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Post Your PowerPC Setup

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RhianB said:
What’s the spec on your QS?
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Well, that's a funny story actually... 😆

I thought it was a QS when I found it at a garage sale a few years ago. Upon looking at the system profiler however, I found it is a DA in a QS case. It's 733MHz with 1.5GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD. What's more strange is that it has an ATI Rage 128 Pro in it, which came with neither the 733MHz DA nor the 733MHz QS. This makes me think that it was a machine assembled from parts by a previous owner. :)
 
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RogerWilco6502 said:
Here are some pictures of my setup. Sadly they aren't super good pictures, as this area of my house is hard to photograph. 😅

Also, feel free to ignore the very non-PPC MacBook that is sitting on my desk ;)


View attachment 897131View attachment 897130

Edit: Thought I'd throw in a screenshot of my MacBook too just cuz :3

View attachment 897132
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Nice Quicksilver G4, it's not my cuppa'tea (I'm more of a G4 MDD guy 🤣) but it still looks pretty cool. That's the first time that I see one with the ZIP drive.

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Well, here's my sad attempt at picturing my G4 iMac, I use a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for the time being (forgot to picture these two, but they're just your average Logitech Unifying-compatible mouse and keyboard.

Since I took that picture, I've upgraded it to 10.4 (it ran 10.2 before that).
IMG_20200301_113729.jpg

Additional pics of it during the upgrade (the pictures are in reverse order):
IMG_20200302_194109.jpg
IMG_20200302_191545.jpg

Next time, I'll try to snap some pics of my iMac G3.
 
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Alexis Trinquet said:
Nice Quicksilver G4, it's not my cuppa'tea (I'm more of a G4 MDD guy 🤣) but it still looks pretty cool. That's the first time that I see one with the ZIP drive.

----------

Well, here's my sad attempt at picturing my G4 iMac, I use a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for the time being (forgot to picture these two, but they're just your average Logitech Unifying-compatible mouse and keyboard.

Since I took that picture, I've upgraded it to 10.4 (it ran 10.2 before that).
View attachment 897617

Additional pics of it during the upgrade (the pictures are in reverse order):
View attachment 897618
View attachment 897619

Next time, I'll try to snap some pics of my iMac G3.
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Thanks! It's technically a DA, just in a QS case :p

Beautiful setup! I love iMacs a lot! I don't have any though. :D
 
Thanks! It's a bit battle scarred (the top right corner of the transparent edge of the display is cracked and looks like it was dragged on the ground) but it still keeps going.

Knock on wood, it is also the only Mac that I have that has a working PRAM battery, my G3's PRAM battery is long gone (t'was a Tadiran battery, even though those aren't as leaky as the Maxell bombs that many 68K Macs fell victim to, I'd really be gutted to find my iLime (because my G3 is a Lime Green "DV" unit :p) killed by its own PRAM battery.

Eventually, I plan on fully decking out this G4 (Bluetooth card, AirPort Extreme and SuperDrive...) and fixing it up (replacing the display housing, redoing the thermal paste), I'll use it to watch DVDs on it, or use it as a "RDP" terminal.

For now, I'm still on the lookout for the matching speakers and keyboard/mouse, they're hard to find in my area.

Next up would be my '99 G3, the iMac G3 is a machine that has a special place in my heart, as it is the first Mac I ever had (mind you, I'm only 18 years old, and I was only 10 or so when I got my first iMac, it was a summer 2001 Indigo unit iirc).

Stay tuned.
 
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Alexis Trinquet said:
Thanks! It's a bit battle scarred (the top right corner of the transparent edge of the display is cracked and looks like it was dragged on the ground) but it still keeps going.

Knock on wood, it is also the only Mac that I have that has a working PRAM battery, my G3's PRAM battery is long gone (t'was a Tadiran battery, even though those aren't as leaky as the Maxell bombs that many 68K Macs fell victim to, I'd really be gutted to find my iLime (because my G3 is a Lime Green "DV" unit :p) killed by its own PRAM battery.

Eventually, I plan on fully decking out this G4 (Bluetooth card, AirPort Extreme and SuperDrive...) and fixing it up (replacing the display housing, redoing the thermal paste), I'll use it to watch DVDs on it, or use it as a "RDP" terminal.

For now, I'm still on the lookout for the matching speakers and keyboard/mouse, they're hard to find in my area.

Next up would be my '99 G3, the iMac G3 is a machine that has a special place in my heart, as it is the first Mac I ever had (mind you, I'm only 18 years old, and I was only 10 or so when I got my first iMac, it was a summer 2001 Indigo unit iirc).

Stay tuned.
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No problem! I wish you the best with the battery, those sound like cool upgrades to make!

That sounds like an awesome first machine to have! :)
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
No problem! I wish you the best with the battery, those sound like cool upgrades to make!

That sounds like an awesome first machine to have! :)
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It wasn't the first iMac G3 I had, it's my second one, the first one I had was a Indigo summer 2001 unit, that one.... Well, met its demise ages ago.

But yeah I concur, they're pretty cool (almost legendary? Or just iconic that is) machines to have, shame that they're unusable by today's standards.

As for the battery, it's a pita to get to in the iMac G3, but I plan to hopefully fix that (=will make a external PRAM battery holder), I can't speak for the G4 because the battery is easier to access (but you still have to tear apart the entire machine).

For now, here is a picture of my Lime G3, so, meet iLime:FB_IMG_1581902646478.jpg
I have the official keyboard on this one, but unfortunately no M4848 in sight, but instead of that, I got a weird IMouse that has two buttons which light up when clicked.

This one is a 1999 G3/400, DVD-ROM drive (which still works!), it's a slot loader of course, not many Lime DV units exist from what I read about these.
 
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Alexis Trinquet said:
It wasn't the first iMac G3 I had, it's my second one, the first one I had was a Indigo summer 2001 unit, that one.... Well, met its demise ages ago.

But yeah I concur, they're pretty cool (almost legendary? Or just iconic that is) machines to have, shame that they're unusable by today's standards.

As for the battery, it's a pita to get to in the iMac G3, but I plan to hopefully fix that (=will make a external PRAM battery holder), I can't speak for the G4 because the battery is easier to access (but you still have to tear apart the entire machine).

For now, here is a picture of my Lime G3, so, meet iLime:View attachment 897755
I have the official keyboard on this one, but unfortunately no M4848 in sight, but instead of that, I got a weird IMouse that has two buttons which light up when clicked.

This one is a 1999 G3/400, DVD-ROM drive (which still works!), it's a slot loader of course, not many Lime DV units exist from what I read about these.
Click to expand...
Cool! :D

That's too bad about your Indigo. That's cool that you have a Lime DV, I definitely think that I want to get a DV model once I get an iMac :)
 
Well, that DV, I took quite a gamble on it, I had to get it shipped from Calais (I live in Northern France FYI), it arrived safe and sound fortunately.

Now I'm on the hunt for either a Quad 2.5 G5, or a eMac G4 1.42GHz.

For now, nothing turned up in my area, and used Apple computers are extremely pricy in my area. I can't afford them new, but can't afford them used unless I somehow luck out.
 
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Alexis Trinquet said:
Well, that DV, I took quite a gamble on it, I had to get it shipped from Calais (I live in Northern France FYI), it arrived safe and sound fortunately.

Now I'm on the hunt for either a Quad 2.5 G5, or a eMac G4 1.42GHz.

For now, nothing turned up in my area, and used Apple computers are extremely pricy in my area. I can't afford them new, but can't afford them used unless I somehow luck out.
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Same here, the only Apple I've found in my area was a DA Power Mac G4 that I picked up for $20. Other than that I haven't seen much.
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
Same here, the only Apple I've found in my area was a DA Power Mac G4 that I picked up for $20. Other than that I haven't seen much.
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20 bucks for a DA G4 honestly that's a real steal, I paid 75 euros for the G3 and the G4 costed me only 10 euros (well, to my dad, he found it at a garage sale in a small village and bought it since he knew that I collected those oldies, whaddya know), five years ago there was a guy in my town selling a 1.42 eMac and a 20" iMac G4, if I had the money, I would have snatched them both).
 
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z970mp said:
Make sure everything is wired extremely well, and reliably stable.

You don't want any one of those connections to come loose during operation.
Click to expand...

Oh no worries there, I'll be sure to once I do that mod, and I'll be sure make it so that the mod is easily reversible.

For now I have not yet done it, it's still a rough draft at this point
 
Alexis Trinquet said:
20 bucks for a DA G4 honestly that's a real steal, I paid 75 euros for the G3 and the G4 costed me only 10 euros (well, to my dad, he found it at a garage sale in a small village and bought it since he knew that I collected those oldies, whaddya know), five years ago there was a guy in my town selling a 1.42 eMac and a 20" iMac G4, if I had the money, I would have snatched them both).
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm honestly still in awe of that deal. It is a system made from parts, as it has a QS case and an ATI Rage 128 Pro, but it's still an amazing deal :)
 
Alexis Trinquet said:
It's not a bad one, and besides I had no idea that you could fit a DA board into a QS case, maybe it would be possible to fit a G3 B&W board into a MDD case for that matter 🤣
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Yeah! It's a top of the line DA basically, and it's a very capable system :D

Maybe so with the right modifications, I think the primary reason they fit is that they have the same basic motherboard design (which made it a headache to try and figure out what exactly it was 😂). The config tag on the case says the case is from a QS 867MHz :)
 
How about some modern PowerPC?

My workspace/computer cave/mess:

Primary computer (black case on the left) + the 3 monitors:

- RaptorCS Blackbird, IBM POWER9 8-core/32-thread
- 32GB RAM
- 1TB SSD (Samsung 850 Pro)
- Radeon RX 5700 XT
- Lian Li PC-V600F case
- 3x LG 27UD69P-W attached to Ergotron LX monitor arms (sold as AmazonBasics)
- Attached to: NAD D3020 amp, Audio-Technica ATH-R70x headphones, Unicomp Model M, 3dconnexion CadMouse
- Runs Void Linux ppc64le

Desktop screenshot:


White case under the desk in the back:

- RaptorCS Talos 2 Lite, IBM POWER9 18-core/72-thread
- 128GB RAM
- 4x1TB ZFS (2-way mirror) + 250GB system + 500GB scratch area
- Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 case
- headless, works as a server for package builds (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/void-linux-for-powerpc.2129245)
- Runs Void Linux ppc64le + Void Linux ppc64 (KVM) for big endian builds

The cheesegrater:

- Power Mac G5 2005 dual core 2.3GHz
- 16GB RAM
- 250GB NVMe SSD
- Radeon HD 4670
- Attached to a Dell U2414H
- Runs Void Linux ppc64

The laptop:

- PowerBook G4 2004
- 1GB RAM (second RAM slot is busted)
- 250GB SSD
- Mobility Radeon 9700
- Runs Void Linux ppc

Other hardware:

Assorted non-ppc stuff: 2014 Mac Mini (upgraded to SATA SSD, that was a pain to take apart, runs macOS and I use it to interact with my printer), work laptop (runs Fedora), ThinkPad X230 (flashed with coreboot, runs Void Linux x86_64-musl), Pinebook Pro (also runs Void, aarch64 variant)
 

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Amethyst1 said:
On OS 9? :)
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Yep! I very quickly realized that it was unrealistic given that I only had OS 9 on there, so I did expand it to all PPC machines I have (which really isn't too different from how it would normally be as I use all of my PPC machines daily anyway) and so far I can safely say I've only had to use my MacBook for a few things, but I've primarily been using my PPC machines this week and I can't say I'm necessarily missing my MacBook all that much. :D
 
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