What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[alex_free]

Oh really? do you know if there is a way to increase the priority to the CPU or is it automatically governed. At the moment, a 6hr recording is taking my G4 500mhz about 6 hours to convert in to an mp3. I mean, I don't mind, because I'm using my machine for other things while it's converting in the background. But it would be nice if it was possible to chuck more CPU time at it.

Also where can I find the latest version of PPCMC?

The Macintosh Garden page linked in the original PPCMC 7.x MacRumors thread will always have the current version.

PPCMC is using the all of your CPU, Mac OS X isn’t Windows were you can set priority. All of that is automatically handled. Any file converting will happen much faster if it is the only thing the machine is doing. Any other simultaneous heavy tasks will slow it down possibly significantly, light tasks should not affect it that much.

Having a 500MHZ CPU doing conversion with the latest FFMPEG release (which is what PPCMC uses) + heavy tasks at the same time is why your experiencing this. I don’t even bother converting anything on my 300MHZ G3.

The next version of PPCMC will have a special G4/G5 download with AltiVec optimizations on in FFMPEG, alongside the standard G3/G4/G5 version. This will allow your G4 to use AltiVec code which allows for faster file conversions.

 

[Haemoglobin]

That's great! Looking forward to the new release. I'll get it installed asap, any performance increase is welcome.

I'd love to throw a G4 600mhz or G3 1ghz. But it's finding one that's the problem.

 

[Macbookprodude]

What else does this app do ? Will it let me do anything in OS 9 like web proxy ?

 

[amishallin]

I played X-Wing for a couple hours in OS 9. It doesn't run well on my gaming PC with Steam. I'm afraid playing Halo in 10.4.11 will cause my RADEON 9200 Mac Edition to catch fire.

 

[sparty411]

I played X-Wing for a couple hours in OS 9. It doesn't run well on my gaming PC with Steam. I'm afraid playing Halo in 10.4.11 will cause my RADEON 9200 Mac Edition to catch fire.

Gaming on PPC is a lost cause. 99% of games are cruddy Windows ports, that will run a gorillion times smoother on Windows with less stellar hardware. On Windows, your Radeon 9200 would play Halo CE without much trouble, while on OSX, my Powermac G5 can barely muster playable framerates with a Radeon 9600.

 

[VulchR]

I have a mothballed but functioning (sort of) 66 MHz PPC machine in my lab. If it were my property rather than my employer's, what I would do with it now would be to take it outside, douse it in gasoline, light a match, and dance around the flames. Horrible machine.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Gaming on PPC is a lost cause. 99% of games are cruddy Windows ports, that will run a gorillion times smoother on Windows with less stellar hardware. On Windows, your Radeon 9200 would play Halo CE without much trouble, while on OSX, my Powermac G5 can barely muster playable framerates with a Radeon 9600.

try the Radeon 1900XT

 

[Jack Neill]

I put a 256 SSD in a PB G4 1.25 and I got .11/Classic all setup and I am going to hang out in the "Garden" and see what memories I can relive.

 

[Amethyst1]

I put a 256 SSD in a PB G4 1.25 and I got .11/Classic all setup and I am going to hang out in the "Garden" and see what memories I can relive.

Which SSD and adapter (if any) did you use, out of interest? Sounds like you have some fun times ahead of you

 

[Jack Neill]

chenyang mSATA Mini SATA SSD to IDE 44Pin 2.5 inch Hard Disk Case Enclosure Box White for Notebook Laptop

This adapter using JM20330 Serial ATA Bridge Chip. Case Size:70mm x 100mm X 9.5mm. This adapter is only compatible with 50mm size mSATA Mini SATA SSD. Not compatible with 50mm Mini PCI-e SATA and Mini PCI-e PATA. Not compatible with M.2 NGFF SSD(B-key or M-key).

www.amazon.com

Zheino mSATA SSD 256GB M3 Internal Mini SATA SSD Drive 3D Nand Flash Solid State Drive for Mini PC Notebooks Tablets PC

Zheino mSATA SSD 256GB M3 Internal Mini SATA SSD Drive 3D Nand Flash Solid State Drive for Mini PC Notebooks Tablets PC

www.amazon.com

Got both on Amazon. My PB G4 1.25/2GB/15" has no optical, so I used a MB 5,2 in TDM and a FW cable to install Tiger from a retail DVD. Recognized the drive immediately and am getting 80 to 90 R/Ws on it.

I enjoyed the project so much, I bought another set for this guy. PB 1.5/1.25Gb/12"

 

[Amethyst1]

I enjoyed the project so much, I bought another set for this guy. PB 1.5/1.25Gb/12"

That's the problem with SSD upgrades - they're hopelessly addictive and eventually you won't be satisfied until all your machines have been given the treatmeant.

 

[Jack Neill]

That's the problem with SSD upgrades - they're hopelessly addictive and eventually you won't be satisfied until all your machines have been given the treatmeant.

These 2 PB’s are literally the last 2 that had spinners. 😂🤣

 

[MacFoxG4]

So apparently one of the metal pieces from the bottom of the display that slides into the case on my PowerBook PDQ broke off. I noticed the display felt loose when lifting it up so I opened up the PDQ and discovered that the metal piece on the left side of the display that slides into the case had broken off. So I removed the display and now the Mac needs to be connected to a VGA monitor at all times. Very frustrated tonight.

 

[Riviera122]

Today I dug out the old PowerBook G4 for the first time in about a year. Been firing off a few work emails (Mail still runs like a champ) and doing some eBay shopping. Writing this on it too where do I go to ask some questions? Need help with an alternative Spotify client (official PPC version is now broken), the best current internet solution, and futureproofing/servicing/maintenance to ensure I don't run this thing into the ground. Thanks.

 

[alex_free]

Been reading the book 1984 on my iBook G3 Clamshell running Mac OS 9.0 using Adobe Acrobat 5. Since the books out of copyright you can legally find PDFs very easily. About 240 pages in, highly recommend.

Why is this post not pinned? It’s literally one of the best posts.

 

[z970]

@alex_free As it happens, I just finished re-reading Animal Farm today...

All I can say is that these are relevant times.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Played with my tangerine iBook G3 that I recently bought on eBay. I love orange and I have always wanted either the tangerine iMac or iBook. Either model is usually pretty expensive, but I managed to get the tangerine iBook for a good deal. There is some cracked plastic in some parts of the case, but I knew that when I bought it. The connector on the yoyo power adapter is heavily oxidized, so I will probably end up buying a replacement (or is it okay to use a power adapter with a connector in that condition?). I used my PDQ's power adapter to power on the iBook today. The screen looked good until I turned it on and saw a thin red vertical line on the right side of the screen. The screen is still useable, but the red line is pretty noticeable. Also, the speakers make a crackle-ly sound on startup.

The specs are as follows:
-60 GB HDD
-320 MB of RAM
-300 mhz CPU
-Tiger/OS 9.2.2 dual boot

The Tiger side had a variety of Office suites installed (Office '08, iWork '09, and AppleWorks 6). There was also a program called StoryBook Weaver that is meant to run under Classic. The OS 9 side has Office 2001 installed along with the usual utilities. One thing I love about the OS 9 side is the orange wallpaper and the orange progress bar on the startup screen. There's also sound effects every time you click on something. I'm guessing this is a theme specific to this Mac?

I largely bought this Mac for aesthetic reasons, but with my dual USB iBook bricked and my PDQ having problems with the PC Card slot, I was going to use the tangerine iBook as my main classic Mac OS laptop. Unfortunately, the red line on the screen is making me wonder if one day the screen will become completely unuseable. This might end up just being a display piece and I will have to get another PPC PowerBook/iBook for classic Mac OS on a laptop.

 

[TheMrKocour]

Installed OS X 10.3 on my Beige G3 Desktop, then did some Python coding while watching movie streamed from my NAS

 

[alex_free]

@alex_free As it happens, I just finished Animal Farm today...

All I can say is that these are relevant times.

I can not agree more. I always have lived for sad endings, but 1984 feels different. Too many parallels to the present. (Finished today).

Thank you for the recommendation on Animal Farm, looks like it will be the next thing I read.

 

[z970]

Thank you for the recommendation on Animal Farm, looks like it will be the next thing I read.

When you're done with that (it's about half the size of 1984 and was actually a prequel of sorts), you owe it to yourself to tour Fahrenheit 451.

I've already read all three of them. ...But that was before 2020 happened. So, seeming as how they all appeared to come to life (and then some) in the past six months alone, I figured I'd pay them a little reunion to "get with the times", so to speak.

One down, two to go...

 

[alex_free]

When you're done with that (it's about half the size of 1984 and was actually a prequel of sorts), you owe it to yourself to tour Fahrenheit 451.

I've already read all three of them. ...But that was before 2020 happened. So, seeming as how they all appeared to come to life (and then some) in the past six months alone, I figured I'd pay them a little reunion to "get with the times", so to speak.

One down, two to go...

I will definitely read the other 2, probably will start Animal Farm today. Very much agree on the relevance to today.

Telescreens of 1984 are not that out there anymore either.

Here's How The CIA Allegedly Hacked Samsung Smart TVs -- And How To Protect Yourself

The CIA and MI5 wanted to hack Samsung TVs, Wikileaks files indicate.

www.forbes.com

 

[Lastic]

Still toying around with my OpenBSD 6.6 install on the 12" iBook.

Got latest GNS3 working installed via pip3.7
Can launch Cisco vIOS QEMU VM's via GNS3 albeit it being slow.
MPlayer able to playback videos now thanks to the patches from alex_free
Posting this from running a -removed BROKEN from Makefile- ports compiled qutebrowser

The iBook which I hardly used with Leopard , has seen a lot of use now with OpenBSD and i3.
To be continued ...

 

[alex_free]

Still toying around with my OpenBSD 6.6 install on the 12" iBook.

Got latest GNS3 working installed via pip3.7
Can launch Cisco vIOS QEMU VM's via GNS3 albeit it being slow.
MPlayer able to playback videos now thanks to the patches from alex_free
Posting this from running a -removed BROKEN from Makefile- ports compiled qutebrowser

The iBook which I hardly used with Leopard , has seen a lot of use now with OpenBSD and i3.
To be continued ...

Thanks for the mention!

 

[2984839]

Still toying around with my OpenBSD 6.6 install on the 12" iBook.

Got latest GNS3 working installed via pip3.7
Can launch Cisco vIOS QEMU VM's via GNS3 albeit it being slow.
MPlayer able to playback videos now thanks to the patches from alex_free
Posting this from running a -removed BROKEN from Makefile- ports compiled qutebrowser

The iBook which I hardly used with Leopard , has seen a lot of use now with OpenBSD and i3.
To be continued ...

How is GNS3 performance on the iBook?

 

[Lastic]

How is GNS3 performance on the iBook?

Slow and since I'm using a machine with only 1,25 GB RAM and 1.07 Ghz CPU it doesn't aid much.
Python3.7 chews away 300Mb RAM for the GNS3 server and GUI, then add another lowest-spec 256Mb for the vIOS L2 Cisco QCOW image and there goes your RAM.

As with my Powerbook G4 12" running Leopard , it was mere a PoC that it can be done but you won't be running 8 virtual routers in GNS3 doing BGP on a G4.

Cisco IOU however is however feasible since it takes up for less RAM or using Dynamips to run "real" router binary images.
[automerge]1593950608[/automerge]
On another note, I decided to install OpenBSD 6.7 on my Thinkpad just to know the differences between the packages/ports on AMD64 vs macppc.

Toying around on the Thinkpad with i3, iridium (chromium) and vimium, I stumbled across this Youtube video where a guy uses vimium to copy the Youtube URL to the clipboard and an i3 shortcut to launch mpv with this copied url.

mpv apparantly since version 0.9.x has been hooked with youtube-dl and as such can launch an Youtube video directly.


So I thought to give it a try on OpenBSD 6.6 on the iBook with mpv 0.29.x something.

And indeed you can copy a Youtube URL and it will start playing it , but even with 360p aka

mpv -vo xv -ao sdl --ytdl-format=18 <Youtube_URL> the video is choking hard .

Also there seems to be something weird with Mesa constantly complaining about an incorrect version of OpenGL.

Imagine if we could compile an recent altivec enabled mpv , it would allows us to open a Youtube URL and stream it directly via mpv (even on Leopard), basically what smtube used to do before it now also needs to download the video first and then play it back.