Show HN: MacProxy Plus – Surf the Modern Web on Vintage Computers
60 points by hunterirving 12 hours ago | 24 comments
I created an enhanced fork of the popular MacProxy project called MacProxy Plus, which makes it possible to browse the modern web on vintage hardware. You run MPP on a machine on your local network and configure the Mac (or other vintage computer) to use it as a proxy server. MPP converts HTTPS to HTTP, strips out CSS, JavaScript, and other tags the Mac's browser doesn't recognize, then serves super-simplified HTML that actually loads pretty fast on the nearly 40 year old machine. Custom handling is enabled by "extensions" (individual python scripts) which intercept requests for given domains (like chatgpt.com) and return simple HTML interfaces. Current extensions include Weather, ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Wikipedia, Reddit, Hackaday, WayBack Machine, Web Simulator, and (not) YouTube. Though this solution was developed with early Macs in mind, it should also work to get many other vintage computers online.
  • bsimpson 6 hours ago |
    > Type a URL that doesn't exist into the address bar, and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet will interpret the domain and any query parameters to generate an imagined version of that page on the fly. Each HTTP request is serialized and sent to the AI, along with the full HTML of the last 3 pages you visited, allowing you to explore a vast, interconnected, alternate reality Internet where the only limit is your imagination.

    I want to try this.

    • hunterirving 6 hours ago |
      That feature was inspired by an existing website, https://websim.ai/ . Definitely worth checking out, and a lot more feature rich than the vintage Macintosh version.
      • bsimpson 5 hours ago |
        thanks!

        i really don't like that it wants me to login with my google credentials just to play with it.

    • selimthegrim 2 hours ago |
      Zombo.com is crying tears of Flash.
  • news_to_me 6 hours ago |
    Oh this looks perfect! I kind of intended to make something like this, but now I don't have to. Looking forward to replacing my macproxy with this to try it out :)
    • hunterirving 6 hours ago |
      Thanks for checking it out! Hope it works out well for you.
  • ralphc 6 hours ago |
    How do you configure System 6 or 7 to use a proxy?
    • nemo 6 hours ago |
      It's been a while, but from what I recall with early Macs apps like mail clients and browsers would have their own proxy settings rather than any system-wide setting, so you'd set the proxy in Netscape (or whatever).
    • hunterirving 5 hours ago |
      The browser I'm using (MacWeb 2.0) has its own proxy config (you can see it in the demonstration video around 3:27), but you can also enable a proxy at the system level using Internet Config (click Firewalls, check "Use HTTP Proxy", then enter the server address and port in the text field).
    • johnklos 3 hours ago |
      There are ways to do this transparently if you control the machine doing NAT for the classic computer. Doing things that way used to be more common before https became the default for most sites, because nowadays you'd have to install TLS certificates on each client to not constantly get errors. However, if you're also proxying https to http, then no worries!

      I should update my transparent proxy how-to to be used with MacProxy Plus...

    • numpad0 2 hours ago |
      Most Classic Macs didn't have an RJ45 jack(for Ethernet) in the first place. Proxy config menus were a lot more common and accessible back then as well.
  • zoeysmithe 6 hours ago |
    Oh wow I saw this on reddit the other day. Now to find an affordable vintage mac.
    • hunterirving 6 hours ago |
      If you're patient (and willing to do some repair work) you can sometimes find reasonably priced fixer-uppers on eBay.
    • numpad0 2 hours ago |
      Random old Macs are still like $80 on eBay if you don't need a specific model, they aren't all that expensive yet.
  • VyseofArcadia 6 hours ago |
    > MPP converts HTTPS to HTTP, strips out CSS, JavaScript, and other tags the Mac's browser doesn't recognize, then serves super-simplified HTML that actually loads pretty fast on the nearly 40 year old machine.

    Honestly this sounds like a pretty great way to experience the modern web on modern computers too.

    • hunterirving 5 hours ago |
      If your browser lets you configure a proxy server, it should work!
  • helfire 6 hours ago |
    Was great to see the video[0] you did (and production quality, humor, etc) showcasing MacProxy Plus. As the BlueSCSI maintainer it's always exciting to see it being used the wild in cool new things like this!

    [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1v1gWLHcOk

    • hunterirving 5 hours ago |
      Thanks again for your contributions! The BlueSCSI is a fantastic little device. I've really enjoyed playing with it.
  • newman314 3 hours ago |
    I wonder if this will work with a Newton?
  • hoistbypetard 3 hours ago |
    Really nice work. I like the idea of site-specific extensions, and think that's the only way to do this and keep your sanity.

    This seems like it'd pair really well with FrogFind.

    • hunterirving 2 hours ago |
      Thanks for checking it out! I'm a big fan of FrogFind. http://68k.news was another one that got the gears turning while starting out on this project.
  • Einenlum 33 minutes ago |
    This amount of work and creativity is insane here. Well done!
    • hunterirving 9 minutes ago |
      Thanks for checking it out! I had some help from the many open source projects I made use of :-)