What is MR Browser? MR Browser is a small utility app allowing very old Macs from the 90's that are too old to use a normal web browser, but are new enough to connect to the internet through TCP/IP, to access Macintosh Repository online services, e.g. to directly download files without the help of a modern computer. For now, it's limited to only listing files smaller than 1GB, considering it's only meant to run on mid 90's System 7 environments. Note: Before downloading files with MR Browser, to prevent crashes, make sure that the hard drive on which it resides has enough free space to account for your downloaded files. GOT SUGGESTIONS YOU'D LIKE IMPLEMENTED IN MR BROWSER? JUST ASK IN THE COMMENTS BOX BELOW! :) TROUBLESHOOTING: If you'd like to use your old Mac's web browser to download MR Browser, then point it to this download link: http://macintoshrepository.org/files/direct/MR-Browser-68K-v0.36.bin (only use this link with your old Mac's web browser as modern ones will think this is a dangerous file and will block it. It's not dangerous. It's just because it ends with .bin) Under the Basilisk II emulator, if you see a "Runtime Failure: Failed Assertion" error popping up after submitting your PIN (right when it does the update check) then just quit the app and re-launch it again. This likely is an issue with the Basilisk II ethernet proxy and probably will only happen once, the first time you launch MR Browser after a fresh boot. It's unlikely to happen on subsequent MR Browser uses until you completely exit Basilisk II. Under Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2.2, if your Mac locks up completely near the end of an update or a .mrb file download, this is caused by not enough RAM being allocated to MR Browser. You can fix this in the Finder by clicking MR Browser once to highlight it, then in the menu bar at the top, choose FILE > GET INFO > MEMORY and edit the "Preferred Size" field to at least 2200 (more is better) then close the window and then re-launch MR Browser. MR Browser sys6 & OpenTransport - Please ensure that the "MacTCP DNR" file is in your System Folder's root. It can be copied from another Mac, but should exist with a clean install. Without this file, MRB6, being designed for MacTCP, cannot resolve. This compatibility trick is not present in OS X's Classic Environment and MacTCP-based software will not be able to resolve hostnames. Change Log MR Browser sys6 v0.24 (2025-07-04) Refactored the chat window redraw procedure to take advantage of the passed event (since v0.22).
Fixed bug in the chat window click events (the "Send" button and two scroll bars)... now it's less janky!
Fixed bug where shadowing a window twice and activating it would only redraw the second region. MR Browser sys6 v0.23 (2025-07-03) First release that reports the operating system version and SysEnvirons(6)/GestAlt(7+) mach (model).
Fixed a bug reporting negative large drive space (mishandled signed 16-bit LongInt would wrap around). MR Browser sys6 v0.22 (2025-07-02) Added time stamps to lines in the log window to make debugging/logging faster and easier.
Refactored the window redraw procedure to pass the OS event and reduced number of useless redraws. MR Browser sys6 v0.21 (2025-06-30) Added a "Page Info" button in "Browse" that pops a window displaying the given software page description.
Bumped the max LongString length from 4K to 8K (to allow for long texts, e.g. software page descriptions).
Software page text (8K characters) is temporarily stored in system heap to fit under global var size of 32KB.
Bumped min RAM requirement to 520KB. Note that MRB6 will run with just 180KB without a startup sound.
Fixed a tiny bug that prevented CMD-W to close the "Browse" window. MR Browser sys6 v0.20 (2025-06-29) MRB6 now prevents you to start a download if you don't have enough free space. Thanks @TheJimmyJames
Added a stop download button next to the download progress bar when a file is being downloaded.
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