What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[Tsomi]

I tested DOSBox. Jazz Jackrabbit anyone? View attachment 2407790

So cool to see retrogaming going on PPC Macs!

Feel free to install the latest ScummVM and play the various games it supports. I still build up-to-date releases for 10.4+ and the more I have testers for it the better it gets updated for those systems

 

[doctor_dog]

Steam has never been available for PowerPC on any platform.

You're not going to find any way to run a Spotify app either, but there might be ways to get it to work with the web interface. This old thread might help: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/spotify-for-powerpc.2308482/

@Mercedes33 This is not entirely true with respect to Spotify. Unfortunatley, one of the toughest aspects of using these old machines is finding the most up-to-date information (I guess that's why we have these forums eh?).

There's been a fair amount of work to get a usable Spotify app on PPC, neither of which is perhaps full-featured, but they do work. If you're really keen and don't mind a little work, there are at least two apps that you can use: my Owntone port and @Jazzzny's python app.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/spotify-discontinued-for-ppc.1281477/page-2?post=32569164#post-32569164

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Guys, got this little monster quite cheap (~56$ converted from RUB including delivery). What I need to do before attempt to insert in in Canister? (G4 MDD). Flashing is obvious, do I need something else?

 

[iBookmaster]

What have I done with a Power PC today?

I record and save internet radio songs in iTunes with RadioLover. It's really great at what it does. I let it record for hours and it saves and names the songs individually and I throw away songs I don't want and keep the ones I like!

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/radiolover

 

[Dronecatcher]

What have I done with a Power PC today?

I record and save internet radio songs in iTunes with RadioLover. It's really great at what it does. I let it record for hours and it saves and names the songs individually and I throw away songs I don't want and keep the ones I like!

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/radiolover

OMG! What a find - thanks for posting! This is bad news for my Powerbook HDD as I leave it downloading 2 SomaFM streams all night

 

[iBookmaster]

OMG! What a find - thanks for posting! This is bad news for my Powerbook HDD as I leave it downloading 2 SomaFM streams all night

Who says you can't do anything on old PPC Macs?!!!! I've recorded/saved so many good songs that I couldn't even remember on oldies channels. I also paid for a sound enhancement app called Volume Logic that makes iTunes songs sound really great. I have some old Monsoon PlanarMedia 9 speakers and they sound soooooo good! I am still having a lot of fun with my old Macs!

 

[Dronecatcher]

Who says you can't do anything on old PPC Macs?!!!! I've recorded/saved so many good songs that I couldn't even remember on oldies channels. I also paid for a sound enhancement app called Volume Logic that makes iTunes songs sound really great. I have some old Monsoon PlanarMedia 9 speakers and they sound soooooo good! I am still having a lot of fun with my old Macs!

Sounds a bit like Audio Hijack that lets you re-route audio and also apply DSP to it.

And there's Play - a media player that also gives access to Core Audio's DSP units.

 

[iBookmaster]

Sounds a bit like Audio Hijack that lets you re-route audio and also apply DSP to it.

And there's Play - a media player that also gives access to Core Audio's DSP units.

I paid for WireTap Pro years ago and was using that on Mac OS 10.4 but, wanted to do most of my PPC usage on Sorbet Leopard and I can't activate it because the developer is gone now. I ended up liking RadioLover better because of the song naming and separating each individual song. WireTap didn't do either one of those. It just recorded what ever audio that was playing in one continuous file. I haven't tried Play app.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I paid for WireTap Pro years ago and was using that on Mac OS 10.4 but, wanted to do most of my PPC usage on Sorbet Leopard and I can't activate it because the developer is gone now. I ended up liking RadioLover better because of the song naming and separating each individual song. WireTap didn't do either one of those. It just recorded what ever audio that was playing in one continuous file. I haven't tried Play app.

Yes, I used to use FStream for recording but faced the same problem - one long recording with no song IDs.
Radiolover is a revelation in that respect!

 

[mac57mac57]

I've just upgraded my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz with a new 2 TB WD Blue HDD! It now sports the original 250 GB HDD that Apple delivered it with and the new 2 TB drive. It also sports the original 512 MB of RAM that Apple delivered the machine with plus an added 4 GB, for a total of 4.5 GB of RAM. With its fast new drive, lots of RAM and Sorbet Leopard and AquaFox, this machine is ready for another several years of productive service!

 

[Doq]

I shoved a ZimaBoard inside of my G5. I pulled the idea from this post but instead of a Raspberry Pi I used the x86 mini that I had laying around.

Rather than presenting Browservice I've gone with X11 forwarding paired with VNC (multisession through openSUSE) for the meaty Firefox that has trouble rendering on X11 forwarding.

It's not nearly as clean as in that thread though. I pulled out the Superdrive to make room for this as I had two drives already. I have an IDE to mini-IDE board I pulled from an old server I used to restore optical through the use of a slimline drive.

Would have pics but I think I hosed the openSUSE install literally as I was writing this post.

update: fixed it

 

[swamprock]

I swapped my 1ghz logic board with a video overheating issue out of my TiBook, and swapped in the original 867mhz logic board, and fixed the display latch by removing the button mechanism, soaking it in vinegar, and cleaning the magnet with a wire brush. Works OK now, but doesn't latch very securely. I also glued and clamped the left side of the display bezel to the back plate that was loose and splitting.

I swapped out the display panel (EDIT: not the full display assembly; just the LCD) in my 12" 800mhz iBook G3, that had keyboard bruising and pressure marks on it, by using a perfect display from a dead iBook G4 (a 1.33ghz, the final one). I'm guessing all iBook displays are interchangeable.

Next up is fixing a 14" 600mhz iBook G3 hinge. It had a broken screw, and my original fix didn't work for very long. This is my first 14" iBook, and I find it a very strange-looking machine.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Used MacPorts to build myself a copy of Python 3.10 on my Sawtooth. In my various attempts to get FW 800 working on here, I had replaced Sorbet Leopard with vanilla Leopard and since switching back to vanilla leopard made no difference in regards to the FW 800 problem, I decided to go back to Sorbet Leopard. Now when it came time to copy over PPCMC and apply the fix needed to get it working again, I could have done what I normally do on PPC and use either the Leopard.sh method or the Unofficial TenFourFox Development toolkit method where you copy over the updated Python after installing the toolkit, but I decided to try what I do on my 2006 MBP and use MacPorts to build an updated Python. Now I knew this was going to take longer than the MBP, but wow...

It took about 7 hours to build Python on here (takes about a half hour on the MBP) and its dependencies. Note that I have a 1.5ghz CPU in here, I can't imagine how long it would have took with the stock CPU. For some reason MacPorts gave me Python 2.7 instead of 3.12, saying there was a problem with 3.12 (not sure why MacPorts didn't try an earlier version of 3). So, I tried building 3.10 and that worked without issue (and only took about a half hour thanks to all of the dependencies already being built earlier). I think this is the longest I have ever had this Mac turned on for, and the most stress I have put it under, but it handled it well. I tried the FW 800 PCI card again and I was actually able to copy a couple things over to an external drive at expected speeds before getting hit with the slow transfer rate problem again. Not sure if I would build things using MacPorts on this Mac too often, but it is nice to have the option.

 

[barracuda156]

Used MacPorts to build myself a copy of Python 3.10 on my Sawtooth. In my various attempts to get FW 800 working on here, I had replaced Sorbet Leopard with vanilla Leopard and since switching back to vanilla leopard made no difference in regards to the FW 800 problem, I decided to go back to Sorbet Leopard. Now when it came time to copy over PPCMC and apply the fix needed to get it working again, I could have done what I normally do on PPC and use either the Leopard.sh method or the Unofficial TenFourFox Development toolkit method where you copy over the updated Python after installing the toolkit, but I decided to try what I do on my 2006 MBP and use MacPorts to build an updated Python. Now I knew this was going to take longer than the MBP, but wow...

It took about 7 hours to build Python on here (takes about a half hour on the MBP) and its dependencies. Note that I have a 1.5ghz CPU in here, I can't imagine how long it would have took with the stock CPU. For some reason MacPorts gave me Python 2.7 instead of 3.12, saying there was a problem with 3.12 (not sure why MacPorts didn't try an earlier version of 3). So, I tried building 3.10 and that worked without issue (and only took about a half hour thanks to all of the dependencies already being built earlier). I think this is the longest I have ever had this Mac turned on for, and the most stress I have put it under, but it handled it well. I tried the FW 800 PCI card again and I was actually able to copy a couple things over to an external drive at expected speeds before getting hit with the slow transfer rate problem again. Not sure if I would build things using MacPorts on this Mac too often, but it is nice to have the option.

MacPorts does not substitute pythons for one another in the context of building them. If you run `sudo port install python312`, it will either install Python 3.12 or fail to, but it won’t and should not install some other Python. (Of course, another version may be needed to build some dependencies, so only in this sense it may give 2.7 “instead” – notice, it is not really instead case.)

Wonder what fails with 3.12. On 10.6.x ppc one patch needs a trivial modification, but on 10.5.x it should work as-is. (If it fails, please report it on Trac, it will help every other user.)

P. S. Builds on a single-core G4 take forever, yeah.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Continuing to experiment with Debian 12 on a G4 Quicksilver with an Nvidia GeForce4 MX GPU and a G5 with a Radeon 9600XT GPU. Both have Apple Cinema/Studio displays attached. Neither computer will boot to a login display, the screen remains black. The power button light stays on solid. (It would sometimes fade in and out using other distros) If I hook up a DVI monitor to the G5 (and remove the ACD) IT boots right up, no issues. I have not tried to the DVI trick with the G4.

If I enter nouveau.modeset=0 on the G4 it will boot to a tty on the apple display.

None of the radeon kernel mods have brought up a screen on the G5.

What does a guy have to do to get Linux distros to work with Apple displays? Trust me, I have tried just about every kernel command mod possible (except the one that would work) trying to get the apple displays to work. I would really like to drive both a DVI and Studio display on the G5 but would settle for just the apple displays working.

My next step is to create and xorg.conf file to help things along.

UPDATE:

Tried to boot Deb12SID (which is weirdly called trixie not bookworm) using a DVI monitor on the G4 with the Nvidia GeForce4 MX card and all i got was a scrambled mess. So I reconnected the Apple Display and I went into recovery mode with nouveau.modeset=0. I reviewed the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and found that something called "nouveau_vieux" could not be found and therefore could not be loaded. Research shows it's part of a MESA package.
I haven't had the chance to search to see if it's installed or if I need to install it. The other issue was, regardless of whether the DVI or Apple display were attached, the log stated that they were both VGA-1 and that VGA-1 wasn't connected.

Thoughts?,

MacMaverick855

 

[ToniCH]

Installed a SSD and Sorbet to iMac G5. Had some difficulty as my Intel SSD-drives (Pro 2500 series) are ok and boot just fine when installed to a FW-case but do not appear at all when installed internally. Suspected my formatting and partition type etc. and installed them several times but no. Finally I tried a Samsung Evo 850 and that also works internally. So, I guess these Intels are just incompatible with the iMacs SATA-bus?

So, finally (after several hours) a victory and all seems to work! Didn't spot any bulging or leaking caps either. 👍

I think I will order an Airport Extreme -card for it. Makes everything so much easier. EDIT: did buy one locally and should have it in couple of days!

Ps. did all the cloning and sw installations with the PowerBook G4 12".

 

[ToniCH]

And now it arrived. Will install and test it tomorrow.

But, now I am wondering if PowerMac G5 memories from older models work in iMac G5? My late 2005's takes different dimms but I think the earlier ones take PC3200 like the iMacs?

 

[skinniezinho]

Unless it's a regional thing, as of today, Gmail still works for me in a TenFourFoxBox (with a mobile phone user agent) on my G3 iBook - as do a few other boxes....

View attachment 2354131

View attachment 2354133

Can you share a bit how to make those tenfourbox apps with mobilephoneagent? or the apps =)
I am ressurecting my PB G4 12, and had some old gmail/fb "boxed" apps but they won't work.
Inspiring

 

[barracuda156]

Can you share a bit how to make those tenfourbox apps with mobilephoneagent? or the apps =)
I am ressurecting my PB G4 12, and had some old gmail/fb "boxed" apps but they won't work.
Inspiring

As of couple of days ago, GMail was working in TenFourFox without any specific add-ons.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Can you share a bit how to make those tenfourbox apps with mobilephoneagent? or the apps =)
I am ressurecting my PB G4 12, and had some old gmail/fb "boxed" apps but they won't work.
Inspiring

I'll sort something out tomorrow for you - remind me if I forget!

 

[Dronecatcher]

Can you share a bit how to make those tenfourbox apps with mobilephoneagent? or the apps =)
I am ressurecting my PB G4 12, and had some old gmail/fb "boxed" apps but they won't work.
Inspiring

Make your boxed app either with TFF/Foxbox or InterWebPPC/InTheBox and note whether the URL needs to be the mobile variant (m instead of www usually.)

Don’t open the new app but locate it and right click on it to Show Package Contents then navigate to:

Contents/Resources/foxbox/defaults/preferences

In that folder delete and replace prefs.js with the one attached in this post.

The included prefs.js is quite limited in scope - I’ve found using one typical of the full browser causes problems with box apps.

 

[skinniezinho]

Make your boxed app either with TFF/Foxbox or InterWebPPC/InTheBox and note whether the URL needs to be the mobile variant (m instead of www usually.)

Don’t open the new app but locate it and right click on it to Show Package Contents then navigate to:

Contents/Resources/foxbox/defaults/preferences

In that folder delete and replace prefs.js with the one attached in this post.

The included prefs.js is quite limited in scope - I’ve found using one typical of the full browser causes problems with box apps.

Thanks a lot, not only I was not aware of in the box app but also not aware of the perfs.js trick.
What url are you using for mobile Gmail? Just searched online and found two types.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Thanks a lot, not only I was not aware of in the box app but also not aware of the perfs.js trick.
What url are you using for mobile Gmail? Just searched online and found two types.

I think I used https://mail.google.com to test (I don't have my original boxes) - I'd try any variant you find.
I do know Gmail ceased it's low end interface a while back.

 

[MarkC426]

Make your boxed app either with TFF/Foxbox or InterWebPPC/InTheBox and note whether the URL needs to be the mobile variant (m instead of www usually.)

Don’t open the new app but locate it and right click on it to Show Package Contents then navigate to:

Contents/Resources/foxbox/defaults/preferences

In that folder delete and replace prefs.js with the one attached in this post.

The included prefs.js is quite limited in scope - I’ve found using one typical of the full browser causes problems with box apps.

As a casual observer, this to me looks like witchcraft…….
You guys delve a lot deeper into this stuff than I could ever fathom.

Great job though…(whatever it all means)…..

 

[ToniCH]

And now it arrived. Will install and test it tomorrow.

Installed the card, probably the easiest plug and play installation I've done this far. And works right away.