Apple's older software downloads down

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2014, November 9 - 1:58pm

Mk.558

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Joined: 2012 Apr 1

Apple's older software downloads down

We've had minor periods where this URL has failed to load, but it was usually brought back within a week or so.

Now it's been almost two weeks and it's down. The *only* thing I can find that gets close to it is this page: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA48312

I tried doing searches for random stuff listed there, such as looking for "quicktime mac Indeo_Video_4.smi.bin" to see what would come up with, in case the link has moved. Still nothing.

I think we need a mirror of this page. I reference it a number of times for the Guide but I may have to pull the URL off the pages. Because their robots.txt forbids crawlers, it's not backed up by archive.org or anybody else.

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2014, November 9 - 9:28pm

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Kind of looks like your Apple Support page link is referring to the old "Apple Software Updates" ftp/http pages that have since disappeared from Apple.

Fortunately there were a few mirrors made. Here's three you can bookmark:

FTP Mirror Your ORG
FTP iiNet Net AU
Max1zzz's Mirror of the ASU <--- Good ol' Max1zzz's

For the older US English Mac software, click the "English-North_American" link on each of the above and dig in.

2014, November 10 - 12:42am

Mk.558

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So this url, http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html -- how would that be different from the KB I posted? I figured the KB was basically a index page, but not the actual download page which was the oldersoftwarelist.html page.

2014, November 10 - 1:04am

(Reply to #3) #4

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Because the content of the page link you originally gave, is reporting incomplete, relative URLs to the original ftp "Apple Software Updates" site.

A public FTP site which used to be freely available on Apple's servers.

Using your own example: "quicktime mac Indeo_Video_4.smi.bin". - Viewed as:
"Macintosh/System/QuickTime/Indeo_Video_4.smi.bin", on the linked page in your OP

This would have originally pointed to this directory:
::/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/QuickTime

Now mirrored, as it is at Max1zzz's:
http://asa.max1zzz.co.uk/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/QuickTime

2014, November 10 - 2:37am

themacmeister

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Max1zzz's server is so much better than the "official" mirrors. The mirror in Australia only has OS9.0+ for international/localised.

Max1zzz's has everything from 7.5.3 up to 9.0x

Nice one Max1zzz

2014, November 10 - 5:36am

(Reply to #5) #6

MikeTomTom

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Max1zzz's has everything from 7.5.3 up to 9.0x

SSW from 6.0.3 up that is

2014, November 10 - 10:43am

themacmeister

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I didn't see Sys6 under International or Australian (actually, there is no system installers under Australian). Anything ending in Z is Australian ready tho

I have been known to miss little things like that tho...

2014, November 10 - 10:51pm

(Reply to #7) #8

MikeTomTom

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Oh, the International English users get SSW 6.0.8 and up, Aussie's zer0

2014, November 10 - 12:45pm

Mk.558

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So the official oldersoftwarelist.html -- that went down in ... last month? It wasn't that long ago. I looked around the other Mac sources and nobody seems to have mentioned it -- perhaps everybody but me knew it was coming?

2014, November 10 - 10:36pm

(Reply to #8) #10

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

No probs... A mirror for this was mentioned in here by Max1zzz in mid 2013, when things were heading south at Apple - WRT the older Apple Software Updates archive. There were mirrors out there if you knew where to look and Max1zzz had also taken it on board to archive and mirror what he could before it vanished for good.

Another person took it upon themselves to archive some of it at the Internet Archive.
~~Possibly from the lesser "::/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/" part of the archive~~ - a 7.4 GB DL... I haven't DL'd this to find out.

[Edit] You can view this archive content on-line (thanks for the clue, Balrog). It appears to be the complete Mac software part of "::/Apple_Software_Updates/" and includes international & foreign as well as US English archives. Its a good repository and should be available for years to come.

It's archivist noted, regarding the download.info.apple.com site:

Moves to App Stores and iTunes have largely precluded the future of sites like this, resulting in its discarding by Apple. This collection is meant to ensure the continued availability of the software.

The comment made in your OP:

I reference it a number of times for the Guide but I may have to pull the URL off the pages.

would be a good thing to do (or alter them to the mirrored equivalent).

2014, November 12 - 11:34pm

(Reply to #9) #11

themacmeister

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Thanks MTT. Downloading this behemoth Internet Archive zip file right now. 7.4GB is nothing in the context of keeping old Mac software and operating systems alive.

2014, November 11 - 12:57am

#12

Mk.558

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Joined: 2012 Apr 1

I do appreciate your help. Thanks a lot!

Right now I'm undecided on whether to give some hints on where to look for the stuff or just include it all in the Download Town. The 7.5.3 CD Install is kind of big though. Advice? I still have time before I release the next version.

2014, November 11 - 1:28am

(Reply to #11) #13

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

There are a lot of 7.5.3 entries mentioned at the Garden, so you'll need to supply a current link.

2014, November 11 - 6:54pm

#14

Balrog

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Try this: https://ia700607.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/22/items/download.info....

To get to that, just put a / after the download link for the .zip. This works for most IA filetypes, including .iso.

Also for ftp.apple.com it's there as part of https://archive.org/details/ftpsites_mirrors.vanadac.com .

2014, November 11 - 9:41pm

(Reply to #13) #15

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Thanks for that info, Balrog. I've only noticed too, the "Contents" link next to the archive DL file size on the item page, does the same thing (adds "/" after the link) and displays the entire content without needing to DL humongous archives. You can also use this to direct-download individual items from an archive, so that's pretty cool.

The mirrors.vanadac collection is huge! Some very interesting archives in there. Of the ftp.apple.com part, it appears to be for "ftp.apple.com/developer" only. Which in itself, is a good thing to have archived & available.

2014, November 13 - 6:00am

#16

sfp1954

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Joined: 2013 Dec 29

Is Panther gone as well?
I installed 10.3.0 on an old 400 MHz Titanium and when I ran Software Update I got the "your software is up to date" message.

2014, November 13 - 5:41pm

(Reply to #16) #17

IIGS_User

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Joined: 2009 Apr 8

Seems they rmvd this from the Software Update, but it's still available on their server:

Apple.com/Support/Mac OS X Combined Update 10.3.9

The Combo 10.2.8 Update is still available, too.

It's time to rescue the files, I think.

2014, November 13 - 7:41pm

#18

sfp1954

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I have those posted here.
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc

I'm talking about all the other updates that would have been done automatically.
Java - Safari...

2014, November 14 - 2:09pm

#19

Mk.558

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Thread on 68kmla: https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/24063-apple-older-software-do...

Someone says the links still work, just the page is down. Can't see the page in the WayBack Machine because of that blasted robots.txt file.

I always keep 10.2.8 Combo and 10.4.11 Update on any machine that runs those versions. Any time the OS starts acting up, just re-update it. (Same process works for 7.5.5 Update, 7.6.1, 8.1, 8.6, 9.x, ...)