple, it's a Hackintosh. *evil laugh*

      Delete
    3. rican-linuxJune 22, 2017 at 10:09 AM

      I sold my only intel Mac recently. I am on Linux pretty much fulltime with the exception of Leopard and Tiger on my PPC machines.

      Delete
  2. zenJanuary 15, 2017 at 1:04 AM

    Torrents on OS 8-9! Awesome!

    IMHO OS 8.6 is the best Mac OS ever made. It was stable as hell, and could works with many carbon apps at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DanJanuary 15, 2017 at 1:16 PM

    Before Tiger, 8.6 was also the longest system I ever used. It screamed on even the lowest-end G3s.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. zenJanuary 15, 2017 at 7:04 PM

      When I bought a new B&W G3 in 1999, it came with 8.6, and that was where my love affair started.

      I never actually ever used OS 9 back then, and went right from 8.6 to 10.2 around 2003.

      Delete
  4. UnknownJanuary 18, 2017 at 5:08 PM

    You know what I miss about the classic mac os that I could never find a replacement for? Window Shading! I wish Steve had implemented the ability to utilize both minimize and shading in osx when it first came out, that would have been nice to have.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2017 at 8:18 PM

    Not youtube on OS 9 but macrumors forum member Lastic just ported smtube to mac os x ppc, leopard at least. Pretty impressive. Currently only Coreplayer can handle 720p streams, but 360p plays with only 20% CPU, which is pretty impressive. A mactubes for 2017.

    http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/smtube-alternative-for-youview-mactubes.2030035/

    ReplyDelete
  6. minimumJune 15, 2017 at 5:09 PM

    One of the most heartwarming things I've read in the last 10 years. This is soooo sweet. Gonna try on my G4 Cube.

    ReplyDelete