What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[Doq]

Went to Starbucks with my PowerBook. Did some coding and web browsing while listening to music and trying different things from their menu View attachment 2021552

I know those IEMs-- that cable is instantly recognisable. KZs?
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I forgot to include a picture of the Twelve's new install, so here is a 100% staged shot of me "doing work". dvtm, anyone?

 

[SkyBell]

Booted up my 12" PowerBook G4 for the first time in quite a while, pretty much just to see if it would work with my new router - and here I am making this post with it, so that's nice to know. Browsing a few forums with it and listening to the limited iTunes library I have on here. I really do miss this aspect ratio on these, I've gotten used to widescreen these days but this screen really is more suited to my liking. The keyboard is quite a bit nicer to use than the one on my MBA as well. Might just tinker around with this thing for a few days, its making me wish I still had my beloved eMac.

 

[scarlett7447]

I know those IEMs-- that cable is instantly recognisable. KZs?

You guessed right, those are the KZ ZSN Pro X. They are very nice for the price.

 

[rin67630]

fax-machine, an iBook-G4, is also on standby.

How much power does it use in stand-by?
My main reason to phase out older PCs is that they just consume too much power for nothing.
I had a nice iMac 2007, that could be just usable under Linux, but it took so much enrgy for nothing that i retired it.
My current Macbook Air runs at 10-12W only and never needs its fan, excepted on some telcos with a lot of participants.

 

[chaosbunny]

I tried ppcmc 7 on my 867 ghz PowerBook G4. Watching a Youtube video on my almost 20 years old laptop was an amazing experience. What a fantastic job @alex_free - thanks a lot! Afterwards I wrote this post on the G4. And that was my ppc evening.

P.s.: This is the video I watched, a nice short documentary about Mars:

 

[eyoungren]

Replaced CAT5E cables (one that dates back to before 2004) with CAT6 cables on the G3 Server. These cables are lime green, and are the only cables I've every bought in that color. Connected to my switch I now know exactly which two cables are for the server.

 

[mectojic]

Today I upgraded my Ruby iMac to have an SSD. Because the Ruby is fanless, it is now completely silent, which feels insanely modern. Of all the Macs, putting an SSD into a fanless iMac is one of the best.

The Ruby is now fully maxed out, with 1GB Ram, Airport Card, new speakers and an SSD. I can now wirelessly stream Youtube livestreams at 144p using PPCMC, while editing docs from my 2010 Mac Mini home server, and replying to emails in Safari. And even still, the trusty iMac hardly skips a beat with the new speakers booming across the room. Good times

 

[MacPro2006VBox]

I forgot to ask:
Does VPC emulate an i686-class CPU with the CMOV instruction? This is another requirement for many recent Linux distros.
You can check this in Linux by running
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Does the flags line contain cmov?

If it doesn't you need to look for distros/OSes that say they work on i586 or lower-class CPUs.

I mean VirtualPC for Windows emulates a Pentium 2 or 3 class machine.

 

[Amethyst1]

I mean VirtualPC for Windows emulates a Pentium 2 or 3 class machine.

Virtual PC for Windows does not emulate a CPU. It presents the same CPU as the host to the VMs. So unless you're running it on a CPU that doesn't actually have CMOV or SSE you're not going to run into this problem. The rest of the hardware is emulated.

QEMU can emulate newer CPUs and allow more OSes to run but it's slow.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Made a video of some silly inter-powerpc communication

 

[galgot]

Made a video of some silly inter-powerpc communication

Very cool... had no idea images could be send by sound ! What is the soft receiving the image on OS9 ?

Here, I'm still "working" on that GopherHole, spending too much time having fun with ASCII arts, instead of finishing typing the doc...



BUT , it's online, so if you want to try, point Lynx (or another gopher compatible client) here :
gopher://galgot.hd.free.fr

 

[Dronecatcher]

Very cool... had no idea images could be send by sound ! What is the soft receiving the image on OS9 ?

It's MultiMode from Black Cat Systems - it can decode many digital radio data protocols.

TurboGopher in Classic - out of my depth here though, think I need to set formatting up.

 

[galgot]

It's MultiMode from Black Cat Systems - it can decode many digital radio data protocols.

TurboGopher in Classic - out of my depth here though, think I need to set formatting up.

View attachment 2023302

MultiMode, Ok thks. something else I'll have to try

Try with MacLynx or Lynx in OSX, looks ok there. I can't get some Gopher clients to "understand" space characters correctly :/

Edit: Just tried in TurboGopher, if you set font to Courier, it displays fine.

 

[Amethyst1]

Very cool... had no idea images could be send by sound !

Any data can be encoded as audio

 

[galgot]

Any data can be encoded as audio

Very cool ! I do remember saving stuff on a cassette with a Thomson TO7, but wasn't realizing it was sound at the time
So that's how these worked too ?

 

[MarkC426]

This subject reminds me of the old C64 with cassette tape.
Damn it was so easy to copy games......🤣

 

[DoFoT9]

This subject reminds me of the old C64 with cassette tape.
Damn it was so easy to copy games......🤣

View attachment 2023448

Well before the days of DRM! That is very cool.

Just commenting to follow the thread, awesome content guys keep it up!

Personally I have been fiddling with UTM/OS9 lately to bring back some childhood gaming memories (DynoPark Tycoon or SimAnt, anybody?). My original iMac G3 is safely in the parental‘s basement, but unfortunately in the wrong hemisphere..

Any other suggestions for nostalgic games? I might give Spectre a go tonight..

 

[Amethyst1]

Damn it was so easy to copy games......🤣

Could you copy them using the high-speed dubbing some decks had?

 

[MarkC426]

Could you copy them using the high-speed dubbing some decks had?

I think so.......🤔
It was such a long time ago, a good 30 years.

 

[eyoungren]

Very cool ! I do remember saving stuff on a cassette with a Thomson TO7, but wasn't realizing it was sound at the time
So that's how these worked too ?
View attachment 2023446

A modem is shorthand for 'modulator/demodulator'. Data is either 0 or 1, which is easily converted to sound and back again. When you send data then, it's sound that is modulated by the modem. When it gets to the destination it is demodulated back into data by the receiving modem. The speed at which a modem does both is the baud rate and 56K modems (56,000 bits per second) were the highest speed reached. You can bond two 56K modems for double the baud rate, but each modem is still maxed at 56K.

This is also how fax machines work, and fax modems on computers just send image data.

 

[DoFoT9]

A modem is shorthand for 'modulator/demodulator'. Data is either 0 or 1, which is easily converted to sound and back again. When you send data then, it's sound that is modulated by the modem. When it gets to the destination it is demodulated back into data by the receiving modem. The speed at which a modem does both is the baud rate and 56K modems (56,000 bits per second) were the highest speed reached. You can bond two 56K modems for double the baud rate, but each modem is still maxed at 56K.

This is also how fax machines work, and fax modems on computers just send image data.

Is it just me, or did I read your post with dial-up tones going through my brain?

 

[eyoungren]

Is it just me, or did I read your post with dial-up tones going through my brain?

Well…I wrote it with dial tones in my head.

I come from the generation that cut it's teeth on the BBS, modems and war dialing. My first modem was a 300bps modem for my C64 and you called the BBS, waited for the tones and then connected the modem. Anyone else picking up the line after that would hear all the warbling (and your data would drop off).

Fax machines are a little different, they scream instead of warbling.

 

[DoFoT9]

Well…I wrote it with dial tones in my head.

I come from the generation that cut it's teeth on the BBS, modems and war dialing. My first modem was a 300bps modem for my C64 and you called the BBS, waited for the tones and then connected the modem. Anyone else picking up the line after that would hear all the warbling (and your data would drop off).

Fax machines are a little different, they scream instead of warbling.

Heh!

You've got only a few more years experience on me, my friend. I was fortunate enough to have "Internet" in 1997, although we should have had it sooner (Thanks Apple for the original iMac convincing my father about the Internet). Since then I have tried to educate people on the original technologies that actually made Instagram a thing...

 

[eyoungren]

Heh!

You've got only a few more years experience on me, my friend. I was fortunate enough to have "Internet" in 1997, although we should have had it sooner (Thanks Apple for the original iMac convincing my father about the Internet). Since then I have tried to educate people on the original technologies that actually made Instagram a thing...

Most users in the subforum know my history, but quickly:

- TRS-CoCo in 1980 (I was 9 that year)
- Commodore 64 in summer of 1984 (13)
- SGPUG (San Gorgonio Pass User Group) in 1985 (14, they had a BBS)
- AABBS (All American BBS) Sysop starting in 1986 (after I turned 16)
- Commodore 128 in 1989 (18)
- First PC in January 1990 (19). Got it from a local SysOp of a multi-line genealogy BBS that ran a sub area for the local teens.

The rest is just filler until 2003 when I fully converted to Mac (got my first one in 2001).

 

[MarkC426]

Heh!

You've got only a few more years experience on me, my friend. I was fortunate enough to have "Internet" in 1997, although we should have had it sooner (Thanks Apple for the original iMac convincing my father about the Internet). Since then I have tried to educate people on the original technologies that actually made Instagram a thing...

The days of Internet or Phone, not both.....
When someone in the house picks up the phone and hears the squeals and squarks.