Did somebody put a hex on me?

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It's a long post so get a brew and a ciggie if you use them :D

I am a new switcher of only a few days standing and I am working on a very tight shoestring so, for the moment, freeware is the way to go. I have just got a G3 PowerMac @400Mhz, 256 RAm and 12 gig HDD. It is running OS 9.2.1 with another 256 RAM on the way.
Pretty meagre stuff I admit but I'm only learning.
Here's what's gone wrong so far.

I can log in to this forum on a PC but when I try to log in on the Mac, I sign in and the page I get directed to says "You are not signed in". This is a constant loop that happens no matter how many times I sign in, restart or connect/disconnect from the internet.

I have other windows PCs on a home network so I had a look at FREE Anti-virus software where I noticed a strange thing. All the reports on Mac viruses say that there were between 60 and 80 viruses made that attacked a Mac computer running OS 9 or earlier but not a single one written to attack a Mac computer running OSX. So how come there seem to be no Freeware Anti-virus progs that run on OS 9.2.1 but several that run on OSX?

So I gave up on that and went on to my next issue which was an uprated web browser. I use eBay a lot and eBay kept telling me to upgrade my IE 5. My first stop was to find an IE upgrade that works with Macs but there are none and IE have pulled out altogether. My next stop was Mozilla but that won't work on less that OSX or so the Mozilla web page says. I couldn't get Opera to play either so I grabbed Netscape while the grabbing was good.

Has anyone ever tried to find a freeware text editor for a Mac that's freeware? I have. I found a few that looked good until you went to download them and found that the minimum specs included those dreaded words Not compatible with OS9 so scratch the idea of a text editor.

Now we move on to Poker. I don't want to get maudlin but I'm disabled and never get to leave the house, very rarely anyway, so I spend a lot of time playing online poker, but only freeroll tournament games, I ain't stupid. There are dozens of poker sites for the Mac users but every single one of them requires Mac OSX.

So, to put it bluntly, I'm pretty much disappointed in my Mac experience so far. Yes, I realise it is partly my fault for trying to work on a very low budget but surely there must be thousands of people still running OS 9.2.1 and older.
Are we the forgotten ones?
Or am I just not looking in the right places for software?
On the upside, I'm looking at getting Tiger which will solve a lot of the problems but that's about 2 to 3 weeks in the future.
Rant over, guys. You can go back to sleep now, :D
Cheers,
Steve
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
If you are thinking of installing OS X on such an old machine then you need to do some homework. I doubt that OS X Tiger (or Leopard) was released to run on that hardware. An application called XPostFacto has been around for a while that will allow some older hardware to run newer versions of OS X. I've used it to run 10.3 on a 233Mhz Powerbook a few years ago.
 
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Wabbit
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I did do some homework.
Copied from the Apple website .....

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger system requirements
To use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, your Macintosh needs:

A PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
At least 256 MB of RAM
DVD drive (DVD-ROM), Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) or SuperDrive (DVD-R) for installation
At least 3 GB of free disk space; 4 GB if you install the XCode 2 Developer Tools.

I can put a tick next to all those requirements.
I'm not expecting blindingly fast speeds.
 
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Custom PC
Well hey, if you'rel ooking for a newer Mac, let me know. I'm selling my G4 iBook for cheap :)
 
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Brew some coffee, light up a big, fat cigar, settle back and be prepared for couple of long posts.

An excellent Firefox-like browser is by WaMCom (the fourth browser under the Downloads heading at that link. In reality, WaMCom is Mozilla 1.3.1. It even accepts a couple of Firefox's extension/add-ons. A post, with pix, describes it here. Be sure to read the second-last paragraph.
I can log in to this forum on a PC but when I try to log in on the Mac, I sign in and the page I get directed to says "You are not signed in". This is a constant loop that happens no matter how many times I sign in, restart or connect/disconnect from the internet.
Make sure that cookies are turned on. Also possible: You are using Internet Explorer for Mac that on some sites plain refuses to work properly.

Another possibility is a JavaScript problem. This forum doesn't play nice with OS 9 and JavaScript. I have to turn it off to post, or nothing shows up in the posting box. But with it turned off, paragraphs won't break, so paragraph breaks must be hand coded. Also, with it turned off, quotation marks turn into html coding. So I turn JavaScript on (what's already typed stays visible), change the coding back to quotes, and post. But if I hit Preview instead of Post, the quotes turn back into html code. This occurs with all OS 9 browsers, so it's a forum-JavaScript problem.

That's one reason I use WaMCom's Mozilla, with the Preferances bar extension running across the top (see pic at link, above.) With Prefbar, I can turn JavaScript and other controls on and off with one click.
All the reports on Mac viruses say that there were between 60 and 80 viruses made that attacked a Mac computer running OS 9 or earlier but not a single one written to attack a Mac computer running OSX. So how come there seem to be no Freeware Anti-virus progs that run on OS 9.2.1 but several that run on OSX?
Most of the OS 9 viruses were created before the internet came into existence. The malware was spread through sharing of floppy disks, then later, CDs. Even with OS 9 and previous, it was difficult to pass on an infection to another Mac. Most viruses fizzled for that reason. But one free anti-virus app is Disinfectant.
Has anyone ever tried to find a freeware text editor for a Mac that's freeware?
BBEdit 6.1 for OS 9 is available here, with BBEdit lite FAQs here.

You'll need the free Stuffit Expander to open BBEdit Lite. Downloading, then opening Expander might need an explanation of its own, so let me know whether you already have it.

Sorry, I know nothing about poker, real or virtual. When I take off my socks to count my toes, the other players know I have face cards.

Edited to turn html code back into quotes.
 
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Wabbit
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Many thanks for the info, Mr/Mrs study.
I'll certainly have a look at those sites when I can get back on the Mac and let you know.
 

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