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What have you done with a PowerPC today?

ojfd said:
Real men use Word 5 on a Mac with OS9 :cool:
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I actually have Word 5.1 on the MDD too, but...

Realistically, what's the minimum OS for Word 5.1a? I don't even know if it requires System 7... if it doesn't, then I would say you should be running Word 5.1a on 6.0.8 on a IIci or IIsi :) Who needs that PPC emulation!
 
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I have no idea. I've been using 5.1 for ages on all possible machines from Q605 to G4 DA up until 2015, when I switched to Intel MBP. And I wrote and published a ton of official documents using it.
 
Word 5.1 only requires a 68000 CPU and I'm pretty sure it runs in System 6. I use it on a Classic, though that has System 7.0.1. Definitely doesn't need anything like a PPC!
 
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xantufrog said:
I think you misunderstood - I agree, I'm blaming the modern web. I meant I don't hold struggles with the modern web against the G4. It's not its fault that it is getting bombarded far beyond something it was designed for and thus performs poorly. It's amazing how inefficient the modern web is
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This is why I've stopped using InterWebPPC in favor of using Browservice with Leopard WebKit. Most of my G4 machines can now browse any site without major slowdowns due to offloading all of the processing to another machine on my network. The only caveats is not being able to watch video as there is no way to stream audio, and Wi-Fi being much slower than Ethernet.
 
sambow23 said:
This is why I've stopped using InterWebPPC in favor of using Browservice with Leopard WebKit. Most of my G4 machines can now browse any site without major slowdowns due to offloading all of the processing to another machine on my network. The only caveats is not being able to watch video as there is no way to stream audio, and Wi-Fi being much slower than Ethernet.
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I should look into that!
 
ojfd said:
If you must run OSX, get yourself a 15" Al PowerBook G4 that can take 2 GB of RAM. TiBooks are OS9 species, don't torture them! :)
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If you can find one that doesn't suffer from Dead Bottom RAM Slot Syndrome. Or at least if it does, make sure there's still a performance benefit anyway.

Old Companion had this but nonetheless ran Tiger no problem on the single gig it had, but as it's a base model A1046, didn't see much of a performance improvement over my A1025.

(I wrote a bit of an editorial-type post on these two machines a while back. The relationship of these two is rather fascinating.)
 
Doq said:
If you can find one that doesn't suffer from Dead Bottom RAM Slot Syndrome.
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I have two A1095 without this syndrome and one A1095 with, so the statistics aren't that bad. ;)

And, speaking of 15" Al G4s - about 10 minutes ago I conducted an experiment and connected a high-res display from dead 1.67GHz 15" machine to one of my A1095. It works! 1440 x 960 looks a lot better on 15"! :D
 

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Tiger seems perfectly snappy on my 1GHz and 1.42GHz G4 iMac and iBook respectively - G4s covered a broad range of speeds, I'm not sure "if you must run OSX" for a G4 captures the fact that later ones were shipped without even OS9 native support. I can say Sorbet Leopard is noticeably more of a slug than Tiger on the iMac (since I have both on it). It takes a full 5 seconds longer to load interweb PPC, and that's on an SSD...
 
xantufrog said:
Tiger seems perfectly snappy on my 1GHz and 1.42GHz G4 iMac and iBook respectively - G4s covered a broad range of speeds, I'm not sure "if you must run OSX" for a G4 captures the fact that later ones were shipped without even OS9 native support.
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I wonder if I should try Leopard on my two G4s (an 867MHz PowerBook and the dual 1GHz MDD). After crazy troubles trying to download/burn it (the need for a dual-layer disk doesn't help), I actually bought a real copy of Leopard from eBay that should be on its way... but maybe it's wiser to stick to Tiger...
 
This thread has given me a lot of great ideas for my G4 iMac (circa 2003)running 10.3.2 and OS 9.2! As it is right now, it's only being used as a music box and to play old Mac games.
 
Coming from a windows background, leopard on the g4 reminds me a bit of the switch to Vista (ok, maybe not THAT bad), it looks nicer and has more features but it's awfully sluggish compared to tiger, even with the Sorbet optimizations.

But for what it's worth, you can use a FireWire cable to use one Mac to install Leopard (or Tiger) on the other without burning a disk!
VivienM said:
I wonder if I should try Leopard on my two G4s (an 867MHz PowerBook and the dual 1GHz MDD). After crazy troubles trying to download/burn it (the need for a dual-layer disk doesn't help), I actually bought a real copy of Leopard from eBay that should be on its way... but maybe it's wiser to stick to Tiger...
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xantufrog said:
Coming from a windows background, leopard on the g4 reminds me a bit of the switch to Vista (ok, maybe not THAT bad), it looks nicer and has more features but it's awfully sluggish compared to tiger, even with the Sorbet optimizations.

But for what it's worth, you can use a FireWire cable to use one Mac to install Leopard (or Tiger) on the other without burning a disk!
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Hmmmmmmm. The interesting thing is, I have Snow Leopard on the 2010 Mac Pro, which is obviously screaming fast... so... hmmm... is Leopard best skipped?
 
VivienM said:
Hmmmmmmm. The interesting thing is, I have Snow Leopard on the 2010 Mac Pro, which is obviously screaming fast... so... hmmm... is Leopard best skipped?
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I've never used Snow Leopard, can only speak to my newbie experience with these two computers! Leopard is free, at least, so not much harm other than a wasted couple of hours if it turns out it's too sluggish on your machine. I definitely gravitate back to Tiger already on mine
 
retta283 said:
Where did you get the blue X graphic in About this Mac? Is that part of Shuriken? That would go quite nicely with my Jaguar theme for Tiger.
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Yes! The "pinstripe" theme in Shuriken subtly tweaks some things to look more "classic OS" including that
 
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Dronecatcher said:
It depends on what your intended use is going to be - I'd say keep to Tiger if you're not going online and using period correct software, otherwise....

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How did you get youtube to run so well? My 1GHz iMac can only do it smoothly using tenfivetube at 240p and that's over wired network. What am I doing wrong?
 
xantufrog said:
How did you get youtube to run so well? My 1GHz iMac can only do it smoothly using tenfivetube at 240p and that's over wired network. What am I doing wrong?
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Use a mobile device user agent and go to iteroni.com (but at 1Ghz m.youtube should be ok) - click Embed Link for best results. TenFiveTube is convenient but requires more CPU.
 
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My latest eBay flurry was a copy of Civ IV. Although it said a 1.8Ghz G5 (or intel) was a minimum requirement, it’s running great on my 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4!

The extra long video is purely so you can enjoy the epic soundtrack 🗺️

 
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InAWhiteRoom said:
My latest eBay flurry was a copy of Civ IV. Although it said a 1.8Ghz G5 (or intel) was a minimum requirement, it’s running great on my 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4!

The extra long video is purely so you can enjoy the epic soundtrack 🗺️

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You are more brave than me - I would probably try CivIV on one of the more modern systems. I know there's a version on Steam for Mac and I know it has some compatibility challenges with modern systems but I can't remember if it's 32-bit Intel-only and that's the issue?
 
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VivienM said:
You are more brave than me - I would probably try CivIV on one of the more modern systems. I know there's a version on Steam for Mac and I know it has some compatibility challenges with modern systems but I can't remember if it's 32-bit Intel-only and that's the issue?
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I have the App Store version too (it was something like £5 on a special offer many years ago), which still works on High Sierra on a 2010 MacBook but is *not* compatible with Catalina, having just checked. which is compatible with the most modern system I have (a 2012 MacBook Pro on Catalina). The steam version is 32bit only too though, as you say.

By 50 BC my lap was burning, but the fans weren’t screaming horrendously, so I guess the G4 was quite happy to use my legs as a heat sink.

Had fun though!
 
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xantufrog said:
Updated the RAM on my new iBook, and installed the Shuriken optimizations and customizations. Next I'm going to try to set it up as a little Python coding box

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iBooks are hot and anyone who says otherwise needs slapped ;D

Recently, I moved my Dell monitor and Powerbook G4 12" to my main desk, and my iBook G4 12" to the 'PowerPC table' so that I can open my damn window lol. And yep, that weird looking device is a fan:

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I will probably change the background soon but I love the fishies. Sad, I know :p I have WritersCafe (a great free app for planning novels I found by accident once) open, Garageband, and Word 2004 or 2008, (I think it's 04) open. Reason 12 is open on my iMac 2019. The Pbg4 12" is a pleasure to type on, which is why I use it as my writing machine.
 
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