What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[840quadra]

Cheers!

Birthday money shall be spent...

Just ordered from the US store for my G5. Hoping it does the trick!

 

[mectojic]

Recently my G4 upgraded Powermac B&W has been a AFP server for my recently resurrected classic 68K systems
- Quadra 840av
- Performa 575

As well as my 2 older PowerPC systems
- Powermac 8500 (G3 Upgrade)
- Performa 6200CD

Doing some essential backups of systems and files before I do some hardware upgrades to most of the systems above. Biggest thing I hope to do soon is get an XPostFacto install of OS 10.2 on the 8500, after I receive some RAM that I ordered last week.

Really love the 8500, but it still pales to the nostalgia I have for my 840av.

Jealous! I see on Wiki that the 8500 is limited to 10.2- is there a reason for this? The Old World Beige G3s could be Xpostfacto'd to 10.4.
Either way, the 8500 must be the oldest Mac capable of OS X right? Very impressive.

 

[840quadra]

I am now posting on my Dual 2.0 G5 using a self compiled copy of TFF. Thanks to members of this forum, it is also doing so while running Snow Leopard 10.6!

Any Quadra 840AV running in 2022 brings joy to my heart.

It's a great system!

I am looking into some drive upgrades (possibly an SD card too), and want to continue a couple of really old projects.

I really LOVE the sound quality the ATT DSP has when digitizing old audio (LP Albums in my case) and want to continue the process of digitally recording and conversion of those files into more modern Lossless files using my G4 or G5 systems.

Jealous! I see on Wiki that the 8500 is limited to 10.2- is there a reason for this? The Old World Beige G3s could be Xpostfacto'd to 10.4.
Either way, the 8500 must be the oldest Mac capable of OS X right? Very impressive.

I am not sure if it is the oldest, but it is one I have wanted to get into OS X for years. I think I got the G3 processor card for it 10+ years ago, and have only booted it a few times since. I still would like to get a G4 card for it, but those are quite expensive whenever they pop up!

Good machine for sure, just can't replace my 840av

 

[TheShortTimer]

Just ordered from the US store for my G5. Hoping it does the trick!

What kind of set up are you planning with the drives? RAID etc?

I'd be interested in seeing how you get on with you're willing to share your experiences with us.

 

[DinoSloar]

I vaguely remember years ago the author of MpegDec said he was looking in to the possibility of using the AT&T 3210 dsp to decode mp3 files and possibly more. I have not seen anything to show he succeeded but I always hoped the dsp would be able to do many of the things that the motorola 56001 dsp did for the Atari Falcon and NexT computers.

 

[TheShortTimer]

... I always hoped the dsp would be able to do many of the things that the motorola 56001 dsp did for the Atari Falcon and NexT computers.

I remember the Atari Falcon very well. An amazing machine for the price. Many moons ago I saw one being sold for peanuts and regret not grabbing it but you can't have everything. I've never used a NeXT computer. Did you/do you have one?

 

[DinoSloar]

I have never had the opportunity to own a NeXT computer. When they were released I was focusing all of my resources on college. After that I was mainly using an Atari 1040STE and an Amiga 500. I never even considered getting a Macintosh until after both companies were no longer in the business. I miss the days of so many different computers and architectures. I remember using computers based on 6502, 6510, 65816, Z80, 6809, 8088, 8086, 80186, 68008, 68000, and 68010 all within a few years of each other.

 

[840quadra]

What kind of set up are you planning with the drives? RAID etc?

I'd be interested in seeing how you get on with you're willing to share your experiences with us.

Oh nothing special. Just want a boot drive, and keep my larger drive installed for server services.

I vaguely remember years ago the author of MpegDec said he was looking in to the possibility of using the AT&T 3210 dsp to decode mp3 files and possibly more. I have not seen anything to show he succeeded but I always hoped the dsp would be able to do many of the things that the motorola 56001 dsp did for the Atari Falcon and NexT computers.

IIRC (Can't boot it now) I have a copy of MPEGDec that runs on the Quadra 840av and I am fairly certain that it does utilize the DSP. It runs really smooth, and plays MP3 files really, really well. It is the only 68K Mac that I have ever played MP3 files on without it crashing. THat said, my only 68k machines I currently own are a 575, and an original LC, both lack an FPU. THe 575 will have one soon.

I have the logic board out now waiting for caps, but hope to restart an album encode project I have been slacking on.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I have never had the opportunity to own a NeXT computer. When they were released I was focusing all of my resources on college. After that I was mainly using an Atari 1040STE and an Amiga 500.

I too went the Amiga and ST route - they were extremely popular in Europe.

I never even considered getting a Macintosh until after both companies were no longer in the business.

Same here. By the mid 90s when I was considering the Amiga 4000 or more affordably, the 1200 - someone asked me "Wouldn't a Mac be better?" and they were right.

I miss the days of so many different computers and architectures. I remember using computers based on 6502, 6510, 65816, Z80, 6809, 8088, 8086, 80186, 68008, 68000, and 68010 all within a few years of each other.

Likewise. In the past two years I've acquired/re-acquired a number of Z80 and 6502 based machines and it's made me nostalgic for those multiplatform days. During the late 80s I was fascinated by this Japan only 68k computer but it was beyond my reach geographically and financially.

Oh nothing special. Just want a boot drive, and keep my larger drive installed for server services.

A boot drive for 10.6 PPC? As a fellow G5 owner, how's that OS working out for you?

 

[840quadra]

I vaguely remember years ago the author of MpegDec said he was looking in to the possibility of using the AT&T 3210 dsp to decode mp3 files and possibly more. I have not seen anything to show he succeeded but I always hoped the dsp would be able to do many of the things that the motorola 56001 dsp did for the Atari Falcon and NexT computers.

Correction to my above statement, I got lost in the names of some classic apps, I was thinking about a completely different program that will play MP3 files, not transcode them into other formats. I would be curious to see if they ever got further in that process. I use MPEGDec on my G3 and G4 systems on occasion.

A boot drive for 10.6 PPC? As a fellow G5 owner, how's that OS working out for you?

As of now the 10.6 install resides on a partition of my larger drive. I intend to run 10.5 as a main OS on the SSD (for now), though I guess I could split / partition and try a clone of my working install.

So far 10.6 has been running well on the G5, only issue is limited graphics support as QE / CI are a bit crippled with regards to hardware acceleration.

That said, a fair bit of my apps work fine, but I dare not try to use Aperture or Final Cut Express at this juncture. Good thing about having multiple boot options on the G5!

 

[MacMaverick855]

@wicknix , After being unable to successfully load Fienix or any Debian Distro on my MDD G4 1.25Mhz, 2GB RAM, on separate HDDs, I decided to (re)try my luck at loading other Linux distros onto this machine. Keep in mind I have two, 80 GB HDDs I'm trying to load Linux distros onto, each disk having its own Linux OS. I have had recent success on "dd"ing ISOs on to a "usb" drive and launching the live ISOs via Openfirmware. I now currently have Ubuntu MATE 16.04 successfully installed and running on one of the hard drives. It's beautiful!!!

Because I absolutely fell in love with Macbuntu, I thought I'd give it another try. I was able to launch the live ISO and commence installation. The installer reached the very end and asked if I wanted to continue testing or restart. Shortly after this window appeared, another window appeared informing me the installer had crashed. I restarted and made another attempt to install Macbuntu (Remix) and got the same result, installer crashed. So, knowing Lubuntu 12.04 Remix looked a lot like Macbuntu, I tried to install it using the same process. Sadly, I received notification that the Installer had crashed. I have never looked and the crash logs so I'm not sure why they (both) crashed. I will be attempting to install Lubuntu 16.04 Remix here shortly.

Since, I would think, the ISOs are on separate HDDs they would operate independently of each other. Both use the Yaboot bootloader. **** Could this be causing an "installer crash"?****

I'm waiting to successfully install a second Linux distro that uses the yaboot boot loader to see what happens when I try to start up one or the other. My process is to start up the MDD and hold down the Option (Alt) key to bring up all of the startup disks available. Currently OS922, OSX Tiger and OSX Sorbet are on this machine. I'm hoping to have two Linux distros running off this machine as well. One would think selecting, say the Ubuntu MATE disk would tell the MDD I want to start up Ubuntu MATE. It will boot to the Yaboot selection screen offering me the option to boot in L, linux, M MacOS, X MacOS or C for CD. I select L to boot in Linux. Currently there is no need to add a boot parameter as MATE seems to be playing well with the Radeon 7000 series GPU. (NOTE: this is also true when booting the LIVE isos)****Why if I chose a Linux startup disk does Yaboot not know which disk I chose?**** or ****Will I be able to see when Yaboot launches there are two Linux distros to chose from?

I know, a lot to read and think about. I'll post here my results with trying to use the Live 16.04 Remix installation process. I'm hoping I don't get an installer crash. If I do, I may go into the MDD and remove the Ubuntu MATE drive and try again to see if the existence of another Linux distro on the same machine causes the installer to crash.

Thanks in advance!
MacMaverick855

 

[wicknix]

Try installing either remix with networking disabled (it also asks in the installer to download packages while installing to save time. Choose no.). I believe the crash happens because the default repository locations have changed. Worth a shot anyway.

Cheers

 

[840quadra]

Sorry not a PowerPC, but there are some Quadra 840av Fans on here and the Classic forums are kinda dead .

840av has been recapped with Tantalum Capacitors and boots!









Now time to back up data to my PowerPC G5. I want to do a fresh install of 8.1 and get my classic software up and running for my LP encoding project.

 

[B S Magnet]

Sorry not a PowerPC, but there are some Quadra 840av Fans on here and the Classic forums are kinda dead .

840av has been recapped with Tantalum Capacitors and boots!

View attachment 2124605

View attachment 2124606

View attachment 2124607



Now time to back up data to my PowerPC G5. I want to do a fresh install of 8.1 and get my classic software up and running for my LP encoding project.

As I recall, the 840AV used a CD-ROM caddy, yes?

Also, I remember being dazzled by its ability to accommodate 128MB RAM, when the rest of the systems in our department were all IIsi with a maximum capacity of half that. If memory serves, our 840AV was equipped with either 16 or 32MBm while our IIsis ran at either at 2MB or 5MB. At the time, AppleTalk also blew my mind, as all the Macs were networked together (likely in a daisychain configuration).

 

[MacMaverick855]

Try installing either remix with networking disabled (it also asks in the installer to download packages while installing to save time. Choose no.). I believe the crash happens because the default repository locations have changed. Worth a shot anyway.

Cheers

Thanks for the feedback. As it turns out, 16.04 Remix v2 loaded and ran on the first attempt. No installer crash however I did use the boot parameter guidance you provided for “older Radeon GPUs”. Both the MATE and 16.04 utilize the VGA and DVI connected monitors in an extended desktop mode. I have completed my 1st phase of Linux activities loading Linux distro(s) onto a G5, an MDD G4 and a Quicksilver G4. The MDD will run Ubuntu MATE and 16.04 Remix. The second phase will be testing the limits of each distro: running the different browsers, seeing where I can and cannot go, running the software that comes with each one to see what fun things I can do, like photo processing, video processing, digital music playing etc.

One of the things I’m going to try with the MDD is seeing if the installed Adaptec 2906 SCSI card can be used. I currently have an Iomega 2GB Jazz drive attached. It was originally installed to be used in OS9.2.2 but I’m hoping the Linux OS can access the external drive too.

My final hardware challenge will be to see if I can drive an Apple Cinema Display along with a DVI Monitor off of the G5 running Adelie. Currently I can only get a GUI using the DVI monitor.

Oh yah, one final thing: Yaboot knew there were two Linux distros on the MDD!!!! When I booted off of the 16.04 drive, entered “L” for Linux I could choose “Linux, old or Ubuntu-Linux” which is MATE. I haven’t had time to boot from the Ubuntu hard drive to see if Yaboot sees the 16.04 drive.

@wicknix, you have been an immeasurable amount of help in my quest to get these old but very capable machines running some exciting new(ish) and different operating systems!! I can only hope what I’ve learned can be helpful to others on a similar quest.

With many thanks,
MacMaverick855

 

[840quadra]

As I recall, the 840AV used a CD-ROM caddy, yes?

Also, I remember being dazzled by its ability to accommodate 128MB RAM, when the rest of the systems in our department were all IIsi with a maximum capacity of half that. If memory serves, our 840AV was equipped with either 16 or 32MBm while our IIsis ran at either at 2MB or 5MB. At the time, AppleTalk also blew my mind, as all the Macs were networked together (likely in a daisychain configuration).

Mine has a traditional CD-Rom that is Apple branded. No caddy on mine which is likely a good thing as it would be harder to source for sure!

I have the AAUI Ethernet adapter for mine, so I do Appletalk over IP to connect to other systems. I should just put in a Nubus Ethernet card though.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

I'm hoping I don't get an installer crash.

As I said earlier - all operations in Debian Installer are displayed on Terminal 4 (Alt-F4 in console mode, m.b. CTRL-ALT-F4 in Graphical.)

 

[840quadra]

Just arrived for the G5 tower. Hoping the system decides to talk to this so I may finally get an SSD boost in this machine. I mean even my G3 B&W has an SSD boot disk, so the G5 is overdue!

Also- Again not a Powermac, but another item on the bucket list is now complete, I replaced the 68LC040 processor in my Performa 575 with an 68040 so that it now has a working FPU!






::EDIT::
Confirmed the SSD IS seen by the G5 when installed into the top bay.

 

[MarkC426]

Interested to see what performance increase you get.
Is there a benchmark tool for PPC Macs like the Black Magic speed test.

I recently fired up my G5 after 10 years, with a HDD and it still felt blazing fast...

 

[Amethyst1]

Is there a benchmark tool for PPC Macs like the Black Magic speed test.

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/quickbench

 

[MarkC426]

Will only specific SSD drives work in a G5?
Looking on Amazon, Kingston 120gb is £14..........and that's a well known brand.

 

[Amethyst1]

Will only specific SSD drives work in a G5?

Some SATA III SSDs don’t work in G5s. Some others, such as the Samsung 850 Evo, work just fine.

 

[Doq]

The SSD in question needs to support SATA I operation. Some SSDs only have SATA II and III modes, so they wouldn't work.

A tidbit I've picked up when looking at hardware compatibility is to look at compatibility with other hardware that share the same gotchas. In this specific instance, if you're having trouble finding results for whether or not a certain disk will work in a Power Mac G5, try looking for compatibility with the PlayStation 3-- it also only supported SATA I operation, so if you see it working with a PS3 it will most likely work in a G5.

 

[Amethyst1]

In this specific instance, if you're having trouble finding results for whether or not a certain disk will work in a Power Mac G5, try looking for compatibility with the PlayStation 3-- it also only supported SATA I operation, so if you see it working with a PS3 it will most likely work in a G5.

Presumably a 2006/2007 MacBook (Pro) or Mac mini, which are also limited to SATA I, would also be useful in establishing compatibility unless the G5’s southbridge is pickier.

 

[ToniCH]

Sorry not a PowerPC, but there are some Quadra 840av Fans on here and the Classic forums are kinda dead .

840av has been recapped with Tantalum Capacitors and boots!

Now time to back up data to my PowerPC G5. I want to do a fresh install of 8.1 and get my classic software up and running for my LP encoding project.

That is cool. I too have a Quadra 840AV and a 950 but haven't tried (in modern times) if they still work. Some others have not like my Portable and PB150 - neither booted anymore after decades of sitting in storage.

Will only specific SSD drives work in a G5?

Couple of days ago I tried Corsa Force SataIII, Intel 320 and OWC 6G with a G5. The Corsa didn't work, Intel and OWC did work. There is a thread dedicated to this matter. The info in later posts is more accurate to current situation than the early stuff from years back.