I need to be able to connect to an old iMac running 10.4.11 with a video-chat application (from a 10.8.5 computer) to keep an eye on things at home, so I'd like it to have an auto-answer feature. Skype doesn't work on this OS anymore; any ideas?
Is the old iMac PowerPC-based? Is it possible to upgrade the OS beyond 10.4.11? Does it have a built-in web cam, or an external one?
iChat was included with Mac OS X 10.4.11. The equivalent app in OS X 10.8.5 is Messages. I haven't tried, but many things still work between my El Capitan (10.11.3) Mac and my old PowerBook running Tiger (10.4.11), such as screen sharing. So, maybe video chat still works too.
FYI - I just tried setting up and using text-based chat between my 10.4.11 Mac (using iChat) and 10.11.3 Mac (using Messages), and it worked over the Bonjour connection. I don't have a camera on either the older Mac or the newer Mac (a Mac mini), so I can't try video chat.
It's a PPC, and I am trying to update it to 10.5 but having many other problems with that strategy, which is why I was hoping for a video-chat solution that worked down to 10.4. It has a built-in camera, which is what I want to use.
Hi
Try this site for olde version of Skype, if this will work for you.
I've got the old version running; the problem is that the old version no longer connects - it runs, but it can't connect to the Skype servers because they don't support it any more. Anyone have a solution to that?
Wow!
I was not aware of this fact!
Microsoft bought Skype back in either 2010 or 2011.
They probably did away with allowing older Skype versions to work on their networks.
Bummer.
The only other option I can give you is what about using Yahoo's own online messenger app/service, as at the time my Wife to be and I were communicating from across states, The older Yahoo messenger app that links with their online web messenger service has both live audio and video capability.
I bought Logitech webcams for our older Mac and PC and installed mine here in Northern, MA and then drove to her location near the coast of CT tomsetup her webcam so we could video chat using Yahoo Messenger from our respective apartments.
You might to try a search to see if you can find the old OS X app for this.
I was using this app and online service with an older Mac on OS X 10.5 Leopard.
The old app may be compatible with OS X 10.4 Tiger.
Found older Yahoo Messenger app for your older Mac and OS X Tiger.
I don't have a link anymore, but there was a hack to change the version# inside PPC Skype to get it to work last I heard...
Skype (v.5 or later) is for Intel Macs running OS 10.5.8 or above only.
And from September 2014 no more Skype for PPC Macs:
See this post from Andyyyyyy for a possible way of getting round that:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6537913
Perhaps you had the disgusting experience of Skype cutting off your service if you were running version 2.8 because it's cleaner than the current spammy crappy versions or because you have a PowerPC (PPC) mac that can only run this earlier version, or whatever your reason, and you have been informed that MS / Skype will no longer work on your computer. I am practicing my best restraint here not to use all the 4-letter words that came to my mind when MS did this and screwed us.
It took a lot of searching, but I found a work-around that solves the problem for the time being. You have to edit a .plist file so that the Skype server thinks you are running a modern version when you are actually still running 2.8. Here is how to do it:
I will write up the geeky way that definitely worked. You may be able to accomplish the same thing using the Finder, Show Package Contents, and an editor like TextEdit, but I ran into permission problems when I tried that, so I switched to doing this through the Unix terminal and this worked fine.
1) make sure Skype is not running (Quit if it is) and run /Applications/Utilities/Terminal. From there....
2) cd /Applications/Skype.app/Contents/ (if this is where your Skype is)
3) ls (this (LS in lower case) will list the components there, and you can confirm that one is named Info.plist)
4) sudo vi Info.plist (this opens Info.plist in the vi editor) you will need to type your admin user password.
5) /2.8 <return> (this searches for and finds an instance of 2.8 in the file, so you can edit it and change it to the currently "acceptable" skype version)
6) type the letter i. this puts you in insert mode and you can edit the file.
7) replace whatever 2.8 version you have with 6.15.0.334
8) type <esc> to exit insert mode
9) repeat steps 5-8 until you have replaced all instances of the 2.8 version number. (I found 3)
10) after done editing, type :wq (this saves the file and quits the editor
11) launch Skype, and you should be good to go!
On some later versions of Mac OS X, the package contents are more challenging to access, but you can search for how to do that, separately. The main take home from this is that you need to edit the Info.plist file in package contents of the Skype application and change the version number from 2.8.0.866 (or whatever version you have) to 6.15.0.334 (of whatever version skype is now requiring). There are other terminal editors, such as "nano" and "pico" that you can use instead of "vi". Please post other methods to accomplish this in a more streamlined way if you find something that works better for you.
Mac OS X (10.5.8), PowerPC
Need skype-like app with auto-answer for 10.4.11
