Yo Fellow Macs

Developing an iOS in 2024 with technology from 2012 or so

Someone gave me their old iPhone 3GS. Fascinated by this old technology still working I re-activated an old Macbook Alunimum from 2008: I bought a new battery and a new power adapter from Amazon and searched some boxes for this DVD with Mac OS X Lion on it until I found it.

💡
In the meantime I treated myself with a Powerbook G4 15'' and decided to switch to that. Consider this page a notepad for my vintage computing adventures.

The main objective is to write an iOS-client for Mastodon in Objective-C iOS 6.1.6. I won't promise to blog about it, as I won't keep that promise. This page serves as a notepad for myself on how to use hardware and software from ~12 years ago.

☝️
Don't try this at home. Using unsupported technology can be quite harmful, especially when it comes to IT security. You've been warned.

Software and where to get it

Please don't connect the old Mac to the Internet. I use a modern computer to download the software and transfer it to the old Mac.

Mac OS X Leopard

Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Issues to expect

  • Using the internet might be tough as certificates (and technology) tend to expire after some time. And by tough I mean nearly impossible
  • How do I get the code from the local git-repository to gitea or Github?
  • What about Third-Party-Code? JSON? OAuth? -> Download code from Github and transfer it to the old Mac.
  • I might need to host a local API-clone of the Mastodon-API. Did someone say Raspberry Pi with Pleroma?