PowerBook G3 to M1 MacBook Pro - We sure have come a long way!

[viciousdave]

My first Apple computer was the 2006 mac mini intel core 2 duo I bought in 2007. And now pretty soon macbook pro M1. I've had the mac mini,imac 24 inch, imac27 inch twice, and for the first time macbook pro.

 

[Quackington]

Nice thread. I still have an old PowerBook G4 12” model from 2004. It is heavy and a brick compared to my MBA and MBP.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I'm a Windows user who converted to MacOS back in 2004, but I can tell you as someone who has supported every operating system since Windows 3.1 and Macintosh 9+, Vista was horrible. Microsoft has had 2 IMHO horrible operating systems. ME and Vista. The rest have their merits, but still don't hold a candle to MacOS.

I think he hit the mark right on though. Vista was crap at launch due to bad drivers and some funky hard drive algorithm that made any HDD operations feel sluggish, but Microsoft went ahead and was slowly fixing all of the bugs.

Windows 7 was pretty much Vista but with the hard drive speed fixed, a different UI, and released to hardware that had kept up with the times (and ergo a bit faster). Since it used the same driver model but was running on newer hardware, it didn't have any driver bugs at launch and ran nice and fast. It was received as one of the best OSs that Microsoft has ever released. But it's really Vista with a coat of paint.

Of course, IMO Vista is partially responsible for many people moving to OS X. At launch it was so bad that Apple's "Switch" campaign was brilliant and effective.

 

[sbuntin]

I have to admit, this something I have been looking forward to comparing. Although they are not technically equals since the Wallstreet predates OS 10.0 by a few years, its a G3 that's a supported model. But when some of us complain about the constant progress of innovation, we have a lot to be thankful for. I thought the PB was a relatively small but weighty device, but this thing is brick/tank next to the M1 MacBook. One thing I have to say though, I am not sure how well Big Sur's look will hold up over the next 20 years. Minus the overuse of pinstripes, 10.0, still looks good to this day, and that cool relaxing Aqua wallpaper is just timeless.

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Its just amazing to think, these are two 13 inch devices, 23 years apart. Moving between the keyboards can be a bit jarring, the PB's keyboard is actually nicer to use. Keys feel like you are typing on pillows, while the M1 is more akin to typing on a scientific calculator. Its definitely improved since the first time I tested it in 2016 at the store, but it just cannot compare to the right balance of my 2015 MBP.

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But, with those minor trade offs, 23 years of refinements offer huge benefits:

• Fast boot up - this 512 GBs SSD flies, compared to the old creaky 20 GB mechanical disk in the PB. Although I haven't been pressed for space on my devices over the years, its gonna be a challenge filling this up.
• RAM - The PB has 160 MBs, which I think back in 2000 was absurdly a lot. 10.0 flies on it; Finder windows pop open but it sure can't help the lack of optimization in some apps. An app like Mail 1.0 takes 8 bounces to open, versus a single launch for Mail 14.0 on Big Sur.
• Displays - hands down the Retina is a reminder of how grateful I am. Although the 1024 by 768 does well on the PB with the help of 10.0s anti-aliasing, for the time that would have been considered much improved experience. The sharpness and fine details of icons transparency; some of which OS 10.0 had is just superb on the M1.
• Battery life - on the PB, its dead, anytime I shut this down, requires resetting the date and time. But, even with the battery working, the M1 with its 20 hour battery life is insanely great. This puts it on par with my other Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad.
• Speed - Obviously no comparison, M1 is just super duper fast. System doesn't warm and I can have many apps and browser tabs open with worry.
• Everyday usage - I just got the M1 yesterday, but I've elected to not install any third party apps. That for me is intentional because unlike the PB 20 years ago, I would have still needed to keep Classic around to do some of really basic things like word processing or watch DVDs. Pretty much everything you need to use this computer already is included. I was even gonna install Chrome because its native and I've been using more often on my older Mac, but I decided to skip. I'm not even gonna install Microsoft Office. Pages does what I need and I plan on weaning myself off products that require spending more money.
• Reliability - OS X's UNIX heritage has always been shining advantage: pre-emptive multi-tasking, memory protection lead to less system instability, especially with bad behaving apps. On the M1 that of course continues and with Apples deep integration with their SoC, its even more significant. I can't even begin to explain it, but even operations like booting into recovery is a world difference. I always found OS X's recovery options confusing, even though they might be better than Windows or Linux. Just the ability to hold down the Touch ID power button versus the scientific laundry list of holding C after boot chime voodoo is appreciated. Although, I rarely ever need to go into recovery these days, its just a reminder of the finer details.

But, its such striking experience where all the pieces are in place on day one for the M1. It took until about Panther and eventually the transition to Intel for the Mac to feel like a truly mainstream platform and alternative to Windows. In 2020, this feels like mature product that naturally integrates with the rest of my digital life. While writing this, a perfect example of that popped up again. When I setup the M1 yesterday evening, I elected to sign in with my iCloud account. most of what I needed was just there when I logged in: my passwords, favorites all there. I call just popped up and I had the option of taking it right there on the Mac. Thats just so amazing! Say what you will about the Touch Bar, its a nice addition, outside of getting use to the volume option, its fine.

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I can't imagine what's in store for the next 20 years, much less next week. But when you do comparisons like this, you really get to see the big picture. Of course, no one in their right mind would be using a PB with OS 10.0 up to now, but again, its about the refinements and appreciating that. This is certainly not my last Mac and I will likely be taking out the CC in 2023 for a iMac then another MacBook in 2023.

Certainly, Apple has delivered a successful integrated package with the M1 and really delivers and end to end seamless experience throughout its wider ecosystem of products.

Thanks for the reminder of the Wallstreet. That beast was my first Apple notebook. Next thing I knew, I was working at Apple(care). Good times.

 

[johnediii]

I was at Microsoft in the era just before people started to see Apple as a serious competitor. There was one PM, who I interacted with occasionally, whose job was to change that perception. I remember the day he came to the Visual Studio to give a presentation. He did short demos of the Macintosh operating system, the iLife and iWork applications, as well as XCode. He spent quite a bit of time on the latter, because of the audience. Because I was a Macintosh user, there wasn’t much that was new to me — I spent more time watching the reaction of the audience. Everyone seemed to be quietly impressed but not blown away or frightened by what they saw. Until, suddenly, I saw the expression on the face of one developer change, as if a lightbulb had just come on inside his head, and he slowly raised his hand and said, “Wait minute. Are you telling us that Apple bundles all this software with their computers for free?”

That was the moment when people in our group started to take Apple seriously.

(Not everyone at Microsoft got the message, of course, especially at the top level. I remember people cringing when Steve Ballmer stood up a conference and proclaimed that it was “Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!” for the iPhone to get any significant market share.

Well Balmer was right at the launch. iPhone didn't really start to take off to the masses until they offered contracts to pay for it. Remember the $100 rebate Apple gave to everybody on that original iPhone? I'm not blaming them, they had to figure out how the market worked at release and it took 5 years for industry to swing back around to what Apple tried to do originally ie. paying for your phone upfront and separating the phone cost from the service cost.

 

[MacBH928]

that OS X GUI was so beautiful 20 years later they still use same looking icons and its still beautiful. Windows 10 GUI looks like a GUI for a manufacturing plant machines. Look at this horror show.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Nice pairing!

I did my "desktop transitions" series when my M1 mini arrived:

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Honestly, the software in the g3 was way more stable and smooth than now though.

Selective memory. There were a few specific OS versions that were very stable - but there was a *LOT* of instability in the Mac OS 8.5 -> 9.2.1 range, and in the Mac OS X 10.0.0 -> 10.2 range.

9.2.2 was generally rock solid (thankfully, as the final release,) as were the later 10.2.x releases. But 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1 all had SUPER buggy releases; the whole of 10.0.x, and most of 10.1.x as well.

 

[shadowmyst1975]

That was for your US Robotics 9600 baud modem to connect to Compuserve long before the Internet. High Tech back then. Later for a DSL line from the Telco. Us grey hairs remember.

In my case, for my Apple //c (ROM 255) and Kyocera 1200 baud modem to connect to local BBS systems.

 

[bradman83]

Brings back memories. My first Mac laptop ever (first laptop in general really) was a PowerBook 5300 that was an absolute piece of garbage. Apple agreed because they launched a program allowing 5300 owners to turn their machines in for a credit towards a Pismo PowerBook G3, the bronze-keyboarded successor to the Wallstreet. That thing lasted me six long years and was a great machine. Still remember being in awe installing the Mac OS X Public Beta and watching the animations and effects.

 

[SchrodingersMartian]

This is awesome. My first Mac was a PowerBook handed down to me and then I had one of the original iMacs in Bondi Blue ❤️

 

[Captain Trips]

But on the mac I've found LibreOffice to be very close in terms of mental model, i.e. for the most part you may barely notice the difference from office (or it's close enough you won't care much). This is probably more important for spreadsheets than word processing (where honestly I can get by with textedit for basic stuff).

Same here - I have been using LibreOffice since earlier this year and it has been fine for my persona needs. And the performance is fine on my Inrel Mac mini (2014) and my new M1 MacBook Pro.

 

[Captain Trips]

The positive thing is, coming from Windows, I never knew external storage could be this fast. I transferred a 30gb Final Cut library in less than 1 minute, that was a very cool experience.

I imported approximately 50 GB of music files into Music on my M1 MBP via an external SSD over a USB3 cable. It was so fast that I thought I hadn't selected all of the directories. Then I scrolled down the Album view and I said to myself "Holy ****! That took less than a minute!"

 

[casperes1996]

I mean I honestly find it equally impressive how nice old Macs still are. My G4 iMac is pleasant to use too; As long as you don't try and browse websites, haha. If M Macs last as long as PowerPC ones we're in for a treat

 

[ThomasJL]

PowerBook G3 to M1 MacBook Pro - We sure have come a long way!

That’s true, but the M1 MacBook Pro is no match for the PowerBook G5. ?

 

[trifid]

It's quite appropriate to bring up the Powerbook G3 along with the M1... back in the day Apple boasted the G3's performance over the Pentium's, I remember this fun ad that they had back in the day "It eats Pentium notebooks for lunch". M1 is bringing back the good times ?

 

[Fowl]

WTF is that?

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Any electrician will tell you that you don't need to cover live wires. Just paint 'em over.

 

[KDNYC]

I love posts like these. I had the Wall Street--purchased when I worked in public relations for some ungodly sum I could afford back then, but I can do one better: in '99 or '00 I purchased one of the 100 series Powerbooks for $10 and used it as a cheap "netbook" for library research in grad school. I emailed my notes (dial up) and used it for a good 4 years. It had an ancient version of Word installed. Still working when I wiped and donated it. Then got a pc netbook that was hacked to run OS, until I could swing a 12" powerbook which weighted 50lbs or so more lol.

 

[venom600]

the Wall Street was my first computer! Well, technically the PDQ second revision, but wow I remember loving it. I got it my junior year in high school and used it until my sophomore year in college. It had a 14" screen, 2GB HD and 64MB of RAM and I was blown away by it. I think what gets me is that at the time it was the cheapest new Powerbook you could buy, and it started at almost $2500. Apple really didn't start catering to more affordable prices until the iBook came out.

 

[Mr. Dee]

the Wall Street was my first computer! Well, technically the PDQ second revision, but wow I remember loving it. I got it my junior year in high school and used it until my sophomore year in college. It had a 14" screen, 2GB HD and 64MB of RAM and I was blown away by it. I think what gets me is that at the time it was the cheapest new Powerbook you could buy, and it started at almost $2500. Apple really didn't start catering to more affordable prices until the iBook came out.

I could only dream of a notebook like that back in 1998. Windows notebooks themselves were just as expensive. Laptops in general were just considered a niche for folks who had the money to burn. The iBook in 1999 kinda brough it to the mainstream for everyone even though they were expensive too.

Well, I won't argue with your ideas about purity, but Libreoffice handles office stuff very competently and is one of my first installs on any new computer. I think you'll find it useful especially for spreadsheets. Even for word-y type documents and presentations, useful as a tool for conversion of old filetypes and even sometimes different Office vintages give formatting oddities.

I will play it and see if I like it, but after more than two decades on Office, its gonna be hard to switch. But even before I do switch, I will use up my MSDN sub get that free copy out of it before it expires next year.

Honestly, the software in the g3 was way more stable and smooth than now though.

Thats debatable. The fact that OS 9 easily corrupts the firmware triggering the need to reinstall OS X sometimes and just the Startup Disk control panel always crashing. Then again, these might be artifacts of its age, you are probably right that it was rock solid then. But I've not had much issue with OS X since I started using it as a everyday computing platform back 2015.

I mean I honestly find it equally impressive how nice old Macs still are. My G4 iMac is pleasant to use too; As long as you don't try and browse websites, haha. If M Macs last as long as PowerPC ones we're in for a treat

I was waiting on the 16 inch Apple Silicon to really compare it with my PowerBook G4 Ti, but I guess I will need to wait a little longer for that.

 

[317342]

Seeing this brings back some good memories. I love Apple but I wish they were more like they were circa '97-'01.

Today's Apple feels more "Microsoft" than ever, and Microsoft feels like Apple of ~10 years ago.

 

[Mr. Dee]

It's quite appropriate to bring up the Powerbook G3 along with the M1... back in the day Apple boasted the G3's performance over the Pentium's, I remember this fun ad that they had back in the day "It eats Pentium notebooks for lunch". M1 is bringing back the good times ?

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I loved these ads! I have some Time and Newsweek magazines with these type of Apple ads. But with paper magazines being a dying industry, its hard to translate to the web, but they pretty much do it these days on their website in a dynamic way. I would like them to go back to more white or lighter background to put more emphasis on the product as you can clearly see in this add.

Some other obvious observations of the PB vs the MB M1, is the tiny touchpad, its laughable how small it is in comparison to the ginormous touchpad we have now.

Seeing this brings back some good memories. I love Apple but I wish they were more like they were circa '97-'01.

Today's Apple feels more "Microsoft" than ever, and Microsoft feels like Apple of ~10 years ago.

Yeah, Apple has become less intimate or what I would call less accessible. I'm sure back in 1999, you probably could go to the Apple Campus and probably see Jobs and other execs walking around. I visited the visitor centre last year and Apple Park just looked like this completely off limits, a place you will never get to see the inside of.

At the end of the day, it was always Jobs intention to be just as big or better than Microsoft, which it has achieved. But, I think the old folk tales of we are like a company of startups are likely just that. Its a big, large machine, but a very efficient one that sometimes makes stumbles, but corrects itself somewhat quickly (clears throat) Mac Pro, Home Pod.

 

[trifid]

Seeing this brings back some good memories. I love Apple but I wish they were more like they were circa '97-'01.

Great times...

 

[eicca]

I'll tell ya, I feel grateful for macOS every time I have to do something more than just play games when I boot into my Windows 10 install....

 

[DakotaGuy]

I wouldn’t be so sure on the big Office cash cow at MS anymore. It was for sure a big thing 10 years ago.

At our work we use Excel a lot pulling in lots of data from SAP and such, but lately we have adapted far better solutions. Data is in the cloud (no - not OneDrive) and accessed through in house made web apps. Runs far more stable, snappy and can easily handle 10x the amount of data.
Meanwhile in Redmond they’re becoming so agile in their software development that we have all become beta testers and they are forcing crippled web editions of word and excel upon us that is just slowing down our workflow and cannot offer the features we have relied on for 10 years.
Teams is working pretty ok, but is on fast track to just becoming a new version of outlook & Skype. It is just as much a way to waste time and get distracted as those two old ones. Surely gifs and star wars web cam background are great fun, but they do nothing for productivity.
Then I suspect the old sharepoint thing where we read and sign our iso documents is also Microsoft’s doing. It just doesn’t work with Edge, so we have to use good old IE.

They remind me of some old close to extinction animal that got sidetracked in evolution to something ridiculous and helpless. Like the dodo...

I teach at a school that is 100% Microsoft and I have to say our current set-up with Windows 10, MS Office 365, and Teams isn’t bad at all. We also run Chrome as the default browser. I’m not sure why, but that’s just how we roll. I just received a new HP Elitebook for my school computer and it’s actually a really nice MacBook Pro copy. ?, but all jokes aside I will give Microsoft credit for really improving their products over the years. I appreciate both Mac OS and Windows for different reasons and I’m glad that both have pushed each other to improve as time has gone on.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I teach at a school that is 100% Microsoft and I have to say our current set-up with Windows 10, MS Office 365, and Teams isn’t bad at all. We also run Chrome as the default browser. I’m not sure why, but that’s just how we roll. I just received a new HP Elitebook for my school computer and it’s actually a really nice MacBook Pro copy. ?, but all jokes aside I will give Microsoft credit for really improving their products over the years. I appreciate both Mac OS and Windows for different reasons and I’m glad that both have pushed each other to improve as time has gone on.

I use Windows 10 nine hours a day at work, 5 days a week. It does the job, but after 6 PM, I just want to mentally use and look at something else. Those are my Mac, iPad and iPhone. I am grateful to Windows, it is what put food on my table and allow me to afford nice things like these. I love using macOS, its really clean, elegant design, just some of the logical things it does with file organization, application behavior, interaction, system performance, ecosystem integration. I'm sorry, but I honestly don't see myself every buying another Windows machine for personal use. I likely will for geeky purposes. For instance, I got a tonne load of Microsoft Licensing discs off eBay on the cheap, which I will tinker around with in a VM. For that I will need a Windows machine, so I'm considering picking up a cheap Dell with enough horse power.