Thread
Use PowerPC for a week?
With the latest PPC Flash player (modified to report the latest version number of its Intel counterpart) and TenFourFox, my 1.33 GHz 12" PBG4 running Leopard was quite competent, if not somewhat pokey.
I used Safari to play normal YouTube (because TTF won't), and it worked surprisingly well (with the quality settings at minimum, of course), and VLC to play everything else (which did well except for some really big HD720 stuff).
While I'd rather not use it for daily stuff, I probably could if I had no other choice, since it does pretty much 95% of what I'd want a computer to do.
The only big thing I'd miss is the inability to run Pro Tools or any other high-end, relatively current DAW software. I suppose I could find an old version of PT for PPC, though, but it's not worth the bother for me (for now).
c
I used Safari to play normal YouTube (because TTF won't), and it worked surprisingly well (with the quality settings at minimum, of course), and VLC to play everything else (which did well except for some really big HD720 stuff).
While I'd rather not use it for daily stuff, I probably could if I had no other choice, since it does pretty much 95% of what I'd want a computer to do.
The only big thing I'd miss is the inability to run Pro Tools or any other high-end, relatively current DAW software. I suppose I could find an old version of PT for PPC, though, but it's not worth the bother for me (for now).
c
The stomping of the various YT frontends was a direct result of the API changeover, yes... a month ago, they all still worked. I hate Youtube a whole lot, not gonna lie.
But anyway, pertaining to the original subject matter, whilst not wanting to detract from the intent, this isnt as much of a challenge as it might seem. Any new-world G3/4/5 machine can be used fairly functionally still if it has the resources to run 10.4 or if you are willing to run OS9 or programs in Classic mode.
Due to the number of die-hard PPC advocates, there are a lot of open-source solutions around still being developed particularly for the G5 world where the abrupt Intel switch and subsequent rapid deprecation of support by Apple and third party vendors hit hardest. Indeed the G5 is still a quick machine 10 years later and I use a 2.0 Dual-Core daily, with the only problem I face (aside from the small, and in my applications irrelevant, issue of security risks) is that I can't use Skype, and that really isnt a problem either as I stopped using it around 7 years ago anyway. As far as video-editing, Youtube playback, browsing etc goes, it's a walk in the park, and many other things are just as much a breeze with a multi-core or multi-CPU G5-based machine. So whilst this would be your best bet for pure functionality, as far as being a challenge goes, it really is a bit of a non-event.
Any faster G4-based machine set up right can still be fairly comfortably used as they will run 10.4 fairly well and therefore it is still fairly easy to find relatively current or still-maintained software in the open-source spaces, You can still do most things, although Youtube will likely be a bit of a dog on the slower end of the quick G4 machines... other than that though it still will be not overly challenging with fairly basic needs in mind, simply a little slower than you are used to. Slower G4-based machines or the quicker G3 machines are a bit more borderline, simply by virtue of 10.4 runs terribly on slower machines particularly those with modest graphics performance. That being said, I only recently retired my Yikes G4 to secondary duties as it still performed well until the web got so fat that I needed TFF or Clasilla to browse it, which required 10.4, which is quite a poor experience even with a 500Mhz Sonnet upgrade and RAM maxed to 1Gb. Add to that, TFF was unstable at the time, and Classic mode is messy in my eyes, as is dual-booting, I simply opted to replace it rather than get Classilla. That being said, if it werent for that personal hang upI would still probably have kept it in service. As for video-editing, well... that's what I used it and my B+W tower for and they did the job well and still would now within reason, given enough hard drive and RAM to do so.
If you wanted a particularly challenging challenge that is still , I would suggest either using a 600Mhz G3 iMac or icebook as they give you a reasonable (by G3 standards) level of performance, and are bootable from OS9 to OS X10.4 meaning you have a fair scope of versatility with which to taylor the machine to meet your desired outcome, whilst still running within some fairly restrictive and largely insurmountable hardware limitations that will test your ability to set the machine up efficiently and also test your patience during the usage period.
That being said, as I said there are lots of options available to keep some very old machines viable so whilst not wanting to play down your intentions, it isnt so much the actual use of the machine that would be the challenge, but more setting it up to acheive the desired outcomes with reasonable efficieny and reliability. For what it is worth my 17 year old Powermac 9600 is still a fast and sturdy machine for daily use with some well-selected upgrades and software and has the ability to do most things I do with the G5 on a daily basis (not Youtube just yet)... even to edit video if I really please. Hell, I used a 7600 for exactly that task many years ago.
Nowadays, the use of the machine is really not a challenging experience as under OS9 it is nearly as fast as the G5, and I actually use the 9600 regularly. However setting it up to be a functional secondary daily driven machine would have been the challenging part if I had to do it all from scratch (which luckily I didnt entirely have to), as even the simplest of upgrades that make this machine a weapon (like say finding 512Mb of RAM for a beige Powermac are hard to get.
That being said, if you were to use a PM6360 for say a month for your daily computing without chucking it out the window, I'm sure I would not be the only person here whom would be suitably impressed.
ANyway.... there is some dreary 7am sentiment to chew on anyway.
But anyway, pertaining to the original subject matter, whilst not wanting to detract from the intent, this isnt as much of a challenge as it might seem. Any new-world G3/4/5 machine can be used fairly functionally still if it has the resources to run 10.4 or if you are willing to run OS9 or programs in Classic mode.
Due to the number of die-hard PPC advocates, there are a lot of open-source solutions around still being developed particularly for the G5 world where the abrupt Intel switch and subsequent rapid deprecation of support by Apple and third party vendors hit hardest. Indeed the G5 is still a quick machine 10 years later and I use a 2.0 Dual-Core daily, with the only problem I face (aside from the small, and in my applications irrelevant, issue of security risks) is that I can't use Skype, and that really isnt a problem either as I stopped using it around 7 years ago anyway. As far as video-editing, Youtube playback, browsing etc goes, it's a walk in the park, and many other things are just as much a breeze with a multi-core or multi-CPU G5-based machine. So whilst this would be your best bet for pure functionality, as far as being a challenge goes, it really is a bit of a non-event.
Any faster G4-based machine set up right can still be fairly comfortably used as they will run 10.4 fairly well and therefore it is still fairly easy to find relatively current or still-maintained software in the open-source spaces, You can still do most things, although Youtube will likely be a bit of a dog on the slower end of the quick G4 machines... other than that though it still will be not overly challenging with fairly basic needs in mind, simply a little slower than you are used to. Slower G4-based machines or the quicker G3 machines are a bit more borderline, simply by virtue of 10.4 runs terribly on slower machines particularly those with modest graphics performance. That being said, I only recently retired my Yikes G4 to secondary duties as it still performed well until the web got so fat that I needed TFF or Clasilla to browse it, which required 10.4, which is quite a poor experience even with a 500Mhz Sonnet upgrade and RAM maxed to 1Gb. Add to that, TFF was unstable at the time, and Classic mode is messy in my eyes, as is dual-booting, I simply opted to replace it rather than get Classilla. That being said, if it werent for that personal hang upI would still probably have kept it in service. As for video-editing, well... that's what I used it and my B+W tower for and they did the job well and still would now within reason, given enough hard drive and RAM to do so.
If you wanted a particularly challenging challenge that is still , I would suggest either using a 600Mhz G3 iMac or icebook as they give you a reasonable (by G3 standards) level of performance, and are bootable from OS9 to OS X10.4 meaning you have a fair scope of versatility with which to taylor the machine to meet your desired outcome, whilst still running within some fairly restrictive and largely insurmountable hardware limitations that will test your ability to set the machine up efficiently and also test your patience during the usage period.
That being said, as I said there are lots of options available to keep some very old machines viable so whilst not wanting to play down your intentions, it isnt so much the actual use of the machine that would be the challenge, but more setting it up to acheive the desired outcomes with reasonable efficieny and reliability. For what it is worth my 17 year old Powermac 9600 is still a fast and sturdy machine for daily use with some well-selected upgrades and software and has the ability to do most things I do with the G5 on a daily basis (not Youtube just yet)... even to edit video if I really please. Hell, I used a 7600 for exactly that task many years ago.
Nowadays, the use of the machine is really not a challenging experience as under OS9 it is nearly as fast as the G5, and I actually use the 9600 regularly. However setting it up to be a functional secondary daily driven machine would have been the challenging part if I had to do it all from scratch (which luckily I didnt entirely have to), as even the simplest of upgrades that make this machine a weapon (like say finding 512Mb of RAM for a beige Powermac are hard to get.That being said, if you were to use a PM6360 for say a month for your daily computing without chucking it out the window, I'm sure I would not be the only person here whom would be suitably impressed.
ANyway.... there is some dreary 7am sentiment to chew on anyway.
What about http://www.gainsaver.com/catalog/Detail.aspx?&CCode=1015^Apple&CCode=3398^Mac+Laptops&ACode=G4&CCode=3407^PowerBooks&cICode=43669 (US$100), then upgrade with http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/133SO512328L/ (US$16) and a Seagate 100GB 5400RPM ATA/IDE drive for US$25 on eBay. US$141. Sell the old iBook G3 (700MHz, Opaque 16 VRAM) that I have and make US$70, and the cost drops to US$71!
Then I'll challenge myself to do everything I do (including video editing!) on this 13-year-old machine!
Edit: And I can always sell it if I want to upgrade!
Edit #2: Oh, and I'll sell the 30GB hard drive it comes with. Another US$15-20, bringing the cost down to US$55-ish.
Then I'll challenge myself to do everything I do (including video editing!) on this 13-year-old machine!
Edit: And I can always sell it if I want to upgrade!
Edit #2: Oh, and I'll sell the 30GB hard drive it comes with. Another US$15-20, bringing the cost down to US$55-ish.
I used my 1 GHz TiBook for awhile, but it got rather frustrating, because it kept kernel panicking if I did anything intensive (which brought up the temperatures, making me think it's a BGA solder issue).
When it worked, it was decent (and it played SD video rather well).
c
When it worked, it was decent (and it played SD video rather well).
c
My main machine is an upgraded Quicksilver G4, which I am using right now. With a 1.6ghz 7447A, a SATA card( with 10000rpm WD's), a Radeon 9000 and an usb card, it can handle youtube very well by using ClickToPlugin's HTML5 player in up to 480p, handle facebook and manage my ipod 4. It satisfies me :b&w: .
For what it is worth you likely will not hate the experience as much as you might expect if you play your cards right with the initial setup... I actually go out of my way to use the 9600 for a lot of things, simply because I can, and there is period or even current software available that does most things I want it to fairly quickly and efficiently. With a later machine you have a lot more in the way of system resources to play with, and with most older G4 machines you have the option of using Mac OS 9 which can actually streamline things quite a bit.
9.2.2 should fly along beautifully on the 1.0 Ti... not entirely sure about Leopard's performance however. I know as much as it will run, however it may be a little painful as I don't beleive the Ti runs a hugely powerful graphics controller. It would help to turn off some of the UI graphics effects to speed it up a little. Bear in mind that leopard does not support Classic mode, so you must actually boot into OS9 entirely to use it.
Yes, advantage of a TiBook! Also, 100GB is overkill for OS 9, but just enough for Leopard. *And* I can run my library of old Mac software (1983/4-1999 I think, maybe later than '99) on a blazing fast G4 chip (emulating a 68LC040). It'd be funny to run MacWrite on a Quad 2.5GHz G5!
If you haven't already bought a TiBook, don't. They're very pretty, but they're a pain to take apart and maintain and they're quite physically unreliable. I also never found them to be faster at Mac OS 9 (or really, even at OS X) than the PowerBook G3. The one exception is if I created a really huge scene in a 3d rendering app, but even then, that's the kind of thing that if you can swing it, you should do on some kind of desktop anyway.
Also, if you need an optical drive for a PPC Mac, spend the money on a firewire one. It's not easy or convenient to boot from a USB optical drive on a PPC Mac, even if they work for other tasks.
In terms of OS X as "retrochallenge:" *yawn*
One of the things that has bothered me about Mac OS X on late PowerPC hardware for a really long time (before I became aware of the security concerns (please dont' reply to those insanely old threads)) is that it's not really that different from Mac OS X on Intel-based hardware, and to be honest, I really don't think it's a very big challenge.
Yeah, you're dealing with the fact that PPC hardware is slow and insufficient for the absolute dog that is Mac OS X, and that it also happens to be poorly supported by slimmer, more efficient, and better operating systems, such as Linux and BSD.
To me, a real "retrochallenge" (and even this isn't very exciting) would be to go all the way back to Mac OS 9 (preferably on a G3 of some sort, but that's a personal preference) or to a really early PowerPC computer, something that won't even run Mac OS 9 very well.
The first retrochallenge had a single simple rule: ten years or older. Unfortunately today that means I could put Windows 8.1U1 on a Pentium 4 and just do all the things I do now, on a bigger and louder computer, slightly slower computer.
The current retrochallenge stuff (which seems to focus less on Macs, in part because fewer Mac users are interested in it) is focused a lot more on doing creative things with old computers, and it appears that most people believe the "endurance" challenge to be pretty boring.
Also, if you need an optical drive for a PPC Mac, spend the money on a firewire one. It's not easy or convenient to boot from a USB optical drive on a PPC Mac, even if they work for other tasks.
In terms of OS X as "retrochallenge:" *yawn*
One of the things that has bothered me about Mac OS X on late PowerPC hardware for a really long time (before I became aware of the security concerns (please dont' reply to those insanely old threads)) is that it's not really that different from Mac OS X on Intel-based hardware, and to be honest, I really don't think it's a very big challenge.
Yeah, you're dealing with the fact that PPC hardware is slow and insufficient for the absolute dog that is Mac OS X, and that it also happens to be poorly supported by slimmer, more efficient, and better operating systems, such as Linux and BSD.
To me, a real "retrochallenge" (and even this isn't very exciting) would be to go all the way back to Mac OS 9 (preferably on a G3 of some sort, but that's a personal preference) or to a really early PowerPC computer, something that won't even run Mac OS 9 very well.
The first retrochallenge had a single simple rule: ten years or older. Unfortunately today that means I could put Windows 8.1U1 on a Pentium 4 and just do all the things I do now, on a bigger and louder computer, slightly slower computer.
The current retrochallenge stuff (which seems to focus less on Macs, in part because fewer Mac users are interested in it) is focused a lot more on doing creative things with old computers, and it appears that most people believe the "endurance" challenge to be pretty boring.
Really not much of a challenge. I did just this (involuntarily) last month, and it really wasn't too painful. My Retina MacBook died (the backlight would come on, the fans would spin up, it got hot, but other than that it did nothing) so I took it to Apple for repair. That took a week. Given that I've given my Air to my wife, and my BlackBook to my mother, I needed a notebook for work. That left only my old 667MHz TiBook, chipped paint, dents and all. It started first time - and, after a few hours plugged into the mains, it even retained a charge.
Sure, it was a little slow - but I was able to load my core work tools (Safari, BBEdit, Microsoft Office, Xcode (in a limited fashion) and iTunes for Music). I had to wait until the Retina was back before doing any Windows compiles - but other than that it was fine.
I'm kind of used to these shenanigans anyway because I use my SE/30 for preference for text editing and even some shell scripting (woo! A/UX!). I find the little 9" screen very work-friendly. It's so small that there is absolutely no temptation whatsoever to load distractions into other windows. Just the one work window, no messing.
Sure, it was a little slow - but I was able to load my core work tools (Safari, BBEdit, Microsoft Office, Xcode (in a limited fashion) and iTunes for Music). I had to wait until the Retina was back before doing any Windows compiles - but other than that it was fine.
I'm kind of used to these shenanigans anyway because I use my SE/30 for preference for text editing and even some shell scripting (woo! A/UX!). I find the little 9" screen very work-friendly. It's so small that there is absolutely no temptation whatsoever to load distractions into other windows. Just the one work window, no messing.
For reasons already mentioned by Cory5412, I have difficulty considering machines running older versions of Mac OS X to be "retro" anything, and I don't find the idea of using it to be particularly challenging or interesting, but I have been putting some thought lately into what is and isn't possible (or reasonable) in Mac OS 9 today. If MacSSH had UTF-8 translation, I could probably take that particular "challenge" without too much frustration.
I was challenged to up the ante and use my LCIII for a couple of days. With Mulberry, BBEdit and MS Office I was able to work quite happily - although I did later run into some difficulty when importing my older MS Office work directly into the latest version.
I used Gopher instead of www, and when I did www it was in text only using Lynx. Mulberry handled my email, and Fetch shuttled my work onto newer computers when it was time to return to the modern day.
Honestly, it still wasn't too much of a challenge. The biggest problem came when I discovered that (ahem) I'd forgotten to uninstall lemmings!
I used Gopher instead of www, and when I did www it was in text only using Lynx. Mulberry handled my email, and Fetch shuttled my work onto newer computers when it was time to return to the modern day.
Honestly, it still wasn't too much of a challenge. The biggest problem came when I discovered that (ahem) I'd forgotten to uninstall lemmings!
Totally possible, but slow. When I interned at the local newspaper office where I wrote articles on a Mac mini powered by a G4 processor (it was the original MacMini from 2005.) While it was extremely slow (although many times faster than a similarly aged IBM desktop model running Windows XP) it still got the work done, and I could fairly decently access the internet using the thing without any major problems. It rendered most websites correctly with some minor issues (due to either the low resolution of the CRT monitor it was connected to, or the old OS and processor that could not handle newer web standards.) When my internship was up this Spring, it still purred along nicely.
The transfer from PowerPC to Intel processors didn't happen too terribly long ago, only nine to ten years ago. It's not like when they switched from 68k to PowerPC, which would make more of a challenge but still (mostly) do-able with some tasks.
The transfer from PowerPC to Intel processors didn't happen too terribly long ago, only nine to ten years ago. It's not like when they switched from 68k to PowerPC, which would make more of a challenge but still (mostly) do-able with some tasks.
I was actually saying that I'm interested in the general idea for Mac OS 9 (but not for OS X). While I would probably not do a formalized "challenge," I am casually experimenting with which tasks can be reasonably accomplished on a Mac OS 9 machine and which can't. People whose primary computing language uses the Roman alphabet can get away with offloading some of the more difficult to a shell server and using MacSSH. For non-Roman locales, using a legacy character encoding works for localized messages, but UTF-8 filenames cannot be easily read. MacSSH is open-source, though, so that could change!
I don't find it at all a challenge to use OS9 for most tasks... as mentioned earlier in the thread, I use my (admittedly slightly tickled but still thoroughly obsolescent by 3 hardware generations) 9600 very regularly with 9.2 and a modest G3 upgrade. Realistically under 80% of situations it does anything I would expect of the G5 just somewhat slower... but even in saying that, it isnt a huge arrow to the knee given that the G5 has 6 times the 4-5 times the RAM, bus bandwidth and raw processing speed (not even accounting for the inherent improvements in actual architecture... Obviously the 9600 would be slow as balls if I were to run 10.2 (which is installed and possible to boot from but I have zero inclination to do so as if I wanted to use a totally abandoned version of OSX I can boot up my iMac's, Yikes, G3, or Sawtooth), but under a "classic" operating system and running software designed for it, it is capable and pretty damn fast.
For what it is worth I could theoretically use it for everything and it wouldnt really be too much of a problem, as there are legacy applications that do thye job well for any productive task i might need to undertake, and Classilla makes for a very capable web-browsing platform. That said, Youtube is a problem and certain modern pages are very resource heavy or just dont play well (TC forums for instance, operate terribly in Classilla). And add to that my entire 2 and a half week long music library is stored on my hard drive, and while this would be theoretically possible on the 9600, the 36Gb cap on SCSI hard disks would make it impractical to store all my music locally, and whilst using a firewire drive is an option as it has a firewire card, it is messy... vs just tossing a pair of 500Gb HDD's in the G5 and never having storage concerns for another 10 years.
As for the G5 itself, I consider it to be a fairly pedestrian feat using it as a daily machine. The only issue (if you can call it an issue) I have encountered is the inability to use Skype as of last year, which isnt a major concern as I havent used it in years as I always hated how slow and buggy it always tended to be in it's early days, and Australian telecommunications infrastructure is crap anyway so connection issues always made the experience suck. I have Skype on my iPhone anyway and I still dont use it. The only other major issue is the inability to back up my iPhone to the G5 since iOS 7 reuires iTunes 11 which is unavailable for PPC... again this is an annoyance, but can be worked around by either buying a $50 Windows machine for the task or going PCless and using iCloud. Aside from these two issues, using my G5 daily is really no different to using my housemates 3 month old laptop, except that the user experience is IMO, nicer on my Mac. Speedwise, there is really no difference, and there is an older version of a commercial app, or an open-source or freeware sollution to almost everything I will use the machine for. I could buy an iTrashcan tomorrow and realistically it wouldn't be expected to do anything my G5 doesnt do sterlingly already.
Is the objective of this challenge to use the PPC hardware, or use retro software?
My Dual 1 GHz MDD G4 running Lubuntu 14.04 PPC is a competent machine. Current mainline builds of Firefox with HTML5 means it's usable. For non-web tasks, it's surprisingly snappy -- much more than OS 10.3 or .4 ever was.
My Dual 1 GHz MDD G4 running Lubuntu 14.04 PPC is a competent machine. Current mainline builds of Firefox with HTML5 means it's usable. For non-web tasks, it's surprisingly snappy -- much more than OS 10.3 or .4 ever was.
In my mind, "put Ubuntu on a Power Mac G4" isn't really very exciting. It would have qualified for the first RetroChallenge, but it seems like RC has become more project-based. The entries I've seen over the past few years have involved restorations, learning how to do a certain task, or programming things. The person who hosts it does a lot of things with DEC systems, too, but I also see a lot of stuff being done with 8 and 16-bit microcomputers.
The RetroChallenge rules now explicitly say that a computer that "can run Windows XP" is probably too new. A lot of really old things from 1996 will happily run Windows XP, so I think that gives you an idea of what they're expecting. They say exceptions can be made for things that are exotic, but I'm thinking that that would involve something like "building a Briel repica 1!" or doing a project on something that almost nobody has in their home.
I personally wouldn't count anything NewWorld at all, on the Mac side of things.
It can be interesting to match old hardware with new software (or the reverse!) but it can be a little anti-climactic. The whole point of the RetroChallenge was to push boundaries and get people excited about older computers. (It was probably one of the first things 68kMLA did that acknowledged 68k Macs as something that might not be totally practical as every-day main computers any longer.)
Ultimately, if your needs are the same today as they were ten to fifteen years ago, then that's fine, but when I see this kind of thread where somebody wants to use a PowerPC Mac for any length of time as a "challenge" all I can think is what if I did the same thing with my Microsoft Surface RT (2012, but really slow), or my ThinkPad X31 (2003). I ruminate on it for a moment and then realize that it would be like my daily life.
That said, as IPalindromeI alluded to, the 68kMLA is really focused more on 68k Macs. We expanded a few years ago, and to be honest, I would personally like to contract back again -- possibly limit to beige/oldworld PowerPCs and Mac OS 9. (Due to connectivity, Mac OS 9 might actually be an interesting productivity challenge, but it depends on how/where/with-whom you work, and one of the original stipulations of the RetoChallenge Endurance "Competition" was that you could use work-provided resources for work purposes without an impact on your score.)
SCSI itself also isn't limited to 36 gigabytes, but SCSI disks bigger that can be somewhat difficult to find, as most of them are probably being snapped up by people with systems where a SATA or IDE card isn't a practical choice.
The RetroChallenge rules now explicitly say that a computer that "can run Windows XP" is probably too new. A lot of really old things from 1996 will happily run Windows XP, so I think that gives you an idea of what they're expecting. They say exceptions can be made for things that are exotic, but I'm thinking that that would involve something like "building a Briel repica 1!" or doing a project on something that almost nobody has in their home.
I personally wouldn't count anything NewWorld at all, on the Mac side of things.
It can be interesting to match old hardware with new software (or the reverse!) but it can be a little anti-climactic. The whole point of the RetroChallenge was to push boundaries and get people excited about older computers. (It was probably one of the first things 68kMLA did that acknowledged 68k Macs as something that might not be totally practical as every-day main computers any longer.)
Ultimately, if your needs are the same today as they were ten to fifteen years ago, then that's fine, but when I see this kind of thread where somebody wants to use a PowerPC Mac for any length of time as a "challenge" all I can think is what if I did the same thing with my Microsoft Surface RT (2012, but really slow), or my ThinkPad X31 (2003). I ruminate on it for a moment and then realize that it would be like my daily life.
That said, as IPalindromeI alluded to, the 68kMLA is really focused more on 68k Macs. We expanded a few years ago, and to be honest, I would personally like to contract back again -- possibly limit to beige/oldworld PowerPCs and Mac OS 9. (Due to connectivity, Mac OS 9 might actually be an interesting productivity challenge, but it depends on how/where/with-whom you work, and one of the original stipulations of the RetoChallenge Endurance "Competition" was that you could use work-provided resources for work purposes without an impact on your score.)
There are SATA cards that'll happily run the biggest SATA disks you can find in beige PowerPCs. If you use Mac OS 8.1 or newer you can use HFS+ to make very large volumes efficiently.
SCSI itself also isn't limited to 36 gigabytes, but SCSI disks bigger that can be somewhat difficult to find, as most of them are probably being snapped up by people with systems where a SATA or IDE card isn't a practical choice.
I've done this several times. My 700mhz g3 iMac is a fully featured machine, as far as I'm concerned. Especially since its maxed out in RAM. OS9 has all you need, especially on the abandonware front. The only place that its really lacking is with the web browser. And even that is doable -with Classilla I can at least read most of the news sites I read, a lot of my forums (I haven't tried this one - yet), email is a cinch with gmail's HTML-based version, wikipedia loads well. Thats why I've held onto the g3. Good, working piece of hardware.
This page is as good on my souped-up G3-powered 9600 as it is on my G5 so I doubt you will have any dramas on the iMac
TC is a bit boggy in Classilla but then I don't have huge expectations of nearly 20 year old hardware heheh. For what it's worth, to a point you can still find a way around most things on old hardware other than some specific tasks that require specific pieces of software that just arent supported due to inadequate hardware or deliberate deprecation... ie. Skype. For most general tasks though, older hardware is fine if you are comfortable with the slower pace and aware of the security risks and tailor your use accordingly.I truly admire your patience. I ditched my PowerLogix upgraded 8600 in 2003 after I got my tangerine iMac G3 400 MHz.This page is as good on my souped-up G3-powered 9600 as it is on my G5 so I doubt you will have any dramas on the iMac
These days, I'm completely spoiled with my 4.5 GHz 4690k on SSD with Arch Linux.
The funny thing is: this overclocked monster gaming PC is the first machine I've had that boots as fast as a IIcx or SE/30 with System 6.0.8.
For those talking about YouTube performance on PowerPC, have any of you tried ClickToFlash with the latest Leopard-Webkit release? It allows direct playback of h.264 video natively when available, bypassing flash and poorly-optimized HTML5 players completely. I've had very good luck with it on my trusty 12" PowerBook G4 (1.33), I'd recommend it to anyone trying to play back internet video on a PowerPC machine.
Are there any video downloading tools that run on MacPPC?
Back when I had a slow Internet connection, I'd use 4kVideoDownloader to save videos both so I could watch them (if I were the type of person who loops songs over and over again *shifty-eyes*) and so that I can watch a higher quality version without buffering. It's not ideal in terms of workflow if what you wanted to do was just let a playlist or the auto-play guide you through the night, but it's also not really that bad.
Thinking about performance: I recently pulled out nachibes, a ThinkPad X31 named after a typo I make extremely commonly while using my phone to access #68kmla on oshaberi. That system has Windows 7, Office 2010, IE9, Spotify, and Google Chrome. For the most part, it does everything I need. Despite shipping in April 2003, it's fairly sprightly.
Just in the realm of performance, it's so much better than a PowerBook from the same time. I'm not going to start converting my DNGs on it, but there's no real reason why I couldn't, either. I don't exactly like doing to lots of big web sites on it, but it does work. I use the thing basically as a counter top or sideboard computer, often to keep a presence on IRC if I'm playing a game, but it's small enough that I can use it for an Excel copy of a character sheet during an in-person gaming session, or (if I know power will be available) it's a great system for on-the-go tasks, especially because Office 2010 does a really good job of locally caching my SharePoint document libraries.
It's faster than my T30 too, so this thing should do a lot better than any PowerBook or iBook ever released.
Is it possible that a PowerBook is more fun? It depends. I had a lot of fun with my Pismo, and I get some use out of my 180 and 1400, but I (have probably said this before) don't really get anything out of late PPC. There's some nostalgia there, but given that I was there, and the machine I used a (a 1GHz PowerBook G4) was so bad, it's not exactly an experience I have a whole lot of wish to re-live. perhaps in a few more years I will, but we'll see.
Of course, if you take the view that these machines can do anything they could do when they were launched, then it's not like anything is lost, because Dropbox wasn't invented until 2009, and YouTube wasn't created until 2005, and although PPC machines were still being built, that's so close to the end as to be on the line in such a way that I'm not that sad about the loss of it. (In part because while I'd network a PPC Mac, I would not put it on my main LAN or the greater Internet.)
Back when I had a slow Internet connection, I'd use 4kVideoDownloader to save videos both so I could watch them (if I were the type of person who loops songs over and over again *shifty-eyes*) and so that I can watch a higher quality version without buffering. It's not ideal in terms of workflow if what you wanted to do was just let a playlist or the auto-play guide you through the night, but it's also not really that bad.
Thinking about performance: I recently pulled out nachibes, a ThinkPad X31 named after a typo I make extremely commonly while using my phone to access #68kmla on oshaberi. That system has Windows 7, Office 2010, IE9, Spotify, and Google Chrome. For the most part, it does everything I need. Despite shipping in April 2003, it's fairly sprightly.
Just in the realm of performance, it's so much better than a PowerBook from the same time. I'm not going to start converting my DNGs on it, but there's no real reason why I couldn't, either. I don't exactly like doing to lots of big web sites on it, but it does work. I use the thing basically as a counter top or sideboard computer, often to keep a presence on IRC if I'm playing a game, but it's small enough that I can use it for an Excel copy of a character sheet during an in-person gaming session, or (if I know power will be available) it's a great system for on-the-go tasks, especially because Office 2010 does a really good job of locally caching my SharePoint document libraries.
It's faster than my T30 too, so this thing should do a lot better than any PowerBook or iBook ever released.
Is it possible that a PowerBook is more fun? It depends. I had a lot of fun with my Pismo, and I get some use out of my 180 and 1400, but I (have probably said this before) don't really get anything out of late PPC. There's some nostalgia there, but given that I was there, and the machine I used a (a 1GHz PowerBook G4) was so bad, it's not exactly an experience I have a whole lot of wish to re-live. perhaps in a few more years I will, but we'll see.
Of course, if you take the view that these machines can do anything they could do when they were launched, then it's not like anything is lost, because Dropbox wasn't invented until 2009, and YouTube wasn't created until 2005, and although PPC machines were still being built, that's so close to the end as to be on the line in such a way that I'm not that sad about the loss of it. (In part because while I'd network a PPC Mac, I would not put it on my main LAN or the greater Internet.)
I've been using a G5 for upwards of 1 1/2 months now, and I tell you, it works great if I'm not in a hurry.
If I need to get something done quickly, it has trouble keeping up. But it is quite tolerable.
This is a first gen DP 2.0 GHz, by the way. I have a Quad, but the LCS is out for repair, otherwise I would've used that instead (and probably would've had a better experience).
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If I need to get something done quickly, it has trouble keeping up. But it is quite tolerable.
This is a first gen DP 2.0 GHz, by the way. I have a Quad, but the LCS is out for repair, otherwise I would've used that instead (and probably would've had a better experience).
c
My folks were using a G4 mini 1.42GHz with 1GB RAM, 160GB HD as a daily driver until a couple months ago. It's now been relegated to their industrial sewing/repair business for iPhoto-- before and after photos are invaluable. I just keep having to set their cameras to 4MP... That mini hates 12MP JPEGs. It just flies once I scale the images down and 4MP is more than ample resolution. I may just build an Automator workflow that downscales the gigantic images upon import.
My mother uses PowerPC all the time, as a full-time personal computer! She has a MDD G4 running OS 10.4, and uses Firefox/Camino/Thunderbird/Netscape with minimal problems. I keep trying to get her to switch to something more modern (you know, so I don't have to constantly fix issues on the ancient machine) but for whatever reason, she will not. Guess I'll have to wait until the thing dies, sadly!