Post Your PowerPC Setup

[eyoungren]

So, my job informed me on Monday that everyone except the bindery personnel were being furloughed on Thursday. Been working at home with the company MBP, keyboard/mouse and twin displays. Now that I am furloughed this stuff will remain here until I'm recalled.

Since I am presently not using the laptop stand for the MBP, I'm putting it to use for my PowerBook. Here's the pic…

 

[RogerWilco6502]

So, my job informed me on Monday that everyone except the bindery personnel were being furloughed on Thursday. Been working at home with the company MBP, keyboard/mouse and twin displays. Now that I am furloughed this stuff will remain here until I'm recalled.

Since I am presently not using the laptop stand for the MBP, I'm putting it to use for my PowerBook. Here's the pic…

View attachment 901553

Sorry to hear about the furlough, awesome setup though! That looks legitimately awesome with those two G5s.

 

[eyoungren]

Sorry to hear about the furlough, awesome setup though! That looks legitimately awesome with those two G5s.

Yeah, they are using the word 'furloughed' on purpose as it allows them to continue to have us on the books - which means healthcare benefits continue. It's a week to week thing. Part of the problem is that all the graphics creation work we do is done in India and India just had a nationwide lockdown.

As for the setup, thanks! The stand that the G5s are on is unique. I got that from my last job; asked the boss if I could have it since I wasn't using it at work. I'm sure there are other types of stands out there but I've never run across this type of thing except at that job.

The only thing I do not like is that the Mac is blocking the two displays on the left. But with the set up I have I just don't see anywhere else to put it. I was thinking I'd use the PB to screenshare all the Macs in the garage and the server, but the problem with that is that it keeps those other Macs displays on. The server is the only headless Mac I have and I'm not logged in to it so there's really no point there.

I'll come up with something to use it for.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Yeah, they are using the word 'furloughed' on purpose as it allows them to continue to have us on the books - which means healthcare benefits continue. It's a week to week thing. Part of the problem is that all the graphics creation work we do is done in India and India just had a nationwide lockdown.

As for the setup, thanks! The stand that the G5s are on is unique. I got that from my last job; asked the boss if I could have it since I wasn't using it at work. I'm sure there are other types of stands out there but I've never run across this type of thing except at that job.

The only thing I do not like is that the Mac is blocking the two displays on the left. But with the set up I have I just don't see anywhere else to put it. I was thinking I'd use the PB to screenshare all the Macs in the garage and the server, but the problem with that is that it keeps those other Macs displays on. The server is the only headless Mac I have and I'm not logged in to it so there's really no point there.

I'll come up with something to use it for.

That's good that you still get benefits.

That stand is really awesome! I know what you mean about tough spacial situations, I have to do some rearranging on my desk based on what I want to do.

 

[eyoungren]

That's good that you still get benefits.

That stand is really awesome! I know what you mean about tough spacial situations, I have to do some rearranging on my desk based on what I want to do.

It would be easier if I could just haul in alternative pieces of furniture and such. But…my wife had ceded this part of the front room to me and lately has been regretting that decision. Adding anything else outside of this space would be acting like an ass and provoking an argument.

In any case, it should only be temporary. An agreement where I get the space underneath the stairwell was reached a couple of weeks ago. I haven't acted yet though because she hasn't moved the stuff already in that space out yet and hasn't said anything. I'm not in a hurry either because I still have to figure out how I'm going to get power in there. Everything on this wall is drawing power from four powerstrips. One of them is a heavy duty one with more than the average plugs.

I do not relish running four large extension cords into the space, plus ethernet cable - my wife is going to freak if she sees that, LOL

So, have to figure out how I'm going to do that.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

It would be easier if I could just haul in alternative pieces of furniture and such. But…my wife had ceded this part of the front room to me and lately has been regretting that decision. Adding anything else outside of this space would be acting like an ass and provoking an argument.

In any case, it should only be temporary. An agreement where I get the space underneath the stairwell was reached a couple of weeks ago. I haven't acted yet though because she hasn't moved the stuff already in that space out yet and hasn't said anything. I'm not in a hurry either because I still have to figure out how I'm going to get power in there. Everything on this wall is drawing power from four powerstrips. One of them is a heavy duty one with more than the average plugs.

I do not relish running four large extension cords into the space, plus ethernet cable - my wife is going to freak if she sees that, LOL

So, have to figure out how I'm going to do that.

I wish you the best of luck!

 

[MrVitalic]

My set-up is a mess. I had a home studio before moving, but sold most of it because life ( nord lead expanded, korg m1, yorkville monitor). I'm currently rebuilding my studio around a G5. I have a digidesign command 8 mixer coming my way and I'l check to get new monitors and sound proof my room. I had a deal on a pair of genelec 8030b but passed on it because everything is going south. I hope the best for all of you.

 

[AphoticD]

Here is my “working from home” setup since we moved everyone out of the office last week.

Fortunately, the company I work for has kept us all on to do our jobs remotely. I’m used to working solo from home as I have done so for most of my career, so this arrangement is familiar territory for me. Except now I have two 7 year olds at home needing constant attention!

I know there is not much PowerPC visible here, but there is a G5 and Mac mini G4 tucked in the corner.

I also brought home the 27” iMac (center left) from the office to use in Target Display Mode along with a Magic Keyboard and Mouse for my work MBP 2018 which sits on the stand.

Behind the scenes, my Mac Pro 2008, DC G5, Mac mini G4 and the iMac 21.5” (on the right) all share the original wireless keyboard and mouse (at the left) over Synergy.

During my lunch break and outside of work hours, I intend to play with some music ideas... so the G5 also uses network MIDI sync (over gigabit), allowing the Native Instruments controller keyboard to be shared between both the cMP and the G5 for Ableton, Pro Tools and a multitude of NI virtual instruments.

 

[Amethyst1]

@AphoticD: That's a very cool-looking setup

I also brought home a 27” iMac from the office to use in Target Display Mode [...]

Do you think you might be able to conduct a little experiment if you have some spare time? I've been wondering whether the iMac accepts lower refresh rates than 60 Hz in Target Display Mode*, because if it accepted 40 Hz, it could probably be driven at full resolution from a single-link DVI port (going into a DVI-to-DisplayPort converter), broadening compatibility with older machines and especially laptops. In order to test this, you'll need a Mac with a DisplayPort and SwitchResX for adding the custom resolutions on OS X.

* I've found a post on HardForum stating that it accepts 48 Hz, but 24 Hz flickered badly.

Of course, I fully understand if you'd rather not, given the machine is "on loan". But I figured I'd ask anyway.

 

[z970]

Suppose I'll make my first official entry into the fray...

Here's the newly-refurbished resident MDD, accompanied by a hotrodded 945-based, Cedar Mill OptiPlex GX620, dual booting Debian 10 and Windows Vista. They are serving as split DD for all tasks, both screaming along (620 especially).

-

The top slab of this desk looks like it would probably belong in a circa 2002 Apple Store.

 

[Amethyst1]

@z970mp What's in the white dock? And if you really want to hotrod that '620, give it the dual-core (Pentium D 960) treatment. Also love the Nokia N8 btw.

 

[Amethyst1]

Added a second monitor to improve productivity:

😂😂😂

 

[z970]

@Amethyst1 iPod touch 4th Generation.

I would have, but the heatsink is too small because it's only a desktop-sized case (it used to have a 2.8 Prescott). Even with the 3.6 P4, the fans have turned into G5 mode, revving whenever a video is played, for example.

...Although it was much more frequent when video was output via the GMD 950. The Radeon HD 5450 helped decrease those occurrences significantly.

I do mean to improve the case cooling in some way, some day. All it's got now is the single fan in front of the heatsink to feed air into the rest, not counting the GPU fan.

I've got an N9 on the way. Linux phone here I come!

 

[Amethyst1]

I would have, but the heatsink is too small because it's only a desktop-sized case (it used to have a 2.8 Prescott). Even with the 3.6 P4, the fans have turned into G5 mode, revving whenever a video is played, for example.

I do mean to improve the case cooling in some way, some day. All it's got now is the single fan in front of the heatsink to feed air into the rest, not counting the GPU fan.

I see - how big is that single case/CPU fan? And could the heatsink realistically be replaced with a larger one?

I've got an N9 on the way. Linux phone here I come!

Seriously? Woohoo! The N9 is a great device - head over to http://talk.maemo.org/ for the community. It's a shame it was a one-hit wonder 'cause we all know what happened as 2011 drew to a close.

 

[z970]

I see - how big is that single case/CPU fan? And could the heatsink realistically be replaced with a larger one?

About 4 inches, give or take. The way it's designed is that the fan sucks air from the front through the heatsink, and that blown warm air is supposed to just kind of collect in the rest of the case to "cool" everything. There are plenty of ventillation holes on the case backside, but... Certainly, I don't think it's quite enough for the entire assembly - especially when you want to eliminate any chance of thermal throttling.

I don't foresee it. The aluminum block is encased in a specially molded ABS Dell housing that secures itself a certain way. To overhaul the heatsink + adhesion method would be to place the chip in potential jeopardy, especially if the machine is vertically orientated. So the best way to improve cooling would be to mount another fan... probably behind the heatsink.

I saved this guy from the scrapyard. If I had the choice, I would have gone with the mini-tower.

Seriously? Woohoo! The N9 is a great device - head over to http://talk.maemo.org/ for the community. It's a shame it was a one-hit wonder 'cause we all know what happened as 2011 drew to a close.

"Burning platform" my @$$... Micro$oft's trojan horses $trike again.

Thanks for the recommendation, will do. My only "gripe" is that it doesn't have a shutter button, which they ever so conveniently put back on the Lumia series...

 

[1042686]

It would be easier if I could just haul in alternative pieces of furniture and such. But…my wife had ceded this part of the front room to me and lately has been regretting that decision. Adding anything else outside of this space would be acting like an ass and provoking an argument.

In any case, it should only be temporary. An agreement where I get the space underneath the stairwell was reached a couple of weeks ago. I haven't acted yet though because she hasn't moved the stuff already in that space out yet and hasn't said anything. I'm not in a hurry either because I still have to figure out how I'm going to get power in there. Everything on this wall is drawing power from four powerstrips. One of them is a heavy duty one with more than the average plugs.

I do not relish running four large extension cords into the space, plus ethernet cable - my wife is going to freak if she sees that, LOL

So, have to figure out how I'm going to do that.

Oh man - nothing like covert-demolition to make things interesting. Does that under the stairs space share a wall with the garage by chance?

 

[eyoungren]

Oh man - nothing like covert-demolition to make things interesting. Does that under the stairs space share a wall with the garage by chance?

No. The stairs actually run behind the TV set you see in the pictures. In other words, the space under the stairs is behind the wall the computers are in front of. Beyond that is the driveway.

However, my wife has decided to decline my offer, so things will be staying the same.

 

[1042686]

I would definitely like a under the stairs mission control. That idea sounds pretty awesome to me. As a kid I thought under the stairs closets were the coolest ever, alas I’ve never seen one that was big enough to comfortably fit in all my computer junk.

That’s it, if I win the lottery, I’m building myself one that comes complete with multi-level secret passage ways a la Scooby-Doo.

 

[eyoungren]

I would definitely like a under the stairs mission control. That idea sounds pretty awesome to me. As a kid I thought under the stairs closets were the coolest ever, alas I’ve never seen one that was big enough to comfortably fit in all my computer junk.

That’s it, if I win the lottery, I’m building myself one that comes complete with multi-level secret passage ways a la Scooby-Doo.

Well, to be honest I'd have like it too. I'm used to fitting lots of crap into small spaces and this would have been a challenge, but not overly so. However, there are no electrical sockets in there. There is in fact no light even. The designers of the house merely added a door to a small space (which my wife has had me remove).

I could probably work out something because I know electrical lines are there in the wall the TV hangs from, but I'm leery of knocking holes in walls and my ability to wire something that wouldn't burn the house down. Hence, I'd have been running cords in.

It's not something I'm crying over though because here's the thing. My wife and I talk. A lot. We have always talked, even before getting married. So decisions that a lot of people make after their kids leave the house have already been discussed in depth - even before we had kids. And both of us know who we are and what we want.

Before kids, together we had the master bedroom, while she had the master bath and closets along with the second bedroom. I had the third bedroom and second bathroom.

When kids happened, I got the garage and she got…nothing. So, when my son, who graduates next year, goes off to college (and assuming he does not stay here at home) my wife gets his room.

When the same happens to my daughter (in about five years) I get her room and we go back to the way it was before kids.

The garage goes back to being a garage, the space under the stairs is irrelevant and hey, command central (as my wife calls it) goes upstairs in my daughter's room which becomes my study.

That's always been the deal - when the kids are out we go back to the way things were before they showed up. Again, that makes 'losing' the space not any big deal.

And quite frankly, I'm not unhappy that I don't have to move three Macs, nine monitors, two laptops and all the assorted cables and peripherals.

 

[fourbirds]

Added a second monitor to improve productivity:

SNIP

😂😂😂

Hear, hear!

 

[Amethyst1]

I've got an N9 on the way. Linux phone here I come!

Forgot to add that an N900 is worth checking out as well. It's quite a different beast compared to the N9, both in terms of hardware and software. Out of the box, the N900 is much more "open" and hacker-friendly. And you can run a full Debian or Ubuntu chroot on it, among other things.

 

[z970]

Forgot to add that an N900 is worth checking out as well. It's quite a different beast compared to the N9, both in terms of hardware and software. Out of the box, the N900 is much more "open" and hacker-friendly. And you can run a full Debian or Ubuntu chroot on it, among other things.

That was my first choice.

But the lack of availability, affordable prices, and micro USB reliability issues made me think twice, unfortunately.

Once I discovered that the N9 did eventually end up shipping to the US, my mind was made up. The vastly superior availability, cheaper prices, and seemingly wider supply (not to mention greater horsepower) were the attracting reasons.

I did consider getting a Nokia 3.1 and just flashing something like Lineage OS onto it, but that idea was killed real fast when I found that current support of the Nokia 3 series were spotty at best.

Phone shopping is not something I at all enjoy doing. It's nothing like the computer market. High build quality, hardware experience, and freedom of choice is an afterthought to 90% of the vending participants, unless you count the several hundred dollar/pound/euro alternatives like the Librem 5, Pinephone, fxTec Pro1, Planet Com Gemini, etc. which just happen to be outside of my range now. Otherwise, they're all the exact same all-screen, glass rectangle running either Apple OS or Google OS, neither of which being favorable companies in terms of what they put into their OS, inside and out.

And that's to say nothing of the freedom issues plaguing most baseband processors.

Needless to say, I can see why RMS doesn't carry one around.

 

[Amethyst1]

But the lack of availability, affordable prices, and micro USB reliability issues made me think twice, unfortunately.

Yep, the N900 wasn't without its faults either, one could say that only having 256MB of RAM crippled it right out of the box.

I did consider getting a Nokia 3.1 and just flashing something like Lineage OS onto it, but that idea was killed real fast when I found that current support of the Nokia 3 series were spotty at best.

What's drawing you to HMD Global's phones, other than the Nokia brand? If your goal is to have perfect compatibility with Lineage OS, there are much better choices.

Phone shopping is not something I at all enjoy doing.

Me neither. Eventually, it boiled down to two requirements for me: The phone had to be small (less than five inches - I hate big phones) yet powerful and run an up-to-date OS which left me with two choices: iPhone SE or Xperia XZ1 Compact. For more than financial reasons, I went for the latter.

 

[z970]

What's drawing you to HMD Global's phones, other than the Nokia brand? If your goal is to have perfect compatibility with Lineage OS, there are much better choices.

Carl Zeiss optics, high build quality, cost effectiveness, extended support, etc... Same stuff Nokia, brand or not, was always renowned for.

Too bad most of their offerings have biometric hardware... and bad FOSOS support.

Me neither. Eventually, it boiled down to two requirements for me: The phone had to be small (less than five inches - I hate big phones) yet powerful and run an up-to-date OS which left me with two choices: iPhone SE or Xperia XZ1 Compact. For more than financial reasons, I went for the latter.

My requirements were that the phone's OS had to have basic PDA abilities, be semi-competent at Web navigation, have a removable battery, and support 3G networks. Long story short, it came down to two options as well - the Nokia E7 and Nokia N9.

Due to the E7 also having micro USB issues (which my N8 had recently developed, hence the phone shopping), the N9 won. It also had the bonus of having significantly more horsepower available, and that it runs a Linux distro with an ultra fluid UI (which, coming from Symbian, will be interesting to experience).

I figured that when combined, WebKit, whatever version of Firefox it had, and Opera Mobile 11/12 will take care of the Internet well enough. The fact that it had the Maemo community behind it and that MeeGo accepted .debs sealed the deal. And, being that it was around $50 on eBay most certainly helped.

At minimal, it's a good stepping stone to the Librem 5.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact seems like an interesting choice. What about it did you specifically like?

 

[Amethyst1]

Due to the E7 also having micro USB issues (which my N8 had recently developed, hence the phone shopping), the N9 won. It also had the bonus of having significantly more horsepower available, and that it runs a Linux distro with an ultra fluid UI (which, coming from Symbian, will be interesting to experience).

Symbian Belle was buttery-smooth on my Nokia 700 - an 1.3 GHz ARM11 coupled with 512 MB RAM is quite a step-up from the N8's 680 MHz; 256 MB setup. I enjoyed using that lil' phone quite a bit coming from the mighty N900, and Belle was miles better than the previous touch-optimised S60 versions.

I figured that when combined, WebKit, whatever version of Firefox it had, and Opera Mobile 11/12 will take care of the Internet well enough. The fact that it had the Maemo community behind it and that MeeGo accepted .debs sealed the deal. And, being that it was around $50 on eBay most certainly helped.

I wish you the best of luck concerning the N9. The fact that Nokia's MeeGo implementation uses .debs is quite interesting actually, since Intel's version uses .rpms. I believe Nokia referred to the beast as a MeeGo instance rather than full-blown MeeGo. Whatever. $50 is a steal - whenever one comes up here it's almost safe to assume it'll go for at least twice that.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact seems like an interesting choice. What about it did you specifically like?

Very powerful CPU, lots of RAM, yet small, normal headphone jack, Android 9 without too much bloat (but still more than I'd like). Even though there's several things I don't like, there's no other phone which combines the same level of performance and portability. I also looked into the new "Palm" phone but that's way too expensive for the hardware it's using.