Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What have you done with a PowerPC today?

Since I bring my own laptop to work now I found myself using a 12-inch PowerBook pretty often again. It runs Tiger, I just connect it to my 1920x1200 main display and keep it docked like that for a couple of days.
I had some weird issue a couple months back where UI would be very slow in say TFF but not in IceweaselPPC, so I jumped between them when I needed TLS 1.3; but since I cleaned all of the old data and switched to Aquafox it's been very good.
I also dropped using MacPorts in favor of pkgsrc packages, the selection is good and the software is pretty up-to-date. In fact, I've compiled fortune and a new version of less, and planning to switch my blog from Hugo to mkws.sh. I wanted to maybe continue using Hugo but it's a bit complicated, and Go on PowerPC is no go.
I bought a cheap gyro USB remote, the buttons don't work well with Front Row and mplayer, but watching DVDs on a TV is a breeze. Again, best DVD player hands down.
In short, somehow using this machine feels fresh every time!
Image.png
Posting from my favorite computer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ediflorianus
Apologies for my ignorant question…. :p
But how did you create the text in the body of your message with the box behind (i.e. ‘fortune, less’)?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: maître
I have a very good condition Powerbook DLSD with SSD and I tested MorphOS extensively with it. The Wayfarer web browser and the Iris mail is very very cool but the lack of multimedia and office apps requires a dual boot with OS X. I've seen videos where someone watched 720p content easily using MorphOS/MPlayer. This is not entirely true I think (I mean with Powerbook). However, I use MorphOS much more than OSX.
 
wm2 said:
I have a very good condition Powerbook DLSD with SSD and I tested MorphOS extensively with it. The Wayfarer web browser and the Iris mail is very very cool but the lack of multimedia and office apps requires a dual boot with OS X. I've seen videos where someone watched 720p content easily using MorphOS/MPlayer. This is not entirely true I think (I mean with Powerbook). However, I use MorphOS much more than OSX.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure that you won’t get any noticeable difference in performance between the same app on different OS, provided you use the same GPU. At least if the app was written decently with official support for OS in question. (Our hacked MPV may perform worse, for example, but mplayer on macOS is not hacked.)
 
barracuda156 said:
I am pretty sure that you won’t get any noticeable difference in performance between the same app on different OS, provided you use the same GPU. At least if the app was written decently with official support for OS in question. (Our hacked MPV may perform worse, for example, but mplayer on macOS is not hacked.)
Click to expand...

BDRip is perfectly fine for me on these 20y old machines. The advantage of MorphOS is the internet. The communication. Very impressive, (despite supporting less than 2GB of RAM and one core). The best word for it is probably "cozy". The advantage of PPC OSX is the image and audio editing. Best solution: dual booting.

This seems very interesting even if I don't feel the “wow” power. The project aims to replace expensive and outdated PowerPC hardware, offering enthusiasts an affordable and capable alternative.

https://mirari.vitasys.nl/
 
wm2 said:
The advantage of MorphOS is the internet. The communication.
Click to expand...

Until PaleMoon is properly fixed, we got no modern browser, but what about communication? MorphOS is BE, so Telegram is broken. I doubt it has electron, so Signal broken. I think it does not have Go either, so WhatsApp is broken.
Or did you mean just something via a browser?

wm2 said:
This seems very interesting even if I don't feel the “wow” power. The project aims to replace expensive and outdated PowerPC hardware, offering enthusiasts an affordable and capable alternative.

https://mirari.vitasys.nl/
Click to expand...

Specs disappoint, but yeah, still nice. I would consider getting it, if OpenBSD or NetBSD will run on it properly.
 
barracuda156 said:
Or did you mean just something via a browser?
Click to expand...

Yes. Just via browser. Like my fav Hungarian IRC sites online without the machine wanting to fly. :D I was very happy about that. I don't use these old machines for more than 1-2 hours. A little IRC, a little game, a little tweak, and some internet radio in between.
 

Attachments

  • MorphOS.png
    MorphOS.png
    1.1 MB · Views: 5
  • Like
Reactions: ediflorianus
wm2 said:
Yes. Just via browser. Like my fav Hungarian IRC sites online without the machine wanting to fly. :D I was very happy about that. I don't use these old machines for more than 1-2 hours. A little IRC, a little game, a little tweak, and some internet radio in between.
Click to expand...

Do we have any problems with IRC on macOS? I do not really use IRC, but I am sure we have clients, both GUI and CLI, and a native Cocoa one should be lite with no dependencies.
 
barracuda156 said:
Do we have any problems with IRC on macOS? I do not really use IRC, but I am sure we have clients, both GUI and CLI, and a native Cocoa one should be lite with no dependencies.
Click to expand...

Colloquy was my fav on OSX. Very user friendly. I tested a lot of tweaked web browser on OSX but the webkit based Wayfarer is better. Ofc. it's just my opinion.
 
barracuda156 said:
It should be possible to build a newer version that macintoshgarder has, though likely not very recent
Click to expand...

👍

An SSL2 encrypted chat enough. Anyway, I talk a lot of people on IRC who are disillusioned with modern social media. There are several IRC chat that use bots that say “hello”, share quotes, and you can ask them questions. Really funny sometimes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ediflorianus
wm2 said:
👍

An SSL2 encrypted chat enough. Anyway, I talk a lot of people on IRC who are disillusioned with modern social media. There are several IRC chat that use bots that say “hello”, share quotes, and you can ask them questions. Really funny sometimes.
Click to expand...

I like KDX, but there are hardly any users there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doq
Finally got Aquafox installed after much struggle to download it, not sure if it was my network or Github giving me issues but every device I tried would get stuck downloading at ~20KB/s. Anyways it's now up and running on the iBook and I'm making this post from it, can't wait to see how snappy it can be on the G5 once I dig that out and boot it up. Unrelated, but is there anywhere aside from eBay to source a new battery for these iBooks? It seems every good source for a new battery has dried up these days which is really unfortunate.
 
I love reading this thread…….
It just baffles me what all you smarties can do…. 👍
It’s well over my head….🫣
 
The G5 2.5 DP lives! I gave the corroded daughterboard a couple of additional cleaning passes followed by neutralizing the copper salt corrosion with a baking soda paste solution and an electric toothbrush. After rinsing with distilled water this is what it looked like after the third pass:

f329129e6155f8ed9d22f0473b3faa1e.jpg

138515710788a706e423910441116170.jpg

3466e61332a010ea41e9138f34d45801.jpg


It’s not perfect, but MUCH better. There’s still a fair bit of damage around these MLCCs and I haven’t load tested the machine yet, so it’s very possible the VCORE could just die out as soon as a load is applied - I don’t have full confidence that this is a flawless CPU board again, but I was able to get it to POST for the first time in 15 years today.

My rebuilt cooler seems to be handling an idle load just fine (only on open firmware menu though). The HDD is dead and the DVD drive is stuck - so once I replace those I should be able to get Leopard installed and actually put a real world load on it.

When I first pulled the CPU last year this is how it looked:
c73c4ff52debc86577d803c1389a8846.jpg


I’d say it’s a big improvement!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Matias_, Certificate of Excellence, MarkC426 and 1 other person
srp said:
The G5 2.5 DP lives! I gave the corroded daughterboard a couple of additional cleaning passes followed by neutralizing the copper salt corrosion with a baking soda paste solution and an electric toothbrush. After rinsing with distilled water this is what it looked like after the third pass:

f329129e6155f8ed9d22f0473b3faa1e.jpg

138515710788a706e423910441116170.jpg

3466e61332a010ea41e9138f34d45801.jpg


It’s not perfect, but MUCH better. There’s still a fair bit of damage around these MLCCs and I haven’t load tested the machine yet, so it’s very possible the VCORE could just die out as soon as a load is applied - I don’t have full confidence that this is a flawless CPU board again, but I was able to get it to POST for the first time in 15 years today.

My rebuilt cooler seems to be handling an idle load just fine (only on open firmware menu though). The HDD is dead and the DVD drive is stuck - so once I replace those I should be able to get Leopard installed and actually put a real world load on it.

When I first pulled the CPU last year this is how it looked:
c73c4ff52debc86577d803c1389a8846.jpg


I’d say it’s a big improvement!
Click to expand...
Ahh boy it looks like AI barfed all over that daughter board. Cleaned up really well. Nice work! :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: srp and MarkC426
With the start of PowerPC Challenge 2026, I decided to install an OWC Excelsior pcie card with a fresh Orico 128gb msata I picked up months back into my dual core 2ghz A1117 Powermac G5. I am already quite happy with how it performs now but was curious what the increase would look like.

The xbenchmark scores certainly illustrate the speed increase of 4lane pcie (32gb theoretical max) vs Sata3 (6gb theorietical max).
Sata3 vs 4l pcie msata.jpg

A1117's are still quite usable in 2026 for DD tasks. Everything I use still works well enough for who it's for :)
 
Playing around on my PBG4 that I added an SSD to, and some RAM (I think). It can still surf the web (thanks to Darkweb Browser), play Youtube videos (from PPCMC), file share on my newer Macs, use Word for writing stories, edit music files on Audacity, play videos on Coreplayer, play music through the radio and iTunes and if I really want a challenge, edit stuff on iMovie lol. Still impressed with what this old dog can do (I know it can't do everything modern, but for a secondary or third device to play around on, it's not bad at all).

Here are some screenshots of it in action:
 

Attachments

  • Picture 1.png
    Picture 1.png
    238.3 KB · Views: 2
  • Picture 3.png
    Picture 3.png
    716.2 KB · Views: 1
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back