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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,690
26,699
Isn't Word 2008 the version on which MS removed half of the displays, formatting bars/panels, and HUD for styleguides; chopped up the menus, and removed status display on the document windows?

Word for OSX 2000->2004 has a feature that its counterpart on Windows lacks: A continual word count, and other status displays at the bottom of each document window, which is a fantastic feature for my use of the programme.

I tried to use a later version, couldn't find all of my tools, had things work differently, and was missing some key features that I rely upon; or was hiding them somewhere. I couldn't understand why MS butchered it so badly...

The newer versions are even worse, and seem to have been designed for people that don't understand how to use a word processor. I still run Office 2004 (PPC), using Rosetta, on my Intel systems. :/
Well, I mainly use Word for very simple documents. If things are going to get any more complex than that I pull out InDesign. So…I have to say, I don't know.

I know I like Entourage 2008 though. Seems a better experience to me than 2004.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
Do we honestly care about 'support' from Apple? What would you even expect, or want in that area?
I care. I'd love continued software updates and support for PPC. The only thing that lets my iMac G4 down is the fact that the software is near obsolete. If it wasn't for TenFourFox I doubt it could even browse the web. But even then it has a lack of flash. XP was released long before Tiger and supported for long after it too, and it shows since you can do a lot more without having to search hard for obscure software alternatives.

Office 2004 for OSX is probably the best version of Office, or at least Word and Excel, that has ever been put to market.
Agreed. Office 2004 is lovely.
 

AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
Well, I mainly use Word for very simple documents. If things are going to get any more complex than that I pull out InDesign. So…I have to say, I don't know.

I know I like Entourage 2008 though. Seems a better experience to me than 2004.
We have very different usage levels: Once I open Word, nothing I am doing qualifies as 'simple'. Most of it is technical writing, journamism, or other, very heavy writing. I wouldn't consider ID for that, as ID is really meant for layout/DTP.

If I need something more robust, I drop into Framemaker, which still kicks ID in the trousers for any technical literature creation environment.

I use ID for magazine layout work, and essentially for naught else beyond that. Most of the critical features that I need for writing manuals simply don;t exist in ID, such as simple anchors for generating auto indexes. it is also geared for DTP, and uses the wrong from of visual environment for technical writing.

Word 2004 gives me most of what I need, to write and proof content, after which I can easily import it into Framemaker, and add anchors, do layout, etc..

I'd murder for a current version of FM for OSX, on any hardware.

I've also no real use for Entourage: I use Eudora, which I find to be the most remarkable, and robust, feature-rich and reliable e-mail client ever devised. The auto filtration of messages, either by content, keywords, 'from' e-mail addresses, 'to' e-mail addresses, subject, etc., is simply amazing.

The earlier, PPC versions, are also fully-featured without registering.

I care. I'd love continued software updates and support for PPC. The only thing that lets my iMac G4 down is the fact that the software is near obsolete. If it wasn't for TenFourFox I doubt it could even browse the web. But even then it has a lack of flash. XP was released long before Tiger and supported for long after it too, and it shows since you can do a lot more without having to search hard for obscure software alternatives.

Aye, but most of what you desire is third-party support, and the sad fact is, that even when PPC was new and shining, the kind of application support that you want didn't exist.

Do you remember how tedious it could be to play various WMV and non-MP4 video files on OSX, reliably? Sure, VLC would handle most of them, but for a variety of codecs, that were proprietary, you had to use a terrible, and old build of WMV, and no QT plugins existed for more than half the video codecs, that were often Intel specific.

Apple don't develop Flash: Adobe/Macromedia develop flash. Even if Apple put a hand in, and worked on a cross-port, you would still be without other plugin content types, such as Silverlight, which I admit is a horrible platform, and a necessary evil.

I actually don't have much of a problem with general browsing on 10.4 and 10.5. Only media-intense websites such as YouTube give a problem; and for those, I either rip content and play it in VLC, or I use XP to view them. You can always use XP in VPC with IDM+FF and download all YouTube content to a local directory, no cross-encoded needed.

Bloody hell, the YouTube website is crap on XP now, slow and buggy, so downloading the videos is a better solution, for anyone on older HW.

Have you tried Flash 11.5 for PowerPC?

JAVA RTE 7 exists for Linux PPC, as do newer versions of Firefox/Mozilla, and other useful code. What we need is more people willing to cross-compile and port open-source software. VLC is a good example, as is OpenVNC. Both are open, and both are years out of date for PPC.

What you may also want to consider is installing both MacPorts port and Homebrew brew. From there, you can install GTK (for Quartz) and Gnome, and run Gnome/GTK+ software on PPC by running a makefile and compiling it with GCC.

That opens you up to some more modern software.

Most XP support is due to third-party developers, as there is essentially little difference between deploying a programme for W7 as there is for XP/W7. The hardware and APIs haven't changed. This applies towards porting to Intel OSX in a way: A JRE is still compiling to the same architecture, a video codec is translating for the same architecture.

PowerPC tosses a spanner in the works, as it is a Big-endian platform, like IBM z/A (System z). Bi-endian operation doesn't exist in the 400-series, 7400-series, and 900-series PPC processors, used on Apple HW, which is a major hurdle to overcome, and thus, why porting from clean C code, using a GCC compiler, or cross-compiling PPC Linux software, is really the way to go, if you want PPC support.

All the support you would see from Apple would be aimed at OS-level, and Apple product support. Thus, iTunes, QT, and the iSeries programmes, but little else. The rest of it comes down to third-party support, and that falls to convincing companies that a market exists, and that there is a large-enough market to sustain a commercial product. Honestly, open-source projects are far more realistic, and if you are desperate, setting up a porting bounty may be prudent.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,690
26,699
We have very different usage levels: Once I open Word, nothing I am doing qualifies as 'simple'. Most of it is technical writing, journamism, or other, very heavy writing. I wouldn't consider ID for that, as ID is really meant for layout/DTP.

If I need something more robust, I drop into Framemaker, which still kicks ID in the trousers for any technical literature creation environment.

I use ID for magazine layout work, and essentially for naught else beyond that. Most of the critical features that I need for writing manuals simply don;t exist in ID, such as simple anchors for generating auto indexes. it is also geared for DTP, and uses the wrong from of visual environment for technical writing.

Word 2004 gives me most of what I need, to write and proof content, after which I can easily import it into Framemaker, and add anchors, do layout, etc..

I'd murder for a current version of FM for OSX, on any hardware.

I've also no real use for Entourage: I use Eudora, which I find to be the most remarkable, and robust, feature-rich and reliable e-mail client ever devised. The auto filtration of messages, either by content, keywords, 'from' e-mail addresses, 'to' e-mail addresses, subject, etc., is simply amazing.

The earlier, PPC versions, are also fully-featured without registering.
Yeah, I guess we are coming from two different places.

My main use for InDesign is for newspaper ads, layout of newspapers (Classifieds, Legals, Editorial, etc) and so on. We aren't using ID for technical documents so we don't use the supporting apps in the same way either.

The most technical we get is to place PDFs of drafting maps that the city of Glendale or Peoria send us when they run Ordinances or Public Notices.
 

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
In my experience OS X has been pretty stable no matter if I run it on PowerPC or Intel. When OS X has crashed it has usually pointed to faulty hardware or misbehaving application... or at least that's how it seems. I have only used OS X versions upwards from Tiger to Lion in regular use so I guess I have avoided those unstable versions of Mac OS.
 

tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,966
1,600
Ireland
In my experience OS X has been pretty stable no matter if I run it on PowerPC or Intel. When OS X has crashed it has usually pointed to faulty hardware or misbehaving application... or at least that's how it seems. I have only used OS X versions upwards from Tiger to Lion in regular use so I guess I have avoided those unstable versions of Mac OS.

I've used Leopard to Mavericks, and I've found Lion to easily be the least reliable of all those.

Snow Leopard was my favourite for some reason. Just so efficient and clean with no Gimmicks. Lion and Mountain Lion were largely iOS integration bumps IMO. I like Mavericks though, I think Craig actually knows what he's doing. The power saving and memory compression features have to be admired.
 

AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
Yeah, I guess we are coming from two different places.

My main use for InDesign is for newspaper ads, layout of newspapers (Classifieds, Legals, Editorial, etc) and so on. We aren't using ID for technical documents so we don't use the supporting apps in the same way either.

The most technical we get is to place PDFs of drafting maps that the city of Glendale or Peoria send us when they run Ordinances or Public Notices.

That's not that far off from my use for ID, that being magazine layout and design. That represents a rather small percentage of my work, as I am normally working in the capacity of an editor, or a writer, rather than a layout artist, despite being fully capable at that sort of work.

What is the general context of the paper that you represent?

I've used Leopard to Mavericks, and I've found Lion to easily be the least reliable of all those.

Snow Leopard was my favourite for some reason. Just so efficient and clean with no Gimmicks. Lion and Mountain Lion were largely iOS integration bumps IMO. I like Mavericks though, I think Craig actually knows what he's doing. The power saving and memory compression features have to be admired.

I fully agree with what Lion represents: A drifting from a DT OS, to iOS, is not what OSX needs, or needed. I would rather have a clear distinction between the two, with the option for iOS integration, and iOS-inspired features.

That's the basic reason that I stopped with 10.6. I did see some nightmare-level problems with Mavericks networking, where both Mavericks client-software, and Mavericks server-software, have crippling, critical bugs, that forced a bizarre, mixed environment.

People often ask why I don't upgrade, and the answer is so brilliantly simple: Why change something that works?

I honestly have no need for any of the features of 10.7, and later OSX versions, nor do I need the latest Adobe suite. My plugins are likely incompatible, and that alone would slow my productivity to an abrupt halt; and for servers, upgrading is often a death knell.

I've seen my fair share of networks fall apart, due to some fool upgrading software, and that upgrade breaking dependencies across the grid. I am rather annoyed at the fast-paced, forced-upgrade policy that companies have adopted, particularly Internet services such as Google, Yahoo, and their 'co-conspirators' in the grand scheme of changing front-ends on a monthly basis. :cool:

My main workstations are G5 towers. That says something, both for their reliability, and their adequacy. If I need to do NLE, I would use a Mac Pro, simply because the work is so CPU intensive, that in order to keep up with the 'industry level of competence', I would need that level of power, but as that is not my profession, I haven't any need, nor any desire, to bother.

My work falls (generally) into four prime categories: Writing/Editing, Art (usually for print), PCB-Level Design & Layout, and Networking. (My other occupational activities, and hobbies, are largely non-computer-intensive.)

Aside from work, my time on any system is most active while watching or listening to media, and I am pleased to say that the G5s are perfectly suited for that task.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,690
26,699
That's not that far off from my use for ID, that being magazine layout and design. That represents a rather small percentage of my work, as I am normally working in the capacity of an editor, or a writer, rather than a layout artist, despite being fully capable at that sort of work.

What is the general context of the paper that you represent?
General news and sports. We're a community weekly reporting on Glendale and Peoria, Arizona.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
Aye, but most of what you desire is third-party support, and the sad fact is, that even when PPC was new and shining, the kind of application support that you want didn't exist.
If Apple followed a similar support model to Microsoft and supported their older software for a longer time, many more Application choices would be most likely available regardless of how many were available at the start. Available software will have had time to grow rather than grow marginally before all focus taken to a succeeding Operating System. That is all I desire.

As I said, its the only thing that lets my G4 down. And it certainly isn't a deal breaker. It is still a great machine to do work on.
 

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
13
The Philippines...
I care. I'd love continued software updates and support for PPC. The only thing that lets my iMac G4 down is the fact that the software is near obsolete. If it wasn't for TenFourFox I doubt it could even browse the web. But even then it has a lack of flash. XP was released long before Tiger and supported for long after it too, and it shows since you can do a lot more without having to search hard for obscure software alternatives.


Agreed. Office 2004 is lovely.

After I have read this thread, I have uninstalled Office '08 on one of my MDD which is running Tiger and installed a copy of Office '04.

And. Yes. Office 2004 is lovely. Going back to basics, my MDD feels like a new computer.
 

And

macrumors 6502
Feb 23, 2009
389
3
92 ft above sea level, UK
I get great stability from my G5, with one exception. On occasion the fans have gone crazy overnight when the machine was asleep, the noise was exceptional and the room was very chilled. I had to force shut down to stop it. It's happened a couple of times in the past couple of years. I have no idea! But I tend to shut down now, rather than relying on sleep.

Using word 2008 here, it's ok, but most importantly gives me cross-computer compatibility - everything's synched via dropbox. At some point my pc-based work will evolve into the next version of word and no doubt backwards compatibility will become strained, and I'll have a dilemma, but not there yet...
 

AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
If Apple followed a similar support model to Microsoft and supported their older software for a longer time, many more Application choices would be most likely available regardless of how many were available at the start. Available software will have had time to grow rather than grow marginally before all focus taken to a succeeding Operating System. That is all I desire.

As I said, its the only thing that lets my G4 down. And it certainly isn't a deal breaker. It is still a great machine to do work on.

I really don't think that you understand the problem: You aren't faced with a dead OS, you'd looking at a dead architecture.

The moment that Apple killed PPC, application support died with it. The same thing would/will happen if/when Microsoft drops the legacy i386 support from Windows.

Intel software for OSX is essentially compatible from OS 10.4 through 10.9; PPC support from 10.0 through 10.5 is also essentially similar. Compatibility from PPC architecture, to Intel architecture is not the same kind of problem.

Because any product for the PPC architecture would be aimed at a market where no new hardware is ever again going to be sold, no commercial company will focus on it, or even consider it. It is about the same as asking them to produce new software for the 68K Macs, Apple II series, or MSX.

Businesses look at dead platforms under very simple terms: Every year, there will be fewer in operation, which means that fewer people will buy their software. beyond that, because these people aren't upgrading their hardware every five years, they are also unlikely to upgrade their commercial software (via legitimate channels).

When looking at the cost of producing a PPC port of software, the cost-vs-expected-profit analysis is grim.

Apple never fully supported PPC on Intel systems. Rosetta was always a user-level operation JIT cross-compiler: It never handled more intensive, system-level operations, which is why a PPC prefpane (as an example) would not work on Leopard with Rosetta.

When Apple switched from 68K architecture to PPC, they handled the emulation at the hardware level, as the PPC 601 would not have been able to approach 68030 speed by itself, with software emulation, and at the time, Apple had few third-party developers, and didn't want to cut off their right hand while deploying a new system architecture, by removing their current, and dwindling library of available software.

Had they done this with PPC, you would possibly still be seeing PPC support, which is exactly what Apple wanted to avoid.

Apple want companies to breed software using their latest marketing models, for their latest hardware, as in the end, Apple are a hardware company. By supporting an older platform, they lost sales revenue, and the desktop system sales division is the lowest focus now for Apple, whereas iOS is their key product.

It is much easier to sell one-million iPhones than one-hundred-thousand Macs, and Apple make a good margin on every iPhone that they sell.

From a business standpoint, supporting PPC hardware is not in their financial interest, and as PPC support is essentially dead at the OS level now, no commercial company would even consider it.
 

AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
POWERPC is not dead. If you think it is you must be blind.

I am pretty well blind, and more than halfway deaf, but this not withstanding, PowerPC is dead as a desktop platform, from Apple. Apple selected to axe it, to soak up more profits, by making it mandatory to upgrade your hardware, to use their new software, and in doing so, they killed all third-party support in the process.

The POWER architecture, is another matter. For the record, PowerPC is not identical to the POWER architecture, but is a subset thereof, and POWER4 is more common the PowerPC, save for some mobile technology, based on the 85xx series, that I have used on several occasions. I happen to like the POWER architecture, and have done designs based around it, but that doesn't change what is, and what is to be.

The Freescale processors do not have all of the instruction that exist in a 7400 or 900 series CPU, if you are wondering, so there isn't an opportunity to upgrade to a magical mystery CPU that will enhance your G5 to super-speed. (You will only find AltiVec, for example, in the FS e6500 series chips.) Almost all PPC derivatives now are from Freescale, and the rest of the POWER series is from IBM, and you won;'t find any consumer, desktop or similar computers designed around any of these.

POWER and PowerPC have diverged enough that you will find POWER chips primarily in supercomputer applications, and PowerPC in either mobile, or gaming devices, or in vertical market, specialised devices.

If you want to point me to a desktop computing platform that I can buy, today, that actually exists, and uses a modern POWER, or PowerPC CPU, then by all means, prove me wrong. If you can only contend with hobby devices, designed around a CPU from 1999-2004, please, don't bother to try to stress your point. I am fully awake of how both the POWER and PowerPC architectures are implemented, and in what applications they are desirable.

Nothing we say, or do here, is going to revive PPC OSX from commercial developers. I don;t know how many other ways to say this: If you want modern PPC programmes, you need to either compile open-source projects, or convince another person, or group, to do it for you.

Even Ubuntu for PPC is essentially a dead platform, with ever-dwindling interest, relegated to a backstage repository, primarily focused around PPC Macs. None of this makes the technology any less usable, but as with any dead, or discontinued platform, all software support is community-based. That's simply the [price to pay for working with technology that is no longer supported by large, commercial ventures.

You may see some odd programme, or hardware boost, from time to time, from a small outfit looking to stab at the void in a vertical market of dedicated fans, but you will never see anything else out of mainstream developers, and to use PPC Macs, you need to accept that, live with the limitations, and make the most of what you have.

TO be honest, the only thing that is making of hard to use them, is the focus of web-media on content types that are encrypted, or use some odd, new format as a form of protection, and other absolutely unnecessary web3.0/HTML5, etc., formats for the display of content and information. None of these things that break on an older Mac are in any way necessary to drive the sites that use them.
 

ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
You said POWERPC is dead. You didn't say anything specific about it being dead on desktop, laptops, consoles, embedded etc. You are wrong. The POWERPC ISA was renamed to POWER ISA and is implemented in all new POWER processors by IBM. POWER has the full POWERPC ISA so they are essentially POWERPC.
Freescale also still develops POWERPC.
All current POWER, Cell and POWERPC processors use POWER ISA v.2.03 or higher which combines the POWERPC ISA with POWER. All current processor marketed under POWER or can also be classified as POWERPC.
Therefore, POWERPC is not dead and it won't be for a good while yet.
 
Last edited:

AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
You said POWERPC is dead. You didn't say anything specific about it being dead on desktop, laptops, consoles, embedded etc. You are wrong. The POWERPC ISA was renamed to POWER ISA and is implemented in all new POWER processors by IBM. POWER has the full POWERPC ISA so they are essentially POWERPC.
Freescale also still develops POWERPC.
All current POWER, Cell and POWERPC processors use POWER ISA v.2.03 or higher which combines the POWERPC ISA with POWER. All current processor marketed under POWER or can also be classified as POWERPC.
Therefore, POWERPC is not dead and it won't be for a good while yet.

We aren't discussing the POWER architecture for embedded devices, or for HAL-9000: We're discussing the PowerPC architecture, pertaining to OSX. Beyond that, the systems that do use the POWER architecture, or the PowerPC architecture, or any combination thereof, do not include any commercial software developers that offer consumer products that in any way have a bearing on this conversation.

You may as well've said that The 6502 architecture is still very well alive, as WDC still produces the 65C816 derivatives, and licenses that core, and by that conclusion, despite no mainstream device using that architecture today, it is still 'alive' in the broadest sense of the definition.

I doubt that anyone reading PPC Mac threads and complaining about lack of first-party support honestly cares who else is using derivatives of the PPC instruction set, as that fact alone isn't going to help them obtain a new version of Firefox, Silverlight, or any other media-based toolkit, in any way, whatever, which is about the extent to which most people on this forum will care.

Dear me, 'essentially PowerPC' can mean whatever you deem fit. The instruction set used in the 740, 7400 and 970 is not fully present and implemented, with complete instruction, and opcode compatibility in any of the Freescale processors. (I believe that the Freescale chips must retain register compatibility, by definition, to meet the standard.)

Is it brill that IBM's Power9 is so bleedin' fast, and powerful? Of course, but that doesn't amount to much in the world of Macintosh, and it isn't going to matter in the foreseeable future. You're arguing semantics, purely for the sake of argument, and just about anyone else can take what I said in context.

I certainly am not going to waste more of my time, responding to clear dissection of my verbiage in an attempt to prove a point.
 

tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,966
1,600
Ireland
After I have read this thread, I have uninstalled Office '08 on one of my MDD which is running Tiger and installed a copy of Office '04.

And. Yes. Office 2004 is lovely. Going back to basics, my MDD feels like a new computer.

I feel so touched that my thread influenced somebody to do something :')
 

2001imac

macrumors newbie
Aug 8, 2014
3
0
The moon.
I find my fifteen year old iMac G3 to be more stable than my two year old Powerbook, sorry. Macbook Pro. Hardly ever hangs up when it's doing things that it was made to do, it does sometimes hang when I try to push it a little too far but it always gets the job done.
 
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