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This post was written and uploaded from a Macintosh Color Classic
Ever since I got my first Apple II (summer of 2024), I've been extremely eager to combine the life-changing modern technology we have today with the old technology that really "started it all" in personal computing (side note: isn't it funny that nowadays people call Windows PC when Apple literally pioneered the personal computing era?).
When I got my Apple IIGS and Uthernet II card I was ecstatic to make a program that would work as a reverse shell to my homelab server but after getting a little.. bored with that project to be honest.. (I just got my Color Classic two weeks ago and am having way too much fun with it) I decided it was time to try and get my Old Apple Stuff website going.
When I first bought this domain I had planned to just use this as a blog, forums, and store, but I've had so many ideas spark in my head that I've decided it's best to just start small - start simple - and grow from there.
One thing I love about this old technology is that I can get work
done without distractions - no notifcations, no bloatware bogging
down my system, just me and my work. Everything is so simple, back
when things weren't constantly being over-complicated.
I've decided to apply this to the website as well. I am starting to
build the website from my retro computer - as basic as it can be -
then after I feel all the content is ready for a "release" I will
begin modernizing it.
So, to put it plainly, this website is a continuous project that will be starting from basics and building from it, making the progress public along the way. There will be a retro-accessible version (http://retro.oldapplestuff.com) and a modern-accessible (and eventually somewhat-styled) version (https://oldapplestuff.com)
The content of this website will be ever-expanding but for now my main focuses are a respoistory of software, hardware/software guides, and a blog to document my journey into the vintage computing world.
While I technically could run this website from an old Macintosh, I do have a homelab server with lots of resources that I've been looking for good uses for. (And it's a lot more power efficient which is extremely important to me due to high electricity costs.)
Before I had the idea of geting the retro website online, I had setup a basic Wordpress website to share my mission and ideas for the website with. I was going to keep this up while working on the retro website but decided it was best to just can it and start fresh.
So, I removed my old VM, booted a new one, and installed Debian onto it. After that, I got NGINX installed to create a reverse proxy to a Python/Flask app that serves my HTML files, repository files, and syncs with a PostgresSQL Database. This is the very website you see in front of you, hello!
For easy accessibility with my Macintosh systems I also setup an FTP server that allows me to upload website files and access .sit archives that I move from my MacBook Pro. It will also act as a good backup point for my vintage files as the server it's on has data protection in place.
Since I have never used these computers before, it's important to me (and fun for me) to use them to make this content. For the most part, all HTML documents on this website will be created, edited, and uploaded from a vintage Macintosh computer. This currenmt blog post is from my Maintosh Color Classic.
To download, edit, and upload - I am using Claris Home Page 3.0 which can be downloaded here.
After getting the website sort of where I would like it for a good starting point, I wanted to get the repository going so that an immediate use for the website could exist. I first copied the asimov Apple II repo since this is a public repo with no rate limits. For the Macintosh side, I started reaching out to the owners of Macintosh Garden and Macintosh Repository to see if they would let me start preserving their repos so I can host the software here as well.
I was able to start transferring a copy of Macintosh Garden to the /repo/Macintosh page on this website; thank you Chris!, but unfortunately the Macintosh Repository owner got a little heated at the fact I even asked and then threatened a ban when I tried to scrape a software list :( so much for the belief of preservation efforts.
Anyways, after getting the repo setup, the HTML files where I wanted them, and my database going, I got my Color Classic setup to be able to easily create and modify these blog posts and overall retro website.
To show you the process, here's the steps I performed to edit and upload this post:
I am super excited to be finally bringing some live content to the world and to be able to start my vision for Old Apple Stuff. Please stick around as I have a lot of ideas and a lot of content planned for the future. If you have any comments or suggestions for the website, please contact me at alex@oldapplestuff.com
Thanks for reading!
~ Alex H.