10 years ago today, Apple flipped the bird to PowerPC

[bunnspecial]

While they can certainly get the job done the question is would a newer system get the job done faster. Most likely the answer is yes a newer system would. Whether there's benefit depends on the job and company.

I like PPC based systems but if I were running a business and time equals money I wouldn't continue to use one (all else being equal).

Many times there's also an issue in these environments of interfacing with legacy equipment which is MANY TIMES more expensive than the computer controlling it.

I've spent this week troubleshooting a B&W at work that's running a highly customized nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. Basically to run it, we need a system that can boot natively into OS 8.5-9.2.2 and accept a couple of PCI cards. We're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars in instrumentation, and again is customized to the point where it's both financially or logistically possible to replace it.

We've tracked the issue to a dying HDD, which fortunately is an easy enough fix-it's just having the system offline long enough to fix it properly when it's currently working with a few "band aids." I've been trying to migrate the professor who operates it to a newer computer(he has a DA G4 "on deck" but hasn't transitioned yet) but have to tread VERY cautiously as there's a lot at stake if the computer operating this gets screwed up. I think, though, that if we're going to be trading HDDs it makes more sense to swap over to the new(er) computer.

Whatever the case, though, an MDD(non FW800) is the end of the line for what will work here.

 

[California]

Ten years have passed since Apple first launched Intel Macs. From this day ten years ago and forward, Apple has done everything possible to kill off PowerPC. Anyway, Apple launched the Core Duo iMac and the first ever MacBook Pro as well, which also featured a Core Duo. Soon after, a core duo MacBook came and replaced the iBook and PowerBook G4 12in. Later on, the Mac Mini Core Duo and the Mac Pro Xeon were released as well, sealing off PowerPC for good. These early Core Duo machine weren't much of an improvement over PPC (I have the Core Duo iMac and can testify to that fact), however, when the Core 2 Duos rolled in, it was prevalent that Intel was the best choice and C2Ds were much more powerful than a G4 and even G5s.

LONG LIVE PPC!

I remember being right here on MR when the switch occurred and it was scary. That year I bought a 1.5g G4 Mac Mini, a Powerbook 12" 1.5 (which always seemed faster to me than the Mini) and later a Quad G5. The PB had a build date of March 2006 and the Quad had a build date of late May or June 2006; I kept them for quite a while.

The 1.5 PPC Mini was very disappointing, even when new and maxed out. And you are right those original CoreDuos sucked; initially there was no reason at all to switch over to Intel; in fact I didn't switch until the new aluminum MacBooks came out in 08. The fact that Leopard worked on both PPC and Intel through 2009 when Snow Leopard was introduced was a good move on Apple's part.

 

[oldmacs]

Most of my favourite Macs ever are PPC

My family didn't get an intel Mac till late 2008, and the majority of our macs were PPC (G4) until late 2011.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Gone the other way round.

1st Mac was a 2x.1.8GHz CoreDuo Mini bought in late 2006.

Bought over a dozen of PPCs around 2010 (mind you none of them directly boots into OSX, some haven't even installed it).

 

[chrfr]

And you are right those original CoreDuos sucked; initially there was no reason at all to switch over to Intel

The original MacBook Pros were so much faster than the Powerbook G4, that there's almost no comparison. At worst, running PowerPC software on the Core Duo Macbook Pros was about the same speed, but anything that was universal or Intel native ran roughly at the same speed as a dual G5. Barefeats tested the Powerbook with the rare 2.0 GHz upgrade and it still wasn't as fast at most tasks as the MacBook Pro was. Now, considering that the fastest stock PowerBook was only 1.67GHz and the gap only gets bigger.
The problem at the time of Apple's Intel switch wasn't the Power Mac G5, it was the lack of viable portable options in PowerPC CPUs.

 

[996085]

Many times there's also an issue in these environments of interfacing with legacy equipment which is MANY TIMES more expensive than the computer controlling it.

I've spent this week troubleshooting a B&W at work that's running a highly customized nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. Basically to run it, we need a system that can boot natively into OS 8.5-9.2.2 and accept a couple of PCI cards. We're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars in instrumentation, and again is customized to the point where it's both financially or logistically possible to replace it.

We've tracked the issue to a dying HDD, which fortunately is an easy enough fix-it's just having the system offline long enough to fix it properly when it's currently working with a few "band aids." I've been trying to migrate the professor who operates it to a newer computer(he has a DA G4 "on deck" but hasn't transitioned yet) but have to tread VERY cautiously as there's a lot at stake if the computer operating this gets screwed up. I think, though, that if we're going to be trading HDDs it makes more sense to swap over to the new(er) computer.

Whatever the case, though, an MDD(non FW800) is the end of the line for what will work here.

There are exceptions to the rule and legacy hardware / software support are two good reasons to continue using older equipment. Cost tends to be one as well. Even the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" reason is acceptable (and one I tend to follow myself).

Having said that if you are not constrained by legacy hardware / software support and time is money for your business it tends to be a wise decision to use something more current...all else being equal. For example if one is performing pre-press work and they're not constrained by older software it tends to make more sense to buy a newer system than use one from a decade ago. The cost of upgrading may be less, significantly so, than the increased productivity that comes with using a faster system. Of course each person / business will need to evaluate their requirements and use what offers them the best value.

 

[California]

The original MacBook Pros were so much faster than the Powerbook G4, that there's almost no comparison. At worst, running PowerPC software on the Core Duo Macbook Pros was about the same speed, but anything that was universal or Intel native ran roughly at the same speed as a dual G5. Barefeats tested the Powerbook with the rare 2.0 GHz upgrade and it still wasn't as fast at most tasks as the MacBook Pro was. Now, considering that the fastest stock PowerBook was only 1.67GHz and the gap only gets bigger.
The problem at the time of Apple's Intel switch wasn't the Power Mac G5, it was the lack of viable portable options in PowerPC CPUs.

I vaguely recall the barefeats tests at that time -- and Gary's upgrades for the PBs -- but there was a lot of scaremongering going on regarding Intel processors == that they were cheap junk -- plus we had just invested in a whole lot of new G4 and G4 PPC machines --

10.5 Leopard certainly helped smooth over the transition.

 

[MysticCow]

The problem at the time of Apple's Intel switch wasn't the Power Mac G5, it was the lack of viable portable options in PowerPC CPUs.

THIS THIS THIS

When the G4 first made it onto the market, it was amazing. The problem was that Intel caught up while the G4 stagnated. If IBM could have produced a G5 that would work in a laptop without causing third degree burns, the switch might not have happened. Or it would have been postponed another few years.

The G5's were never truly supported. They were downright wicked, but Apple decided to dump them relatively fast.

*grumbles about why we should have had G5 support in Snow Leopard*

 

[California]

THIS THIS THIS

When the G4 first made it onto the market, it was amazing. The problem was that Intel caught up while the G4 stagnated. If IBM could have produced a G5 that would work in a laptop without causing third degree burns, the switch might not have happened. Or it would have been postponed another few years.

The G5's were never truly supported. They were downright wicked, but Apple decided to dump them relatively fast.

*grumbles about why we should have had G5 support in Snow Leopard*

That would have been amazing; then we could have hacked G5's to run Mavericks...

 

[rawweb]

That would have been amazing; then we could have hacked G5's to run Mavericks...

Can you imagine an App Store filled with PPC apps? In some regards, Apple saved themselves a small headache by not moving PPC into SL.

On the flip side, it would have been nice for them to continue supporting 10.5 for a while longer, more security updates, safari updates etc. Perhaps a few SL features. At least Time Machine is in Leopard...

 

[MysticCow]

Can you imagine an App Store filled with PPC apps? In some regards, Apple saved themselves a small headache by not moving PPC into SL.

On the flip side, it would have been nice for them to continue supporting 10.5 for a while longer, more security updates, safari updates etc. Perhaps a few SL features. At least Time Machine is in Leopard...

I can see that reasoning also. Apple wanted the App Store working so badly that everything else be damned, including giving G5 users one last gasp.

But in a similar fashion to Metal and El Cap (of which I AM NOT SUPPORTED FOR METAL!), it could have been that G5 users wouldn't have access to the App Store. Again, though, it would likely cause a huge headache, so App Store would likely have been delayed until 10.7 which could have killed PPC support and make a lot of people happier.

It still doesn't excuse the collective slap G5 users received when 10.6 hit the market.

 

[bunnspecial]

I can see that reasoning also. Apple wanted the App Store working so badly that everything else be damned, including giving G5 users one last gasp.

But in a similar fashion to Metal and El Cap (of which I AM NOT SUPPORTED FOR METAL!), it could have been that G5 users wouldn't have access to the App Store. Again, though, it would likely cause a huge headache, so App Store would likely have been delayed until 10.7 which could have killed PPC support and make a lot of people happier.

It still doesn't excuse the collective slap G5 users received when 10.6 hit the market.

I'm just curious(legitimately) about your dislike of Metal. As I understand(although I could be totally off-base on this) it's really just a more efficient way for the OS to offload tasks to the GPU where appropriate, which results in an overall faster OS.

As I understand, it's a lot like Core Image, which did the same thing in 10.4 and later. Also, like Core Image, the ability to support Metal has been in place for a long time(3 years at least) although Apple is only now making use of it-again another parallel to Core Image(every G5 GPU supported CI, along with many portable and AIO GPUs going back to 2002) with it not being used until 10.4(2005).

In the PPC Community, we know that having a CI GPU makes a HUGE difference in the operation of Leopard, although Leopard will run on computers that don't support CI.

Every computer out there capable of running SL also support CI, although that's more to the fact that every Intel machine came with a CI GPU(albeit the pathetic GMA950 just barely supported it). If SL had supported "late" PPC computers, it likely would have supported the Mini which never had a CI GPU.

I do know that computers which support Metal run faster on El Capitan than Yosemite, although this isn't a huge surprise. If it does eventually become a requirement, at least I'll be able to keep my 1,1 alive with a newer GPU

FWIW, Apple Aperture 2.0 officially lists the PPC requirements as being either a G5 or a later Powerbook. Unofficially, I've found this to be "code" for a 7447A and a CI GPU. I have a Quicksilver running Aperture just fine, although it has a 7447A-based CPU upgrade and a CI card(Radeon 9600). My main QS won't run it as it uses factory 7455s despite having a supported GPU. The program will not launch. Similarly, I have a Digital Audio G4 with a 7447A upgrade but not a CI card(4Ti, which is actually pretty comparable to a Radeon 9700) and Aperture gives me a "GPU not supported" message when launching.

 

[MysticCow]

I'm just curious(legitimately) about your dislike of Metal.

Don't hate the technology at all. Just mad that I can't take advantage of it on my 2011 mini. Missing out by one generation sucks.

The first time it ever happened was with the Mac iivx. A new and better model came out super fast and iivx users had some degree of hatred over it.

 

[2984839]

Many times there's also an issue in these environments of interfacing with legacy equipment which is MANY TIMES more expensive than the computer controlling it.

I've spent this week troubleshooting a B&W at work that's running a highly customized nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. Basically to run it, we need a system that can boot natively into OS 8.5-9.2.2 and accept a couple of PCI cards. We're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars in instrumentation, and again is customized to the point where it's both financially or logistically possible to replace it.

We've tracked the issue to a dying HDD, which fortunately is an easy enough fix-it's just having the system offline long enough to fix it properly when it's currently working with a few "band aids." I've been trying to migrate the professor who operates it to a newer computer(he has a DA G4 "on deck" but hasn't transitioned yet) but have to tread VERY cautiously as there's a lot at stake if the computer operating this gets screwed up. I think, though, that if we're going to be trading HDDs it makes more sense to swap over to the new(er) computer.

Whatever the case, though, an MDD(non FW800) is the end of the line for what will work here.

+1

A lot of the spec chasers and the "Let's remove all the ports and call it the future!" people don't realize this. It isn't always possible, practical, or wise to upgrade equipment. GE uses PDP-11s to run nuclear power plants. The US Navy uses MS-DOS in places. The ISS is full of A31p and older Thinkapds. Everything critically important at my university runs on Sun Fire V240 servers from nearly a decade ago. Upgrading to new hardware and software is dangerous and expensive for critical applications. There's so much testing, re-resting, certification, and trials that it just makes more sense to leave it alone if it's working.

 

[chrfr]

+1

A lot of the spec chasers and the "Let's remove all the ports and call it the future!" people don't realize this. It isn't always possible, practical, or wise to upgrade equipment. GE uses PDP-11s to run nuclear power plants. The US Navy uses MS-DOS in places. The ISS is full of A31p and older Thinkapds. Everything critically important at my university runs on Sun Fire V240 servers from nearly a decade ago. Upgrading to new hardware and software is dangerous and expensive for critical applications. There's so much testing, re-resting, certification, and trials that it just makes more sense to leave it alone if it's working.

For large organizations who pay attention to the criticality of their equipment, this strategy can work, however, plans for replacement hardware must be considered, and inventory of spare parts is a necessity. Smaller operations often just assume they can continue to work indefinitely using that old Power Mac G3 right up until the day it fails without a spare available. The business then comes to a halt while the business tries to come up with some alternative in order to resume work.

 

[996085]

+1

A lot of the spec chasers and the "Let's remove all the ports and call it the future!" people don't realize this. It isn't always possible, practical, or wise to upgrade equipment. GE uses PDP-11s to run nuclear power plants. The US Navy uses MS-DOS in places. The ISS is full of A31p and older Thinkapds. Everything critically important at my university runs on Sun Fire V240 servers from nearly a decade ago. Upgrading to new hardware and software is dangerous and expensive for critical applications. There's so much testing, re-resting, certification, and trials that it just makes more sense to leave it alone if it's working.

Perhaps I wasn't very clear in my original statement. I am not an advocate of upgrading for the sake of upgrading. I feel there needs to be a clear, compelling case in order to upgrade. If you're editing five page long Word documents that can be done on a relatively old, low powered (by today's standards) system if the software you're using is contemporary for the system in question then by all means continue using it. On the other hand if you're regularly editing photos / videos, and you do so to make a living, an older system, while capable, is likely slowing you down and a newer system should be considered.

 

[bunnspecial]

Perhaps I wasn't very clear in my original statement. I am not an advocate of upgrading for the sake of upgrading. I feel there needs to be a clear, compelling case in order to upgrade. If you're editing five page long Word documents that can be done on a relatively old, low powered (by today's standards) system if the software you're using is contemporary for the system in question then by all means continue using it. On the other hand if you're regularly editing photos / videos, and you do so to make a living, an older system, while capable, is likely slowing you down and a newer system should be considered.

I don't know about photo editing being that demanding...

I have some 4x5 drum scans of Fuji Velvia that were done around the turn of the century. These are *.tif files that are a couple hundred MB each. "Back in the day" I was using a Cyrix 6x86 with a couple hundred MB of RAM(maybe) and it was rather slow.

I can honestly handle them just as quickly on a G5 running CS4 as I can on my Ivy Bridge quad-core i7 laptop. Even working with them on something like a Sawtooth with Photoshop 7 or CS(Photoshop 8) that would have been contemporary when they were new isn't THAT bad. I still use a G4 for scanning today(albeit with a flatbed and/or dedicated film scanner, not a drum scanner-that still has to get sent out) and the editing part isn't a big hold up. The computer processing the files(esp. from a multi-pass scan) IS, but there's not an easy or inexpensive way to migrate my SCSI film scanner to something newer.

BTW, drum scanning is still common but the scanners themselves are getting a bit "long in the tooth." One brand I'm familiar with uses a software package that requires an ADB HASP to function-so if you want to speed things up as much as possible get a B&W and hunt down a super fast G3 or G4 upgrade. That's still end of the road, though.

Video editing is a bit of a different story-I do some light work in this. I do "the work" on my Quicksilver, but then offload it as an iMovie project file to either my Xserve or Intel C2D Mini to render it. That's a huge timesaver-cutting rendering times from a few hours to a few minutes.

Going back to my aunt in her print shop, the G5 "talks" to 4 printers-a large format inkjet, a Xerox office laser, a banner-sized inkjet, and the printer that "burns" plates for the offset litho press. The last is a sticky point. Even though they've transitioned from doing their litho plates on film to doing them digitally, the printer is old enough that there's some "voodoo" going on to make it work that I don't understand and am not about to screw with it for what gains it would make(especially since their litho work tends to be high volume and relatively low quality). An older Mac Pro would probably serve the other three printers well, but then there's the issue of updating software for them and still the downtime of actually getting everything working again. With one graphic designer on staff, it probably makes the most sense to just have her just using the one computer.

BTW, I'm in somewhat of a unique position with servicing the B&W G3 at work since I can supply pretty much any part imaginable for it-up to and including a complete replacement system. The only thing I couldn't handle would be the specialized(and hand-built) PCI cards.

 

[996085]

I don't know about photo editing being that demanding...

I have some 4x5 drum scans of Fuji Velvia that were done around the turn of the century. These are *.tif files that are a couple hundred MB each. "Back in the day" I was using a Cyrix 6x86 with a couple hundred MB of RAM(maybe) and it was rather slow.

I can honestly handle them just as quickly on a G5 running CS4 as I can on my Ivy Bridge quad-core i7 laptop. Even working with them on something like a Sawtooth with Photoshop 7 or CS(Photoshop 8) that would have been contemporary when they were new isn't THAT bad. I still use a G4 for scanning today(albeit with a flatbed and/or dedicated film scanner, not a drum scanner-that still has to get sent out) and the editing part isn't a big hold up. The computer processing the files(esp. from a multi-pass scan) IS, but there's not an easy or inexpensive way to migrate my SCSI film scanner to something newer.

BTW, drum scanning is still common but the scanners themselves are getting a bit "long in the tooth." One brand I'm familiar with uses a software package that requires an ADB HASP to function-so if you want to speed things up as much as possible get a B&W and hunt down a super fast G3 or G4 upgrade. That's still end of the road, though.

Video editing is a bit of a different story-I do some light work in this. I do "the work" on my Quicksilver, but then offload it as an iMovie project file to either my Xserve or Intel C2D Mini to render it. That's a huge timesaver-cutting rendering times from a few hours to a few minutes.

Going back to my aunt in her print shop, the G5 "talks" to 4 printers-a large format inkjet, a Xerox office laser, a banner-sized inkjet, and the printer that "burns" plates for the offset litho press. The last is a sticky point. Even though they've transitioned from doing their litho plates on film to doing them digitally, the printer is old enough that there's some "voodoo" going on to make it work that I don't understand and am not about to screw with it for what gains it would make(especially since their litho work tends to be high volume and relatively low quality). An older Mac Pro would probably serve the other three printers well, but then there's the issue of updating software for them and still the downtime of actually getting everything working again. With one graphic designer on staff, it probably makes the most sense to just have her just using the one computer.

BTW, I'm in somewhat of a unique position with servicing the B&W G3 at work since I can supply pretty much any part imaginable for it-up to and including a complete replacement system. The only thing I couldn't handle would be the specialized(and hand-built) PCI cards.

Again it all depends on the task at hand. If your task, such as the Word processing example I gave, doesn't benefit from a faster computer than remaining on an older computer wouldn't impact productivity. However if one is performing a lot of photo editing and the editing can be improved by a few minutes per edit then a newer system probably would make sense. Of course a cost benefit analysis would need to be performed to see if it really does make sense. I've edited pictures on older systems and they do reasonably well. However it's quite obvious my newer systems complete the edits faster. If it's merely one or two edits performed on an occasional basis then a newer system may not be beneficial even if it does improve on the per edit task. However if one is doing a lot of editing even small improvements, which individually don't mean a lot, add up.

 

[bunnspecial]

Again it all depends on the task at hand. If your task, such as the Word processing example I gave, doesn't benefit from a faster computer than remaining on an older computer wouldn't impact productivity. However if one is performing a lot of photo editing and the editing can be improved by a few minutes per edit then a newer system probably would make sense. Of course a cost benefit analysis would need to be performed to see if it really does make sense. I've edited pictures on older systems and they do reasonably well. However it's quite obvious my newer systems complete the edits faster. If it's merely one or two edits performed on an occasional basis then a newer system may not be beneficial even if it does improve on the per edit task. However if one is doing a lot of editing even small improvements, which individually don't mean a lot, add up.

And, a lot of edits in a hurry is why Adobe invented Lightroom(and why Apple invented then killed off Aperture).

Again, I don't see a huge speed difference between LR2 on the G5 and LR6 on my laptop.

 

[996085]

And, a lot of edits in a hurry is why Adobe invented Lightroom(and why Apple invented then killed off Aperture).

Again, I don't see a huge speed difference between LR2 on the G5 and LR6 on my laptop.

Again: It depends. Not sure how I many times I need to say this. If you're not seeing a huge productivity increase then continue using what works for you. For those situations that do merely using an older PC because it can do the job may be hurting you. I thought this was self evident but even after multiple attempts at explanations on my part perhaps I was mistaken.

 

[domini99]

I still love the old macs. It just has way more character in my opinion.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Again: It depends. Not sure how I many times I need to say this. If you're not seeing a huge productivity increase then continue using what works for you. For those situations that do merely using an older PC because it can do the job may be hurting you. I thought this was self evident but even after multiple attempts at explanations on my part perhaps I was mistaken.

I agree that even a fractional speed increase pays dividends eventually over a large production span - however, always consider other factors.
A few years ago in my 9 - 5 graphic design job, I was working from a 2.8Ghz quad i7, 24Gb ram and Windows 7/Adobe CS5, then doing freelance work at home on my G5 quad running CS3. Even though the i7 had twice the horsepower, once i'd allowed for all the usual Windows glitches and hold ups, the G5 was a more comfortable and efficient platform to work from.

 

[996085]

I agree that even a fractional speed increase pays dividends eventually over a large production span - however, always consider other factors.
A few years ago in my 9 - 5 graphic design job, I was working from a 2.8Ghz quad i7, 24Gb ram and Windows 7/Adobe CS5, then doing freelance work at home on my G5 quad running CS3. Even though the i7 had twice the horsepower, once i'd allowed for all the usual Windows glitches and hold ups, the G5 was a more comfortable and efficient platform to work from.

I'm not sure how to be more clear:

"Whether there's benefit depends on the job and company."

"Of course each person / business will need to evaluate their requirements and use what offers them the best value."

"Again it all depends on the task at hand."

"Again: It depends."

I think I've made it very clear, from the outset, this is a decision that has to be evaluated on a case by case basis. The only reason I mentioned it in the first place is many here appear to want to use a PPC system when it may be detrimental to productivity. See the "Need to get my MDD business ready" discussion for an idea of what I'm referring to. I completely understand the forums desire to use PPC systems given the forum this discussion is being held in.

 

[Dronecatcher]

"Again: It depends."

Sure, I understand your point and I agree - I just like to flesh out these discussions with personal experience.

 

[iModFrenzy]

If IBM could have produced a G5 that would work in a laptop without causing third degree burns

This killed me haha