Earliest Mac that can browse the Web?

[alra111]

I would like to buy a couple of old Macintosh computers in the near future just for fun...

Among my candidates is "the earliest Mac that can browse the Web."

Anyone know which model this would be?

Thanks,
Alra111

[nixgeek]

Well, I have a Quadra 650 that is 33 MHz, has been maxxed out to 136 MB of RAM, and is running Mac OS 8.1. I use iCab and Internet Explorer 3.x to browse the web on it and although it's slower than current browsers on current hardware, it's still quite usable. The only issues you'll encounter are with plugin support and "Web 2.0" sites. IE and Netscape just won't support it and the page might not look like it should. iCab is the only browser that supports current technologies but is still far from perfect. It takes a good 30 seconds to load the MacOSX.com page (this is a rough guesstimate..give or take).

There are some people that have done it with older Macs like the compact models (Mac SE models, Mac Classic models, etc.) and other Mac models (Mac II series, LC series, etc.).

While there is some support for older Macs here, I would recommend either the 68K Macintosh Liberation Army or Jag's House for more in-depth information on collecting older Macs.

For the record, there's a whole lot more you can do with these vintage Macs. My homepage is an example and there's also the Old Apple Web Server Directory.

[DeltaMac]

Originally Posted by alra111

... just for fun...

Among my candidates is "the earliest Mac that can browse the Web."

Anyone know which model this would be?

Thanks,
Alra111

I suppose if you find an old version of the Mosiac browser, you could (I think) run that from System 6 something. So you could (possibly) use a MacPlus, or something older. But, older than OS 8, it's not always easy to create a working TCP/IP connection.
The iMac was originally marketed to make connecting to the internet easy, and that's true. OS 8, and OS 9 does not create quite as nice an internet experience as it used to, and OS X has really made internet use wonderful.
I would say that a Mac that can use OS 8, should be the oldest to be 'useful' on the Web, so I would like the Biege G3 models, or an older PowerMac with built-in ethernet.

[nixgeek]

For the record, I had a Motorola StarMax 4000 that ran Mac OS 9 and was quite snappy on the internet using IE. I also used WaMCom browser (a port of the Mozilla Suite) but it was a bit sluggish compared to IE. iCab ran much better (version 3.0 which is available for Classic Mac OS on the PowerPC Macs) and didn't take as long on pages like MacOSX.com, but it still had rendering issues.

It all depends on how much you max out the RAM (increasing the hard drive also helps). I've used System 7.5.5, 7.6.1, and Mac OS 8.1 on my Quadra and all of them were able to get on the Internet just fine on my network. The key is to download Open Transport which is what I believe made it easier to configure the Mac running any of those operating systems to connect to the network or Internet. MacTCP was not the easiest of control panels to configure if you wanted your Mac to get on the net.

As for apps for your classic Mac, check out Pure Mac. They have almost everything you need to get your Classic Mac on the net and then some (non-WWW/non-Internet style apps).

[arrowone]

You also might try "www.system7today.com" Great collection of older apps for system 7 users.Used their advice to set up a PowerBook 1400-166 for the net and was quite surprised at how well everything worked.

[fryke]

I was running a webbrowser on my Macintosh ColourClassic. But I'm pretty sure you could do it on a Mac SE/30 as well. Maybe even a Mac SE. But then you could also go to a Mac Plus, maybe.