I've finally hit a wall with PPC

[burnout8488]

I'm as big of a PPC fan as anyone, but my PowerBook 1.67 needed to be superseded by a MacBook yesterday. What surprised me was that it didn't involve CPU intensive programs, just little bugs and general slow-ness that made me switch up.

I'm a marketing intern doing SEO, blogging, and a lot of social media riffraff. Unfortunately, the websites I need to do this are either flash based, or hit me with an "Unresponsive Script" error when I try to use them. (Google AdWords) With Excel and Word open, and 5-6 tabs in TenFourFox, the computer had no problem "Beach-Balling" me numerous times, and I had to Force Quit a lot of things.

I was really hoping this computer would get me through my internship, but it looks like what is commonplace in the 2013 World Wide Web has finally killed it for me. If it weren't for the poor internet performance (due to the graphic/animated nature of most websites today) I feel as if this computer would be very viable for what I do, which isn't that intensive of work.

Computer Specs: 15" 1.67 Hi-Res PBG4, 2GB Ram, 250GB 5400rpm WD Blue (Fastest possible PATA HDD, right under the 320GB version), Leopard 10.5

For now, it's back to borrowing my girlfriend's old 2.4 C2D 15" MBP. It works great, but as many of us know, just doesn't have that PPC "feel" to it.

 

[Starfighter]

It's kind of like that. We have to let PPC go in some areas of our lifes.

 

[ppcfanforever1]

Its a shame, but it happens. Glad to hear you could hold on to it until 2013

 

[ybz90]

I'm as big of a PPC fan as anyone, but my PowerBook 1.67 needed to be superseded by a MacBook yesterday. What surprised me was that it didn't involve CPU intensive programs, just little bugs and general slow-ness that made me switch up.

I'm a marketing intern doing SEO, blogging, and a lot of social media riffraff. Unfortunately, the websites I need to do this are either flash based, or hit me with an "Unresponsive Script" error when I try to use them. (Google AdWords) With Excel and Word open, and 5-6 tabs in TenFourFox, the computer had no problem "Beach-Balling" me numerous times, and I had to Force Quit a lot of things.

I was really hoping this computer would get me through my internship, but it looks like what is commonplace in the 2013 World Wide Web has finally killed it for me. If it weren't for the poor internet performance (due to the graphic/animated nature of most websites today) I feel as if this computer would be very viable for what I do, which isn't that intensive of work.

Computer Specs: 15" 1.67 Hi-Res PBG4, 2GB Ram, 250GB 5400rpm WD Blue (Fastest possible PATA HDD, right under the 320GB version), Leopard 10.5

For now, it's back to borrowing my girlfriend's old 2.4 C2D 15" MBP. It works great, but as many of us know, just doesn't have that PPC "feel" to it.

Sorry to hear that, while I love my newly restored PowerBook, I could never use it as my main computer even for general browsing, let alone computational work.

That said, maybe you could try Aurorafox. I find it to be at least twice as fast as TenFourFox. There's not much you can do about Flash, but for the other things, Aurorafox might tide you over.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm a Graphic Designer. While my Mac is fully capable with the last apps released for PowerPC Mac, the processing power for some of the documents I work with just isn't there any more.

I've been waiting for our tax refund to go and purchase a Intel Mac off eBay. I'm hoping to get the last Aluminum 17" MBP model. I know it will have an iSight built in, but it will at least look as close to the PowerBooks as I can get.

I hate the look of the unibodys.

 

[ybz90]

I'm a Graphic Designer. While my Mac is fully capable with the last apps released for PowerPC Mac, the processing power for some of the documents I work with just isn't there any more.

I've been waiting for our tax refund to go and purchase a Intel Mac off eBay. I'm hoping to get the last Aluminum 17" MBP model. I know it will have an iSight built in, but it will at least look as close to the PowerBooks as I can get.

I hate the look of the unibodys.

It's the black keyboard (and to a lesser extend, the black bezel) that bothers me. All aluminum looks so much better.

 

[Imixmuan]

Too bad

... sounds like your internship and career path kinda dicatate you go intel at this point.

Personally, I have removed flash on my PPC machine. It's old/evil and for my needs, the workarounds like click to plugin are more than sufficient. That is not true for everyone. There is plenty your Powerbook will still do, offline, and if you are brave, you can try out a Linux distro like MintPPC or Lubuntu 12.04. The portables tend to have lots of issues with PPC linux, just to warn you.

 

[Falstaff]

Totally understand. Just remember to dispose of that old yuccie ppc laptop in a green manner. In fact, why don't you just send it to me to dispose of for you. It's the descent and right thing to do.

 

[MisterKeeks]

Totally understand. Just remember to dispose of that old yuccie ppc laptop in a green manner. In fact, why don't you just send it to me to dispose of for you. It's the descent and right thing to do.

I'm needing a faster G4- testing purposes, obviously .

 

[RedCroissant]

I'm a Graphic Designer. While my Mac is fully capable with the last apps released for PowerPC Mac, the processing power for some of the documents I work with just isn't there any more.

I've been waiting for our tax refund to go and purchase a Intel Mac off eBay. I'm hoping to get the last Aluminum 17" MBP model. I know it will have an iSight built in, but it will at least look as close to the PowerBooks as I can get.

I hate the look of the unibodys.

I noticed that you're in the Phoenix area. Have you heard about The Orchard?

 

[eyoungren]

It's the black keyboard (and to a lesser extend, the black bezel) that bothers me. All aluminum looks so much better.

I agree. Maybe I should have bought stock in Chiclets gum though! Seems to be what Apple is using for the black keys.

----------

I noticed that you're in the Phoenix area. Have you heard about The Orchard?

I have now, thanks!

That's one of those planned trips though. I'm in the West Valley, 99th Ave. and Indian School. The Mesa location would be closest, but probably about 40 mins or so to get to.

 

[RedCroissant]

I agree. Maybe I should have bought stock in Chiclets gum though! Seems to be what Apple is using for the black keys.

----------


I have now, thanks!

That's one of those planned trips though. I'm in the West Valley, 99th Ave. and Indian School. The Mesa location would be closest, but probably about 40 mins or so to get to.

Then you should definitely call first to see if they have what you want/need. They're great there and they'll even hold something for you if you can't get there during the middle of the day. I was able to get my iBook G4 1.33GHz and an iMac G5 1.9GHz with iSight(for the kids) for less than $300 total.

They also get the majority of their Macs from educational institutions so you might even get lucky and get a Mac that has not been used the way it would have been by a student or "regular person"(whatever that means).

What they won't tell you normally though is that they will not sell genuine Apple accessories with the machines they sell. So if you want a desktop, the Apple keyboard and mouse that would normally come with it are extra. Also no original packaging or documentation, but the price makes up for that in my opinion.

 

[RedCroissant]

I'm as big of a PPC fan as anyone, but my PowerBook 1.67 needed to be superseded by a MacBook yesterday. What surprised me was that it didn't involve CPU intensive programs, just little bugs and general slow-ness that made me switch up.

I'm a marketing intern doing SEO, blogging, and a lot of social media riffraff. Unfortunately, the websites I need to do this are either flash based, or hit me with an "Unresponsive Script" error when I try to use them. (Google AdWords) With Excel and Word open, and 5-6 tabs in TenFourFox, the computer had no problem "Beach-Balling" me numerous times, and I had to Force Quit a lot of things.

I was really hoping this computer would get me through my internship, but it looks like what is commonplace in the 2013 World Wide Web has finally killed it for me. If it weren't for the poor internet performance (due to the graphic/animated nature of most websites today) I feel as if this computer would be very viable for what I do, which isn't that intensive of work.

Computer Specs: 15" 1.67 Hi-Res PBG4, 2GB Ram, 250GB 5400rpm WD Blue (Fastest possible PATA HDD, right under the 320GB version), Leopard 10.5

For now, it's back to borrowing my girlfriend's old 2.4 C2D 15" MBP. It works great, but as many of us know, just doesn't have that PPC "feel" to it.

OP,

I was wondering if it was possible to use mobile versions of the websites that you would normally use? I haven't tried this or anything, but if the mobile versions of the sites can be used on iOS devices that do not support flash, perhaps there's a workaround that would make your PB still very useful.

**UPDATE**

Well I used terminal to reveal the Develop menu in Safari, and then changed the default user agent to "Safari iOS 5.1 iPad" and then enabled ClicktoFlash to prevent flash from loading accidentally. I navigated to best buy and youtube and they were both the mobile versions of the site and it works great actually.

Oh man, I did this on my intel iMac so this might not even be applicable. I'll try it on my iBook and then re-update if it still works.

***UPDATE AGAIN***

Well I think this is awesome. I did this on my iBook G4 1.33GHZ 1.5 GB RAM running OS X 10.5.8 and using the develop menu to change the user agent is great. The mobile sites are good and load much faster than their desktop counterparts. The only problem is that the user agent choices for iOS devices are limited to iOS 4.3.3.

I think there might even be a way to get Netflix streaming to work on PPC Macs. I say this because the error message I received in Safari on my iBook when trying to stream a movie was this: "Safari can't open '.......' because MAC OS X doesn't recognize internet addresses starting with "nflx:" This is a far cry from Netflix's requirements of an Intel C2D and 1GHz processor in order to stream.

 

[eyoungren]

Then you should definitely call first to see if they have what you want/need. They're great there and they'll even hold something for you if you can't get there during the middle of the day. I was able to get my iBook G4 1.33GHz and an iMac G5 1.9GHz with iSight(for the kids) for less than $300 total.

They also get the majority of their Macs from educational institutions so you might even get lucky and get a Mac that has not been used the way it would have been by a student or "regular person"(whatever that means).

What they won't tell you normally though is that they will not sell genuine Apple accessories with the machines they sell. So if you want a desktop, the Apple keyboard and mouse that would normally come with it are extra. Also no original packaging or documentation, but the price makes up for that in my opinion.

Cool, thanks for the tips. I think I might have seem some of their advertising on craigslist. If that was them they have a cool shop I think.

----------

OP,

I was wondering if it was possible to use mobile versions of the websites that you would normally use? I haven't tried this or anything, but if the mobile versions of the sites can be used on iOS devices that do not support flash, perhaps there's a workaround that would make your PB still very useful.

**UPDATE**

Well I used terminal to reveal the Develop menu in Safari, and then changed the default user agent to "Safari iOS 5.1 iPad" and then enabled ClicktoFlash to prevent flash from loading accidentally. I navigated to best buy and youtube and they were both the mobile versions of the site and it works great actually.

Oh man, I did this on my intel iMac so this might not even be applicable. I'll try it on my iBook and then re-update if it still works.

***UPDATE AGAIN***

Well I think this is awesome. I did this on my iBook G4 1.33GHZ 1.5 GB RAM running OS X 10.5.8 and using the develop menu to change the user agent is great. The mobile sites are good and load much faster than their desktop counterparts. The only problem is that the user agent choices for iOS devices are limited to iOS 4.3.3.

I think there might even be a way to get Netflix streaming to work on PPC Macs. I say this because the error message I received in Safari on my iBook when trying to stream a movie was this: "Safari can't open '.......' because MAC OS X doesn't recognize internet addresses starting with "nflx:" This is a far cry from Netflix's requirements of an Intel C2D and 1GHz processor in order to stream.

You can use the UserAgent extension with TenFourFox/Aurorafox to do the same. But this extension also allows you to roll your own UA and use that.

The mobile browser thing is the idea behind Classilla, the cousin to TenFourFox for OS9/early versions of OSX.

 

[burnout8488]

Its a shame, but it happens. Glad to hear you could hold on to it until 2013

It is a good feeling! Still my favorite laptop in the house, just wish I could use it on a daily basis.

Sorry to hear that, while I love my newly restored PowerBook, I could never use it as my main computer even for general browsing, let alone computational work.

That said, maybe you could try Aurorafox. I find it to be at least twice as fast as TenFourFox. There's not much you can do about Flash, but for the other things, Aurorafox might tide you over.

I will definitely check that out sometime next week.

Totally understand. Just remember to dispose of that old yuccie ppc laptop in a green manner. In fact, why don't you just send it to me to dispose of for you. It's the descent and right thing to do.

It must be "broken" right?

----------

I wish I had time to get into tweaking things now, but with a MacBoook at my disposal it really doesn't make sense anymore since it isn't costing me anything.

While simple sites like FaceBook and LinkedIn *work* on PPC, and I can't work using the mobile versions, they load almost instantly on my Intel Macs. It just doesn't make sense to stick with PPC in this case when I'm more productive on Intel. Hate it but that's life!

I am going to consider selling the 15" somewhat shortly I think, while the 12" I will be keeping as a couch laptop. <3 it.

 

[R-T-B]

In complete seriousness, if the Powerbook is in good cosmetics, I'd be a buyer. PM me if interested.

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

Websites giving you problems

Hi there!

I have the same Hi-Res PowerBook G4 as you do and for the most part flash doesn't really bother me as much.. Please send me an example of what websites you are using and I can see for myself if I have the same problems.

I do wish you luck since your machine won't handle those sites, or that it does just that the PowerPC isn't cutting it for you. What is really interesting is why the G5 Dual core and Quad machines can zip through flash with almost no problems or slow downs? I watch mostly youtube and videos using Quicktime, but flash isn't that terribly slow on my machine.

Again, I am sorry to see you give up on the 1.67 PowerBook G4. Its still a nice laptop for what it can do. Have you tried lighter web browsers such as Webkit, AuroraFox and or SeaMonkey? Those might help in the interim.

I pretty much use my PowerBook G4 1.67 for not only basics, but for small computational stuff and blogging + facebook. Then again I have an SSD drive in my PowerBook, so things load up quicker, compared to a mechanical drive.

Again, send me some links to some of the websites giving you problems and I can try to see if I can zip through them without any problems. I modded my PowerBook G4 1.67 to tackle flash and complex flash sites.

Best of luck to you, and keep the PowerPC ALIVE!

PPCMM

I'm as big of a PPC fan as anyone, but my PowerBook 1.67 needed to be superseded by a MacBook yesterday. What surprised me was that it didn't involve CPU intensive programs, just little bugs and general slow-ness that made me switch up.

I'm a marketing intern doing SEO, blogging, and a lot of social media riffraff. Unfortunately, the websites I need to do this are either flash based, or hit me with an "Unresponsive Script" error when I try to use them. (Google AdWords) With Excel and Word open, and 5-6 tabs in TenFourFox, the computer had no problem "Beach-Balling" me numerous times, and I had to Force Quit a lot of things.

I was really hoping this computer would get me through my internship, but it looks like what is commonplace in the 2013 World Wide Web has finally killed it for me. If it weren't for the poor internet performance (due to the graphic/animated nature of most websites today) I feel as if this computer would be very viable for what I do, which isn't that intensive of work.

Computer Specs: 15" 1.67 Hi-Res PBG4, 2GB Ram, 250GB 5400rpm WD Blue (Fastest possible PATA HDD, right under the 320GB version), Leopard 10.5

For now, it's back to borrowing my girlfriend's old 2.4 C2D 15" MBP. It works great, but as many of us know, just doesn't have that PPC "feel" to it.

----------

What do you use your PowerBook G4 for? What daily use do you mean. If you mean youtube, mactubes etc.. running videos and movies in Quicktime rather than flash is a nice solution. Office 2004/2008 is quite speedy on this PowerBook, except for maybe 2008 which takes a little longer, but I use Office 2004 and it hasn't given me any problems.

Blogging, Facebook, twitter, etc.. I do this on a constant basis.. Where the PowerBook G4 fails in most aspects is video rendering of course and encoding.. But I have my G5 for that and or 6-core Mac Pro.

Daily use for me means: Checking, reading, sending email, blogging, twitter, Facebook, video chatting, Youtube, videos, and word processing - ALL of which I have zero problems with on this machine. Its my daily everyday, work machine and is a pleasure to use. I AM not knocking Intel at all.. just that like you I too love PowerPC. I started my life with Macintosh on a PowerPC back in 1999. I have A+ certification with PC hardware and software, but none with Mac.. I gave all that up for Mac as I enjoy using PowerPC.

I have a G5 Quad which I use as my everyday home machine alongside my Intel Mac Pro for heavy duty stuff.. My Gateway P-7805u FX is a nice Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion experimental laptop which so far things run nicely on it. My G4 Pismo 550 I use for OS 9 based work.

I run Virtual PC 7.0.3 with virtual machines in BeOS, Linux, BSD Unix(FreeBSD).. I am well aware Windows runs slow. I don't use Windows on my PowerBook G4, though windows xp is still usable on this machine, though I have to turn off all eye-candy.

There is still plenty of life left in a 1.67 ghz laptop, in my opinion. But for daily use with standard applications I find it quite usable.

It is a good feeling! Still my favorite laptop in the house, just wish I could use it on a daily basis.

 

[Imixmuan]

I agree. Maybe I should have bought stock in Chiclets gum though! Seems to be what Apple is using for the black keys.

----------


I have now, thanks!

That's one of those planned trips though. I'm in the West Valley, 99th Ave. and Indian School. The Mesa location would be closest, but probably about 40 mins or so to get to.

I live in CenPho and The Orchard is ok....last time I was in the Mesa location there was a pretty small selection and no PowerPC macs, and the Intels were...pricey, about 150-200 above what you'd see on ebay. Salespeople were knowlegeable, but a little mystified why I was interested in PPC macs. "You can't stream netflix on those, you know..."

Personally I wouldn't drive out from 99th ave for just the Orchard...but if you have to go to Mesa, its worth a visit.

 

[burnout8488]

In complete seriousness, if the Powerbook is in good cosmetics, I'd be a buyer. PM me if interested.

I rebuilt it using A/A+ used parts, having it in 90-95% condition was my goal. It's quite good for its age. I will bookmark this and be in touch maybe even as soon as this weekend.

Hi there!

I have the same Hi-Res PowerBook G4 as you do and for the most part flash doesn't really bother me as much.. Please send me an example of what websites you are using and I can see for myself if I have the same problems.

I do wish you luck since your machine won't handle those sites, or that it does just that the PowerPC isn't cutting it for you. What is really interesting is why the G5 Dual core and Quad machines can zip through flash with almost no problems or slow downs? I watch mostly youtube and videos using Quicktime, but flash isn't that terribly slow on my machine.

Again, I am sorry to see you give up on the 1.67 PowerBook G4. Its still a nice laptop for what it can do. Have you tried lighter web browsers such as Webkit, AuroraFox and or SeaMonkey? Those might help in the interim.

I pretty much use my PowerBook G4 1.67 for not only basics, but for small computational stuff and blogging + facebook. Then again I have an SSD drive in my PowerBook, so things load up quicker, compared to a mechanical drive.

Again, send me some links to some of the websites giving you problems and I can try to see if I can zip through them without any problems. I modded my PowerBook G4 1.67 to tackle flash and complex flash sites.

Best of luck to you, and keep the PowerPC ALIVE!

PPCMM

Regarding Office '08: Yeah, it's kind of a drag. I figured that when using some of the latest apps released for PowerPC, it will be a bit slow as most of these apps were universal for Intel use as well. Office '04 probably runs fantastic.

One website I have trouble with is Google AdWords. I'm not sure if you need an account to get started, but once I'm logged in it slows to a crawl trying to load the page. Tenfourfox 17.0.2

Another one is HubSpot. It appears to be HTML5, but again some things just take 20-30 seconds to load where on the MBP they will load in 5 or less. Photobucket too, sweet jesus is Photobucket slow.

I do have flashblock installed on the G4 and love it, but at some points it just gets ridiculous having to click the enable button on each website element you need to use. Kind of inhibits the workflow when your boss is next to you flying around these sites on their MBP wondering why the intern can't get work done

Since installing the 250GB WD PATA drive, I have noticed a huge increase in bootup speed and opening up apps. With an SSD, I can imagine that it would be even quicker and really open up the taps on this thing.

 

[burnout8488]

Here's a photo album for those interested, I think she's in pretty darn good shape considering the age. Everything works and I'm proud of that!

Photobucket

 

[Lil Chillbil]

And so my guess of the death of powerpc by the year 2014 is beginning to come true

 

[justperry]

I have a Powerbook 1.67, not the high res one, got it about 3 years ago after my PB Pismo died on me, actually
I bought another one but as soon as I moved the display it crashed(bad Cable).
Then I got this one for 200 Euro, good machine except it has the dreaded lower slot problem, wasn't there when
I got it but soon there after it stopped working.
Pretty sure it already had it's Logic board replaced since there was no serial when I clicked on About My Mac, but
got a serial inside just a week ago.
It's a damn fine machine for a lot of things, yeah not flash though, have html 5 enabled in youtube and that works
a bit faster if it's not set to a to big resolution.
sadly I have to Log out and in every now and then, 1 GB is just too little, it especially comes to a crawl if I open
iTunes and Safari is already open with a fair amount of tabs.
My iTunes library is quite big, about 30k songs, takes a bit of time to launch.
Except for this the machine is great, sadly PPC ran into problems before the switch to Intel, PPC is still a great
architecture, at that time it smoked Intel CPU which were even clocked twice as fast.

One thing I would like to have on this Powerbook is Plex, is there a PPC version, I read some people get it to work.
Another thing I many times tried but never succeeded is to install linux, I used many different distros and I never
got them to boot, if I get into the boot selection screen and select it, then enter it will return to the boot screen
but with inverted colours.

My G4 Pismo 550 I use for OS 9 based work.

There is no G4 Pismo, this is the Pismo, a G3 500 was the max.(without setting the Max to higher Freq. or a 3rd party upgrade)Nitpicking

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

I am aware there was no such thing as a PowerBook G4 Pismo.. My Pismo was originally a G3 500 and thus got for cheap the Wegener G4 550 upgrade chip.. and I do have a habit of calling it G4 Pismo..

In answer to your question about Plex.. Yes, I have it. If you want it I can upload it to my Dropbox and you can get it.

Regards,

PPCMM



One thing I would like to have on this Powerbook is Plex, is there a PPC version, I read some people get it to work.
Another thing I many times tried but never succeeded is to install linux, I used many different distros and I never
got them to boot, if I get into the boot selection screen and select it, then enter it will return to the boot screen
but with inverted colours.





There is no G4 Pismo, this is the Pismo, a G3 500 was the max.(without setting the Max to higher Freq. or a 3rd party upgrade)Nitpicking

Image

Image[/QUOTE]

 

[justperry]

I am aware there was no such thing as a PowerBook G4 Pismo.. My Pismo was originally a G3 500 and thus got for cheap the Wegener G4 550 upgrade chip.. and I do have a habit of calling it G4 Pismo..

In answer to your question about Plex.. Yes, I have it. If you want it I can upload it to my Dropbox and you can get it.

Regards,

That's what I though, just had the G3 Pismo upgraded, that was fairly expensive.
I do know, and tried on mine, that it was possible to set the Freq. higher, I did so by connecting a few points on the CPU card, reverted back because it wasn't really stable, eventually the cache died and I never got it to work again.
They were great machines, but I had so many hours on it that it just dies, also in a Humid hot climate back then, didn't help either.

What is the Plex Version, if I know I can just download it from the net.

 

[R-T-B]

Also remember if you sell it to me, I'd be doing mobile ppc app development on it... It would be a good cause.