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

[Mr. Dee]

Years ago I bought a very used iMac G4, cleaned it up, installed more RAM & new HD. It came with everything including the box, but not the install disks. Trying to find the correct install disk cost me greatly, but I found them!

I'm triple booting, Tiger, Panther, and Leopard.

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I love this thing!

I started collecting Powerbooks earlier this year. I now have a generation with each respective operating system release. I want to get a Pismo so I can dual boot it with OS X Server 1.0 and 10.0.

As for the others, I currently have:

PowerBook G4 Ti - 10.1 (550 MHz - 3.3)
PowerBook G4 Ti - 10.2 (667 MHz - 3.3)
PowerBook G4 - 10.3 (1 GHz)
PowerBook G4 - 10.4 - can't remember the speed, but its likely 2004 model.
PowerBook G4 - 10.5 - I believe this is 1.5 GHz

My plan is start collecting the early generations of Intel MacBook Pro's. Setting my eyes on a first generation Core Duo for Tiger and 2007 Core 2 Duo for Leopard.

 

[escvnte]

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.

To me, I wish they kept the same business model they kept till 10 years ago, when Final Cut Pro and other Apple softwares and Macs, in particular, specially the Mac Pro, were the GO-TO tools for professionals and the likes.
FCPX is a joke, compared to FCP 7 or FCP 5. Yes you can edit 4K and 1080p videos, but then what? Where's the old Compressor that allowed me to create a Blu-Ray video disc? And this it's the exact reason why many of my colleagues (I work in the broadcast, so I edit a lot of audio and video for a living) switched over to Avid and Windows towers after Mavericks came out.
No matter how much changes you make to MacOS. Without all those great softwares and machines, like the 'ol school Mac Pro, is all just "Awesome. But could've been definitely better!"
I'm not saying that Apple sucks. I've been using both Macs and PCs since 20+ years, and watched them rise and fall.
It's just that it doesn't feel the same, like the elite company it used to be many years ago and for which many Hollywood producers and editors and professionals all over the world turned to for their needs.
The M1 Macbooks sure look great and are a step forward over Intel, in terms of innovation. But where's the real sauce?
OS X, for me, has always been about Final Cut Studio, Pro Tools with M-Audio interfaces and Aperture. Without all these, to me it's simply not the same Mac experience like it used to be.

 

[escvnte]

Years ago I bought a very used iMac G4, cleaned it up, installed more RAM & new HD. It came with everything including the box, but not the install disks. Trying to find the correct install disk cost me greatly, but I found them!

I'm triple booting, Tiger, Panther, and Leopard.

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I love this thing!

Enjoy. Because those 3 are the best OS X versions Apple has ever put out.

 

[macsound1]

Personally I can't quite get my head around how Pages/Numbers/etc work, and I don't wish to 'mode switch' mentally. Dealing with file formats when almost everything I get/use/need to edit from others is in some kind of Office file format.

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).

YMMV of course particularly if you use some of the more out-there features on Office but for the most part handles Office file formats without difficulty - notably better than the i-Whatever equivalents. In fact I consider it an essential tool on all my computers - and it's also nice that it's effectively the same program and interface on windows/linux - I think installed by default on most linux distros - meaning you can pick up on almost any platform and do basic stuff.

(I don't think it's native for M1 yet but doubt it matters at all for performance unless you're running some monster excel sheets)

In general, I use Pages, Numbers & Keynote as native apps on my Mac and use the Office 365 versions of Word & Excel. Powerpoint does nothing for me compared to Keynote. Excel absolutely has positives for me with enormous spreadsheets but trying to work on live docs that are Excel and using the app instead of the web app is impossible.

 

[aleni]

I really miss the Aqua's button and scrollbar. It was really beautiful. I bet the designer was doing hundreds of iteration and alternative version of the button before Steve Jobs approved it.

 

[JMacHack]

Enjoy. Because those 3 are the best OS X versions Apple has ever put out.

Having used those, give me Mojave any day of the week. Yes, even better than Snow Leopard.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I was referring to OSX not 9 to be honest.. in particular tiger and snow leopard, the best and most solid OS Apple has ever made. From lion onwards a catastrophe in my opinion

Oh yeah, Tiger definitely rock solid stable. But you mentioned "in the g3" - which wouldn't have been running Snow Leopard for sure, and probably wouldn't have been running Tiger.

 

[mxrider88]

Oh yeah, Tiger definitely rock solid stable. But you mentioned "in the g3" - which wouldn't have been running Snow Leopard for sure, and probably wouldn't have been running Tiger.

Well yes you might be right. But you know what I mean..

 

[dmccloud]

In general, I use Pages, Numbers & Keynote as native apps on my Mac and use the Office 365 versions of Word & Excel. Powerpoint does nothing for me compared to Keynote. Excel absolutely has positives for me with enormous spreadsheets but trying to work on live docs that are Excel and using the app instead of the web app is impossible.

I'm confused about your comments about Excel and using the app vs. the web app. I have Microsoft 365, and the Office apps are installed locally and as native versions through the Insider program.

 

[jokerz126]

My g4 titanium PowerBook still looks awesome next to a MacBook Pro! .....THAT was a killer design ahead of it’s time!

 

[Infernos]

Eighteen years ago I took a cross country trip with a G3 "Pismo". Family members looked at it and wrinkled their noses at it saying that Apple computers just "weren't that good". Fast forward to today, everyone has one in some form or another. Laptops, mobile devices, desktops, etc.

 

[kyjaotkb]

Nice!
- Given the M1's fantastic single-core performance, I would totally install Excel and see how it handles my ginormous, 200MB files with dozens of pivot tables through Rosetta. Won't argue with your stance on making this a pure Apple machine though, to each their own.
- Anyone from the OSX 10.0 would instantly be able to recognize and use 11 and vice-versa. And Aqua still looks modern!
- The trackpad size grew in an inversely proportional way to the everything else.

I have been thinking how it took about 10 years for Apple to make portable computers affordable (portable to iBook), then another 10 to make them ultralight (iBook to MBA), 2 years of catching up to make those light computers both powerful enough and affordable (MBA 2010) and then 10 years to make them ridiculously powerful (MBA 2020). Staggering progress.

 

[d7d19285f0bd48]

I am not sure how well Big Sur's look will hold up over the next 20 years.

Considering it hasn't even held up over the past 20 days. 😂😂😂😂

 

[escvnte]

Well yes you might be right. But you know what I mean..

Tiger was the very first OS version I have ever used, when I made the switch to Mac OS X. My very first Mac was a used PowerBook G4 I got gifted from a dear friend of mine. Probably the most solid piece of hardware I have ever used.
I really miss those days when Apple was still a niche and only focused on making good working computers and only that.
I still have the old Tiger install discs along with the retail Leopard 10.5 DVD and Snow Leopard install discs of my MBP, as well.
Might as well setup a couple of VMs with Parallels and run both Tiger and Leopard for some nostalgia time.

 

[macsound1]

I'm confused about your comments about Excel and using the app vs. the web app. I have Microsoft 365, and the Office apps are installed locally and as native versions through the Insider program.

That's a choice you made though. Office 365 has web apps of all of their desktop applications. Visit office.com and click the app in the left side bar.
That's how I choose to use office primarily because live viewing and editing gets screwy when using a live doc and desktop app, atleast that's what I've experienced, leaving me with the choice of forgetting my changes or creating a duplicate file. Both are the worst option.

 

[dmccloud]

That's a choice you made though. Office 365 has web apps of all of their desktop applications. Visit office.com and click the app in the left side bar.
That's how I choose to use office primarily because live viewing and editing gets screwy when using a live doc and desktop app, atleast that's what I've experienced, leaving me with the choice of forgetting my changes or creating a duplicate file. Both are the worst option.

I've never had issues with the desktop apps going "screwy" on either Windows or Mac OS. OTOH, the web versions of the Office apps have been less reliable for me then even the Google suite.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Update: I’ve had the M1 on battery power for a week now. Imported some 4K clips between 1 to 2 mins each into iMovie. Project in total is about 4 GBs and 27 mins in length. Exported final project with various transitions and effects; took about 5 mins, only lost 2% battery life and barely got warm. Fan didn’t even kick in.

 

[317342]

Update: I’ve had the M1 on battery power for a week now. Imported some 4K clips between 1 to 2 mins each into iMovie. Project in total is about 4 GBs and 27 mins in length. Exported final project with various transitions and effects; took about 5 mins, only lost 2% battery life and barely got warm. Fan didn’t even kick in.

Christ. The M1 is a beast.

 

[jdb8167]

Christ. The M1 is a beast.

I've been using m M1 MacBook Air in clamshell mode without a power adapter. I'm getting about 20 hours. So most of the battery is used by the display (not surprising).

 

[Jeffrey Sanfilippo]

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.

You know what brought me to Apple? Windows Vista! it wasn't iWork or iLife Trust me back then Microsofts screw ups were responsible for alot of loyal mac users today lol Trust me when I switched iwork and ilife wasn't free I had them on disk lol

 

[Mr. Dee]

Well this is a pleasant discovery. I thought you needed one them new fancy iPad Pro's to use Side Car. I was trying to find out how to update Office from within the app, then I came across the option to move to Side Car in the Help menu. It just worked on my 2017 iPad Pro. Pretty cool! I don't need a second display when I have my iPad for this!

 

[LonestarOne]

Well this is a pleasant discovery. I thought you needed one them new fancy iPad Pro's to use Side Car. I was trying to find out how to update Office from within the app, then I came across the option to move to Side Car in the Help menu. It just worked on my 2017 iPad Pro. Pretty cool! I don't need a second display when I have my iPad for this!

Compatible with all iPad Pros, iPad Air (3rd gen or better), iPad Mini (5th gen or better), and iPad (6th gen or better).

Use an iPad as a second display for a Mac - Apple Support

With Sidecar, you can use your iPad as a second display for your Mac.

support.apple.com

 

[Mr. Dee]

Compatible with all iPad Pros, iPad Air (3rd gen or better), iPad Mini (5th gen or better), and iPad (6th gen or better).

Use an iPad as a second display for a Mac - Apple Support

With Sidecar, you can use your iPad as a second display for your Mac.

support.apple.com

I guess I was confusing the supported Macs.

 

[Mr. Dee]

The M1 stays so cool to the touch, when I put it on my legs, its unbearable, like its almost like an ice cold object.

 

[armoured]

The M1 stays so cool to the touch, when I put it on my legs, its unbearable, like its almost like an ice cold object.

Apple's next product is in the development stage, and it will solve this problem.

Working title is iPants.