What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[netsrot39]

I've done a couple of things today with my 2.5 GHz DC PowerMac G5 (SSD, 16GB RAM, Radeon X1900):

• shopping on Amazon and Ebay
• preparation for an exam I have in a couple of days (mostly editing and viewing .pdf and .docx documents)
• light internet research (looking up stuff for my exam and also some web browsing related to my hobbies)
• watching tv series (1080p .mkv) – over eSATA

The PowerMac G5 has done everything I asked it to do today. Some web pages can really slow down the system but all in all it didn't feel 17 years old. InterWebPPC really rocks by the way!

It just feels cool and is a joy to use that Mac. Also I get work done quickly when I'm on a computer I really like Only downside to using the G5 is the increased power usage. It really sucks the power and right now electricity prices are climbing. So unless that changes it will be a "one day in a week computer" or something like that. Luckily, I have many other not so power hungry Macs that I can use for extensive work.

 

[wicknix]

What was performance like?

Made a short video to answer that question.

 

[netsrot39]

Made a short video to answer that question.

Wow, Windows XP looks pretty usable on a G5. I never gave Virtual PC a try because a lot of people deem it unusable. Perhaps that is the case on a G4 but from your video it appears to be practical and very acceptable in terms of speed. From the title bar I can tell that you are using Windows XP SP3 but do you run a modified (maybe lighter) version of XP? Your video makes me also want to give it a try on my PowerMac G5

 

[Dronecatcher]

I never gave Virtual PC a try because a lot of people deem it unusable. Perhaps that is the case on a G4

I always found it acceptable on a G4:

 

[Amethyst1]

From the title bar I can tell that you are using Windows XP SP3 but do you run a modified (maybe lighter) version of XP? Your video makes me also want to give it a try on my PowerMac G5

@wicknix and @Dronecatcher are using MicroXP, which, as the name implies, has been stripped to the bone.

 

[chaosbunny]

Desperately tried to get any sign of life from my recently deceased 15" PowerBook 1,67 ghz but no luck.

Installed an old version of creative suite on my 12" PowerBook 867 ghz. Since it's obviously too much to ask from a small indie company with extremely limited resources like Adobe to keep a legacy activation server running for their paying customers I had to use "other" methods.

Oh, and I wrote this post on the little 12 incher.

 

[MarkC426]

Desperately tried to get any sign of life from my recently deceased 15" PowerBook 1,67 ghz but no luck.

No power, screen blank.....?
What symptoms do you have.

 

[chaosbunny]

No power, screen blank.....?
What symptoms do you have.

No power, screen black, not even a light on the charger, not a single sign of life no matter what I do. The charger works well with my 12" PowerBook. Tried removing the battery, swapping ram sticks, various resets but nothing. I guess it's some kind of short circuit on the mainboard, the charger also does nothing on the 12" after I use it with the 15" until I unplug and replug it.

 

[galgot]

I uploaded two apps on the Macintosh Garden, all from a Wallstreet. These are Macintosh ports of the FIGLet command to make nice ASCII texts/banners/signatures from .flc font files.
Still have a third to upload, that do the same thing, but not a FIGLet port, completely different.

 

[eyoungren]

Installed an old version of creative suite on my 12" PowerBook 867 ghz. Since it's obviously too much to ask from a small indie company with extremely limited resources like Adobe to keep a legacy activation server running for their paying customers I had to use "other" methods.

How old?

Adobe offered CS2 serials and offline installers for legit CS2 owners. They did the same with CS3 owners, but due to the CS2 debacle you had to provide Adobe with your legit CS3 serial and they gave you access to offline installers and new CS3 serials. But you had to act within a certain time frame for that as all of it is now taken down.

For CS4 and above, my understanding is that activation servers are still online.

PS. I learned the bit about CS3 last night.

 

[chaosbunny]

How old?

Adobe offered CS2 serials and offline installers for legit CS2 owners. They did the same with CS3 owners, but due to the CS2 debacle you had to provide Adobe with your legit CS3 serial and they gave you access to offline installers and new CS3 serials. But you had to act within a certain time frame for that as all of it is now taken down.

For CS4 and above, my understanding is that activation servers are still online.

PS. I learned the bit about CS3 last night.

Thanks for the info. Now I remember, didn't they offer CS2 for free for a while?

I installed my copy of CS3 and obviously it did not let me activate. Other versions I have are CS5 & CS6, but that's too new for the 867 mhz G4. Recently I setup a 2008 Mac Pro together with a friend and we installed CS6 - which didn't let us activate either. Maybe we did something wrong but I wouldn't know what. So I just assumed they shut down the servers to push Creative Suite subscriptions ...

 

[Amethyst1]

Now I remember, didn't they offer CS2 for free for a while?

Strictly speaking, only owners of genuine CS2 licenses were supposed to use the “free” copies and serials…

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for the info. Now I remember, didn't they offer CS2 for free for a while?

No.

-----

That is a lie that was repeated by bloggers, many of whom NEVER corrected their posts. Adobe specifically stated at the time that the release of these serial numbers were specifically for legitimate CS2 customers who wished to reinstall CS2 after Adobe shut down the servers. At no time, did Adobe offer CS2 for free.

But people heard only what they wanted to hear and despite Adobe clarifying this some time later on, the lie is still out there. Because it is what people want to believe, they resist being corrected and so it is repeated. It is for PRECISELY this reason that Adobe demanded CS3 customers provide them a legit serial BEFORE they would issue an offline serial AND access to offline installers. And the first step towards that was creating an Adobe ID, thereby automatically putting you into Adobe's system.

 

[chaosbunny]

No.

-----

That is a lie that was repeated by bloggers, many of whom NEVER corrected their posts. Adobe specifically stated at the time that the release of these serial numbers were specifically for legitimate CS2 customers who wished to reinstall CS2 after Adobe shut down the servers. At no time, did Adobe offer CS2 for free.

But people heard only what they wanted to hear and despite Adobe clarifying this some time later on, the lie is still out there. Because it is what people want to believe, they resist being corrected and so it is repeated. It is for PRECISELY this reason that Adobe demanded CS3 customers provide them a legit serial BEFORE they would issue an offline serial AND access to offline installers. And the first step towards that was creating an Adobe ID, thereby automatically putting you into Adobe's system.

Thanks again for the info - always good to know. Seems like I got this wrong from the bloggers you mentioned. I'll try what I can get with my CS3 license when I have time. I have a Creative Suite subscription since sometime 2015/2016 when an important client forced me to upgrade from CS6, so I have been a paying customer within their system for quite a while.

Back on topic, I got some more games from the garden running on my tangerine iBook G3 for the little one.

 

[eyoungren]

What have I done with a PowerPC…in years past. Another edition.

 

[vb7200]

Not much but perused around on my Aluminum PowerBook G4 1 GHz for a little bit just to get the old OS X feeling. I feel like not too long ago I browsed the web with TenFourFox on that thing quite often. Was a great machine for that.

 

[Amethyst1]

What have I done with a PowerPC…in years past.

A separate thread with pictures of PPC Macs being used back in the "PPC era" would be interesting.

 

[Dronecatcher]

A separate thread with pictures of PPC Macs being used back in the "PPC era" would be interesting.

Flickr is great for that - type in any model Mac and there's 100s of proud owners showing them off in the 2000s.

Sadly back then I took no photos of the tech I was using - and it was a revolving door of new toys - especially phones but the fact is most of my time was spent working and in the free time I did have it never occurred to me to 'document' any of these things.

 

[eyoungren]

A separate thread with pictures of PPC Macs being used back in the "PPC era" would be interesting.

Flickr is great for that - type in any model Mac and there's 100s of proud owners showing them off in the 2000s.

Sadly back then I took no photos of the tech I was using - and it was a revolving door of new toys - especially phones but the fact is most of my time was spent working and in the free time I did have it never occurred to me to 'document' any of these things.

My first smartphone was 2009, but I didn't really start taking pictures of my Macs until around 2010-2011 when I joined Facebook. Partly the reason for that was until late 2009 I didn't OWN more than 1 Mac. And the Macs at work at that time I had not developed the system I was using later on (for how I was going to use them).

Most of the photos I grabbed though were posts for FB and revolved around "Saturday Morning Coffee and Mac" or "See what I've done to my Facebook theme now!"

But I agree, a 'past' thread would be cool.

There was one where we were posting pics of our workplace, but I can't seem to find it.

 

[Amethyst1]

Sadly back then I took no photos of the tech I was using - and it was a revolving door of new toys - especially phones but the fact is most of my time was spent working and in the free time I did have it never occurred to me to 'document' any of these things.

Same here. I only got a digital camera in 2002. But the earliest pics of my "setup" I remember taking were from 2005/6, for 123macmini.com.

 

[eyoungren]

Same here. I only got a digital camera in 2002. But the earliest pics of my "setup" I remember taking were from 2005/6, for 123macmini.com.

I think that smartphones have probably changed this. I used to take pictures, typically of the stuff I liked a lot. But before smartphones that involved a dedicated camera with film that had to be developed. In the early 00s it had gotten to the point of those throwaway 'one use' cameras which was a little easier - but you still had to get the film developed.

So most of the photos I got were vacations, family/friends and cats (which I like a lot). Most of the pictures of our cats at that time would show the computers I had around, but they'd be in the background because the cats were the focus. For me, a shot of my equipment wasn't worth a roll of film and having to pay for it to be developed.

I do have one picture my sister took of my sleepy surprise when she woke me up. In the background is the computer I was using in the early 90s.

Having a smartphone changed all that - it's very easy to get a picture and you have it instantly. It removes any consideration you might make about whether it's worth taking the picture or not.

On the flipside, I now have more 'junk' pictures than ever and I'm pretty sure it's the same with others.

 

[Dronecatcher]

This is the only surviving photo from my 'glory days' - December 2005, 12" 1Ghz Powerbook and a G5 iMac iSight which I'd just bought with my Xmas bonus from work

The Powerbook was two years old at this point and six months prior to this had some irrecoverable issue where I had to format the drive and lose everything - a lot of photos were lost then

 

[Amethyst1]

I think that smartphones have probably changed this.

I think it happened earlier — once phones with built-in cameras became mainstream; around 2003 or so. With that being said, my Sony Ericsson T610’s camera was so bad that I never used it.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I think it happened earlier — once phones with built-in cameras became mainstream; around 2003 or so. With that being said, my Sony Ericsson T610’s camera was so bad that I never used it.

Nokia 7650 for me in 2002 - at that point such tech wasn't cool to most people but just plain weird!

 

[eyoungren]

Nokia 7650 for me in 2002 - at that point such tech wasn't cool to most people but just plain weird!

I had a Sanyo Katana from 2007 to 2009 I think. Like @Amethyst1 I didn't bother much with the camera. Getting images off the phone was a problem and even at full resolution they weren't that good.