DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 11:18:

from what i remember the standoffs for the mac were different sizes and in different positions and the standoffs had different s […]
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MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-20, 09:32:

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 07:07:

i like the one in the middle, i had the bottom one which i picked up dead bout 17yrs back havent seen one since, tried to fit a standard pc motherboard for my hackintosh, the panels were too thin to hold the stand-offs so resorted to nuts and bolts which didnt work out 🤣, ended up ditching it but kept the power supply which turned out to be dead. shit! ruined a perfectly good mac because i didnt test the psu.

I like the middle one too, but I'd stick to air cooling - to me, water seems to signal that the hardware is being pushed too far.

I don't understand the standoff thing because the PCI card backplates are the reference point. I read it's the same challenge when repurposing an XT case, but haven't witnessed the challenge myself.

from what i remember the standoffs for the mac were different sizes and in different positions and the standoffs had different size threads than what you would use on a standard pc board, i had to redrill holes in the panel but as it was so thin the standoffs wouldnt hold and would flop about in the holes, so not properly securing the board, if i were to do it again id buy one of those test bench chassis off amazon, chop it up and screw it in.

i think i found one.

The attachment standoffs.jpg is no longer available

Looking at the Apple motherboard, it appears the Apple AGP slot is raised slightly higher than AGP slots on ATX motherboards.

this was not my build, I just followed this project with interest, because I was building a Blue and White myself at the time. In my case I think I had an ATi Rage 128 which I think was probably standard

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-20, 21:07:

The core Linux OS will work.

But, when you add a full software stack (including web browsers) too many apps were written specifically for SSE2 instruction set and won't compile for PPC - so my understanding is I'd have a Linux desktop with fewer apps than I would have on MacOS X.

Ah... I do remember also seeing a Firefox backport for PPC OSX as well, maybe that'd be worth a try? although its Javascript execution speed is not the best, and you'd still be on an insecure OS...
(And I think some of those PPC distros did manage to get at least Firefox working? Not 100% sure though to be honest)

Aui wrote on 2026-04-20, 21:38:

this was not my build, I just followed this project with interest, because I was building a Blue and White myself at the time. In my case I think I had an ATi Rage 128 which I think was probably standard

Mine also has a Rage 128. My understanding is that various Radeons can be flashed to work on Macs but I've no idea on where to acquire the VROMs.

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-04-20, 22:09:

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-20, 21:07:

The core Linux OS will work.

But, when you add a full software stack (including web browsers) too many apps were written specifically for SSE2 instruction set and won't compile for PPC - so my understanding is I'd have a Linux desktop with fewer apps than I would have on MacOS X.

Ah... I do remember also seeing a Firefox backport for PPC OSX as well, maybe that'd be worth a try? although its Javascript execution speed is not the best, and you'd still be on an insecure OS...
(And I think some of those PPC distros did manage to get at least Firefox working? Not 100% sure though to be honest)

The project is TenFourFox, works with OS X Tiger, and some updates were added last year so the browser is clinging to life.

I think this is the clincher. Thank you, I'll try to get Tiger booting! 😀

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-20, 09:22:

Gentoo would get TLS 1.2 working, but not a browser that can render current websites (e.g. CNN/BBC/ABC).

I'm not trying to make the old machines a daily driver - it's that I don't like multiple machines running when I can physically use only one at a time.

Arctic Fox is a fork of Pale Moon that specifically works for PPC Linux distros:
https://github.com/rmottola/Arctic-Fox

There isn't a package in any Gentoo repository, but if you're not afraid to create ebuilds then you could probably use the Pale Moon repository as a basis.

There's also some builds of SeaLion, Basilisk and Brass Monkey for PPC:
https://github.com/chzigotzky/Web-Browsers-an … s-for-Linux-PPC

The most recent binary distro for PPC appears to be Adélie Linux:
https://www.adelielinux.org/

I haven't really looked into UXP-based browsers for i586 Gentoo - NetSurf runs fine, but its functionality is very limited and others like Dillo, links, elinks and w3m are even more restrictive.

I accidentally surfed into PowerFox with TLS1.3 for MacOS X 10.4 Tiger 10.5 Leopard 10.6 Snow Leopard
https://powerfox.jazzzny.me

Caveat is the PPC versions are marked Beta. Still, no signs of complaints!

If it's as half as good as it claims... are those famous last words?

Unsure if joke or rage bait...

Sacrilege?

How about 50 or 60 INMOS Transputers, advertised as scrap, to be melted down for gold recovery? Saw that on eBay about 5 years ago... I just didn't have the cash at the time to save them.

devius wrote on 2026-04-26, 16:27:

Unsure if joke or rage bait...

Which part? 😉

Starting from a point of confusion and orientating myself onto around a path into OS X Tiger + Classic (OS9 apps) + PowerFox (TLS1.3), it's clear I have given the box significant consideration..

megatron-uk wrote on 2026-04-26, 20:26:

Sacrilege?

How about 50 or 60 INMOS Transputers, advertised as scrap, to be melted down for gold recovery? Saw that on eBay about 5 years ago... I just didn't have the cash at the time to save them.

Never knew INMOS existed, and it's yet another great British flop. It feels to me like INMOS should have pivoted into GPUs for x86, instead of trying to replace x86 with what is effectively a multicore GPU.

I know the struggle. I've had a 2006 iMac 4.1, which I turned to iMac 5.1 by swapping the original Intel Core Duo CPU (32 bit) to an Intel Core 2 Duo (64 bit) to get to its latest Mac OSX available - from Lion to Mountain Lion - only to find it...still useless as even Firefox deprecated that OS.
Then, I've tried for 2 years any bloody tutorial I could find to make Linux work on it. The almost impossible task was to bootstrap from the 32 bit EFI against a 64 bit OS. After many hours spent on the thing I've made it work with Debian (iirc) 8, then updated up to 11 (which was latest back then). I've had to use XFCE with 3D acceleration disable due to the cumbersomeness of the GPU (ATI Radeon X1600 mobile) which drivers (any) never made it to 64 bit on anything else than Mac OS X. So...it was slow as hell even with XFCE....

All the work lnly to find again it was...still useless to me. Plus...over the years I also serviced the guy like 2 times on the PSU, 2 times on the DVD drive, and at least one time for the loud speakers.
By the end of the journey, the PSU failed, and the loud speakers were gone goo in their rubber parts. So one day I grew tired of maintaining the ungrateful piece of hw, and dumped it.

But you can give it a last try with Gentoo, seems they are still releasing PPC arch. You know, just for fun, prior to dump.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:PPC

fix_metal wrote on 2026-04-26, 23:24:

I know the struggle. I've had a 2006 iMac 4.1, which I turned to iMac 5.1 by swapping the original Intel Core Duo CPU (32 bit) t […]
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I know the struggle. I've had a 2006 iMac 4.1, which I turned to iMac 5.1 by swapping the original Intel Core Duo CPU (32 bit) to an Intel Core 2 Duo (64 bit) to get to its latest Mac OSX available - from Lion to Mountain Lion - only to find it...still useless as even Firefox deprecated that OS.
Then, I've tried for 2 years any bloody tutorial I could find to make Linux work on it. The almost impossible task was to bootstrap from the 32 bit EFI against a 64 bit OS. After many hours spent on the thing I've made it work with Debian (iirc) 8, then updated up to 11 (which was latest back then). I've had to use XFCE with 3D acceleration disable due to the cumbersomeness of the GPU (ATI Radeon X1600 mobile) which drivers (any) never made it to 64 bit on anything else than Mac OS X. So...it was slow as hell even with XFCE....

All the work lnly to find again it was...still useless to me. Plus...over the years I also serviced the guy like 2 times on the PSU, 2 times on the DVD drive, and at least one time for the loud speakers.
By the end of the journey, the PSU failed, and the loud speakers were gone goo in their rubber parts. So one day I grew tired of maintaining the ungrateful piece of hw, and dumped it.

But you can give it a last try with Gentoo, seems they are still releasing PPC arch. You know, just for fun, prior to dump.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:PPC

I went through the struggle with my first generation G3 iMac running OS9 legacy apps. It needed various hardware upgrades to be OS X Jaguar compatible, and I couldn't justify those changes at the time. I dumped it despite knowing it was destined to be an immortalised design icon 🙁

I kept the "power on" keyboard and "bubble" mouse because those are design icons in their own right.

I have one of those, and it's one of my favorite computers. It's completely useless of course, but why must a computer be useful?

ETA: I had to get this out now, just to make sure it works at least, as it hasn't been powered on for years. It's currently playing a CD thru its horrible tinny speakers.

Errius wrote on 2026-04-27, 10:42:

I have one of those, and it's one of my favorite computers. It's completely useless of course, but why must a computer be useful?

If it can't do what it was sold to do, then it's broken - like playing on broken strings, or a car that runs on a fuel that is no longer sold. Museums are full of things like that.

If it's broken then it's an ornament, and that is why my first instinct was to convert "a broken Mac" into an ornamental something - but if it proves not broken then this discussion saved it! 😀

You could just run the software it was designed for. Would you also throw away or destroy an original IBM PC because you can't watch YoutTube on it?

devius wrote on 2026-04-27, 20:28:

You could just run the software it was designed for...

The original software was designed to send/receive requests with TLS1.0 offsite peers, and we literally cannot run that software today because the peers do not exist.

To maintain original capability, we need to upgrade to heavier TLS1.2+ or we need to create the onsite peers - either "fix" is a real change from the original designed experience.

Errius wrote on 2026-04-27, 10:42:

I have one of those, and it's one of my favorite computers. It's completely useless of course, but why must a computer be useful […]
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I have one of those, and it's one of my favorite computers. It's completely useless of course, but why must a computer be useful?

ETA: I had to get this out now, just to make sure it works at least, as it hasn't been powered on for years. It's currently playing a CD thru its horrible tinny speakers.

Very nice. That looks exactly like the G3 I dumped. I still have the matching Apple keyboard and Apple mouse! 😉

I have tried PowerFox browser on my 7,1 with Leopard - it executes with graphics acceleration bugs that can cause crashes but the glitches look low level and might be GPU specific.

It’s a very different GPU in PPC macs.