Embracing Early Intel

[MacFoxG4]

When I first got into buying old Macs I had no interest in owning an Intel Mac of any vintage. As time grew on, I began to notice more and more people in the vintage Mac community adding early Intel Macs to their collection. This inspired me to look more into older Intel Macs and I eventually ended up buying one. What led me to do this was that I wanted a Mac laptop with similar capabilities to my upgraded Sawtooth. My Sawtooth generates quite a bit of heat and this can be uncomfortable in the Summer. That and I sometimes like the convenience of a laptop and I wanted a backup Mac that could run Leopard in case the Sawtooth died. I narrowed down my choices to either a DLSD or a 2006 MBP. I discovered that 2006-vintage Intel Macs tend to be cheaper than their PPC predecessors, depending on the current eBay market. Finding a good deal on a 2006 C2D MBP, I bought my first ever Intel Mac. I remember seeing another member here, post about their experiences with adding an Intel Mac to their collection and that has inspired me to make this post.



I love using this MBP. I love the design and the keyboard feels good to type on. While I probably could’ve gotten away with running Leopard, I opted to use the already installed Snow Leopard instead. I basically run the same programs as I did on my Sawtooth: Word, iTunes, CS3, PPCMC, even TFF. In the case of Word, I stopped using Word 2004 due to the typing lag I was experiencing. I find Word X to run much better than 2004 under Rosetta. I also tried out Word 2008 and I actually like it. It’s like a compromise between Word 2004 and Word 2007 in terms of UI.



I see buying this MBP as a compromise itself. It’s not a PPC Mac, but it has the aesthetics of one. The downsides, to me, boil down to not being able to run Classic, and some PPC apps running a bit slow under Rosetta. PPCMC runs a tad slower than it did on my Sawtooth, but I still find it to be perfectly useable.



While I have embraced early Intel, I am not abandoning PPC. I’m not gonna change my name to MacFoxC2D, LOL. I still use my 700mhz IceBook for OS 9 purposes and I plan on getting a 2003-vintage PBG4 to run Jaguar. Still want to get a G5 someday too. I also plan on buying a new Sawtooth to replace my current one, which I have had to retire due to the rust issue being potentially more serious than I realized.



Overall, I’m quite happy with early Intel. Will I buy more Intel Macs? Who knows?

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I have two "early Intel" machines, a 2008 MacBook and a 2009 MacBook. I agree with your assessment that they are absolutely amazing. IMO early Intel machines sort of mark a turning point for me in the way Apple designed products and the fact that the ones with 64-bit processors and EFIs can officially run El Cap, a still decently modern version of the Mac OS, is amazing to me. I know I definitely desire to acquire more machines of this generation as my needs expand.

 

[1042686]

My two DDs are a macpro 1,1 & macbook5,1. Both run el cap and work great for my needs.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

Arctic Fox as browser?

 

[MacFoxG4]

PPCMC runs a tad slower than it did on my Sawtooth, but I still find it to be perfectly useable.

I stand corrected. I just updated to the latest PPCMC and it seems faster than previous versions.

Arctic Fox as browser?

I use Arctic Fox too. Arctic Fox and TFF Intel are my go to browsers on here. I'm using AF to type this.

 

[MacFoxG4]

I have two "early Intel" machines, a 2008 MacBook and a 2009 MacBook. I agree with your assessment that they are absolutely amazing. IMO early Intel machines sort of mark a turning point for me in the way Apple designed products and the fact that the ones with 64-bit processors and EFIs can officially run El Cap, a still decently modern version of the Mac OS, is amazing to me. I know I definitely desire to acquire more machines of this generation as my needs expand.

I've considered getting something like a 2009 Mini to try out El Cap since El Cap is considered pretty modern, yet runs on decade old Macs.

 

[Imixmuan]

When I first got into buying old Macs I had no interest in owning an Intel Mac of any vintage. As time grew on, I began to notice more and more people in the vintage Mac community adding early Intel Macs to their collection. This inspired me to look more into older Intel Macs and I eventually ended up buying one. What led me to do this was that I wanted a Mac laptop with similar capabilities to my upgraded Sawtooth. My Sawtooth generates quite a bit of heat and this can be uncomfortable in the Summer. That and I sometimes like the convenience of a laptop and I wanted a backup Mac that could run Leopard in case the Sawtooth died. I narrowed down my choices to either a DLSD or a 2006 MBP. I discovered that 2006-vintage Intel Macs tend to be cheaper than their PPC predecessors, depending on the current eBay market. Finding a good deal on a 2006 C2D MBP, I bought my first ever Intel Mac. I remember seeing another member here, post about their experiences with adding an Intel Mac to their collection and that has inspired me to make this post.



I love using this MBP. I love the design and the keyboard feels good to type on. While I probably could’ve gotten away with running Leopard, I opted to use the already installed Snow Leopard instead. I basically run the same programs as I did on my Sawtooth: Word, iTunes, CS3, PPCMC, even TFF. In the case of Word, I stopped using Word 2004 due to the typing lag I was experiencing. I find Word X to run much better than 2004 under Rosetta. I also tried out Word 2008 and I actually like it. It’s like a compromise between Word 2004 and Word 2007 in terms of UI.



I see buying this MBP as a compromise itself. It’s not a PPC Mac, but it has the aesthetics of one. The downsides, to me, boil down to not being able to run Classic, and some PPC apps running a bit slow under Rosetta. PPCMC runs a tad slower than it did on my Sawtooth, but I still find it to be perfectly useable.



While I have embraced early Intel, I am not abandoning PPC. I’m not gonna change my name to MacFoxC2D, LOL. I still use my 700mhz IceBook for OS 9 purposes and I plan on getting a 2003-vintage PBG4 to run Jaguar. Still want to get a G5 someday too. I also plan on buying a new Sawtooth to replace my current one, which I have had to retire due to the rust issue being potentially more serious than I realized.



Overall, I’m quite happy with early Intel. Will I buy more Intel Macs? Who knows?

I think its completely morally and ethically acceptable to own any Mac made before Steve died. It might be ok to own any Intel Mac once its been declared "obsolete", especially if you put Linux on it. I'll leave that for others to decide. I will never under any circumstances buy a modern mac (or other computer/phone for that matter) that was potentially made with slave labour, or use any OS past Snow Leopard, but hey, that's just me....

 

[2984839]

I've thought a lot about getting a 2006 or 2007 MBP. Can anyone tell me which wifi chipset was used in the Airport cards in those? Or could I put an Airport Extreme from a PowerBook in there? That's my only reservation.

 

[eyoungren]

When I first got into buying old Macs I had no interest in owning an Intel Mac of any vintage. As time grew on, I began to notice more and more people in the vintage Mac community adding early Intel Macs to their collection. This inspired me to look more into older Intel Macs and I eventually ended up buying one. What led me to do this was that I wanted a Mac laptop with similar capabilities to my upgraded Sawtooth. My Sawtooth generates quite a bit of heat and this can be uncomfortable in the Summer. That and I sometimes like the convenience of a laptop and I wanted a backup Mac that could run Leopard in case the Sawtooth died. I narrowed down my choices to either a DLSD or a 2006 MBP. I discovered that 2006-vintage Intel Macs tend to be cheaper than their PPC predecessors, depending on the current eBay market. Finding a good deal on a 2006 C2D MBP, I bought my first ever Intel Mac. I remember seeing another member here, post about their experiences with adding an Intel Mac to their collection and that has inspired me to make this post.



I love using this MBP. I love the design and the keyboard feels good to type on. While I probably could’ve gotten away with running Leopard, I opted to use the already installed Snow Leopard instead. I basically run the same programs as I did on my Sawtooth: Word, iTunes, CS3, PPCMC, even TFF. In the case of Word, I stopped using Word 2004 due to the typing lag I was experiencing. I find Word X to run much better than 2004 under Rosetta. I also tried out Word 2008 and I actually like it. It’s like a compromise between Word 2004 and Word 2007 in terms of UI.



I see buying this MBP as a compromise itself. It’s not a PPC Mac, but it has the aesthetics of one. The downsides, to me, boil down to not being able to run Classic, and some PPC apps running a bit slow under Rosetta. PPCMC runs a tad slower than it did on my Sawtooth, but I still find it to be perfectly useable.



While I have embraced early Intel, I am not abandoning PPC. I’m not gonna change my name to MacFoxC2D, LOL. I still use my 700mhz IceBook for OS 9 purposes and I plan on getting a 2003-vintage PBG4 to run Jaguar. Still want to get a G5 someday too. I also plan on buying a new Sawtooth to replace my current one, which I have had to retire due to the rust issue being potentially more serious than I realized.



Overall, I’m quite happy with early Intel. Will I buy more Intel Macs? Who knows?

My first Intel was a 2006 17" MBP I got in 2015. Snow Leopard only. It served for a while before I discovered I was between a rock and a hard place. Development of T4Fx continued for PowerPC, but those don't run on SL Macs (unless you use the out of date Intel version). Of course, you can run them in Rosetta, but I find that to be slower overall. Newer browsers were not supporting Snow Leopard either.

That's changed by now of course, because there have been multiple browser options developed for SL. But, back then, I had a problem. My second Intel was a 2008 MBP sent to me from @bobesch. With the patcher it runs Mojave and I suppose could also run Catalina.

In January I got a 2009 Mini. I was careful in wanting the 2009 Mini because I wanted to run El Cap. But with the patcher, I can also run Mojave, which I do.

Between the 2008 MBP and the Mini I can keep up with my work issued 2015 MBP. However, in May I also got a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 which I upgraded to a 5,1. It's running High Sierra natively and as soon as I can find a Metal compatible GPU I can upgrade to Mojave.

The kicker here is that with 32GB ram on this MP I can do everything I need to do for my job on the MP - everything that the work issued 2015 MBP can do, and it has half the ram.

It's nice for once to be in a spot where I can be current and just do my job. I will not abandon my PowerPC Macs, but there's just no way I could run the apps I have on the work MP on my PowerPC Macs.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

I've thought a lot about getting a 2006 or 2007 MBP. Can anyone tell me which wifi chipset was used in the Airport cards in those? Or could I put an Airport Extreme from a PowerBook in there? That's my only reservation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort#Integrated_AirPort_Extreme_802.11a/b/g_and_/n_cards IIUC all Intel Macs with WiFi would support 802.11g.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

FWIW, On a C2D just visit the video websites would work?

 

[MacFoxG4]

FWIW, On a C2D just visit the video websites would work?

I can stream YouTube videos in browser on both Arctic Fox and TFF Intel.

 

[Project Alice]

I also tried out Word 2008 and I actually like it. It’s like a compromise between Word 2004 and Word 2007 in terms of UI.

2008 is the only version of MS Office I usually use. It works natively on PPC Tiger and Leopard. It also is universal. Though sometimes on my Intel Macs I’ll install 2011 instead.

 

[TheShortTimer]

2008 is the only version of MS Office I usually use. It works natively on PPC Tiger and Leopard. It also is universal. Though sometimes on my Intel Macs I’ll install 2011 instead.

I also have a legal copy of 2008 that I picked up for next to nothing in a thrift shop (it's amazing what you find in those places) and on my Intel Macs, I use 2011 - and beyond the occasional switch to Pages, I've never felt any need to "upgrade" to later versions.

For several years, I used an MB 5,2 as my DD laptop and with 6GB it runs El Capitan like a champ. The only major niggle I've had with it are the fans constantly activating whilst web browsing and what happened when I moved over to an i5 MBP? The exact same issue.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

I wonder what applications are Leopard only and not supported at all in SL. I know some applications were PPC only.

 

[retta283]

There are some good early Intel machines, as you said they still have the PPC aesthetic for the most part, but give some advantages. I can run some Windows games on my 2006 MBP that are from the era, although some are better than others. Pretty much everything I want to do I can do on these machines, but browser support is weak from my findings. I can get by mostly, but it's pretty laggy on some more advanced sites.

The only thing that's problematic are GPU failures, which seems to plague many Macs though, regardless of Intel/PPC. One of my dream Macs would be a mid-2007 17" MBP with the 1920x1200 screen, although I will most likely never own one due to the very high failure rates on the 8600m chips. Getting a white 24" iMac would also be nice, but they are prone to failure and many of them have poor LCDs (I've had two with issues so far).

 

[repairedCheese]

I've personally been interested in an early Intel laptop, particularly one with Firewire. It would be nice to have something slightly more modern to help manage my old PPC macs, and virtual machines in Windows won't let me use the firewire port on my regular laptop.

 

[Amethyst1]

I own and love using both early and newer Intel Macs. Main reason for using newer machines, apart from performance and compatibility with newer macOS, is that I've become addicted to high-dpi (Retina) displays.

 

[B S Magnet]

I've thought a lot about getting a 2006 or 2007 MBP. Can anyone tell me which wifi chipset was used in the Airport cards in those? Or could I put an Airport Extreme from a PowerBook in there? That's my only reservation.

Offhand, I don’t know what chipset is bundled on the MBPs and MBs from 2006–08.

What I can tell you is the Airport Extreme cards in any PowerBook or iBook will never work in an Intel box, because all of those weren’t running on a PCIe bus the way all the Intel-era AE cards (which were standard with 802.11n, backward-compatible with b/g) were.

 

[Amethyst1]

One of my dream Macs would be a mid-2007 17" MBP with the 1920x1200 screen, although I will most likely never own one due to the very high failure rates on the 8600m chips.

I'd rather go for an early 2008 17" as it has a led backlit screen. And you'll "just" have to find one with a revised GPU to be safe. That's easier said than done though.

 

[B S Magnet]

Although I use a pair (or, well, one at the moment) of “newer” Intel-based Macs, I’ve come to accept and adopt any Intel Mac capable of running Snow Leopard. In this case, it means anything up through the Sandy Bridge i5/i7 series of 2011.

Once the Ivy Bridge era began, Snow Leopard was no longer supported and I generally don’t have as much an interest in those — especially since most models released after Sandy Bridge began having soldered RAM and other non-reparable elements added to the hardware.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

For using Intel compatible applications only what is unique about SL? The repairability of notebooks did fall off a cliff after a certain time.

 

[repairedCheese]

Although I use a pair (or, well, one at the moment) of “newer” Intel-based Macs, I’ve come to accept and adopt any Intel Mac capable of running Snow Leopard. In this case, it means anything up through the Sandy Bridge i5/i7 series of 2011.

Once the Ivy Bridge era began, Snow Leopard was no longer supported and I generally don’t have as much an interest in those — especially since most models released after Sandy Bridge began having soldered RAM and other non-reparable elements added to the hardware.

Huh, funny enough, I have a Sandy Bridge Dell Laptop Workstation, and as it happens, and with a gpu upgrade, it's at a fun point in its support life where it now has full Windows 10 support, and full Windows XP support. With the video card it came with, it did run Windows 10, but with an old Windows 7 driver. The Intel igpu is in even worse shape in Windows, to the point where I had to turn it off in the bios to keep things running well.

I guess Sandy Bridge was just an intersection of classic operating systems, and current ones. And if any of yours is powerful enough, it's going to feel utterly modern with enough ram and an ssd.

 

[B S Magnet]

For using Intel compatible applications only what is unique about SL? The repairability of notebooks did fall off a cliff after a certain time.

Snow Leopard, has, throughout my experience, not only functioned as the most stable build of OS X/macOS I’ve ever used, but it also works the way… sidebar: are you familiar with film SLR cameras?

I ask because Snow Leopard works the way the Nikon F4 body could work with both backward and (some) forward compatibility of other Apple and third-party components. Put another way, it was more of a “Swiss Army knife” in its execution. There was Rosetta for Intel, keeping everything wide-open for pre-existing OS X software to run flawlessly alongside contemporary, Intel-only software. There was the refined UI/UX of Finder/Dock/Spaces from a decade of work on that front.

Snow Leopard was completely free from iOS-ification or the increasingly compulsory back-end tracking which has become the foundation of post-SL OS X/macOS builds. SL was, as far as I can make, the last major version of OS X/macOS in which Apple tried to accommodate pre-existing third-party peripherals to work, rather than just leaving those peripherals behind without much concern for vendor or end-user experience.

SL was bundled with the first 64-bit kernel for OS X/macOS, and it also could run flawlessly in 32-bit kernel mode (which, yes, Lion could also do, but Lion lacked much of the above). Basically the only hardware components SL lacked was support for USB 3.0 and support for Ivy Bridge processors (which might be more a function of the EFI firmware which was written for the Ivy Bridge Macs).

More recently, with my work on getting SL to run on PPC, I have been finding that even in its early days, SL tends to run faster on the PPC box I’ve been using to test than even a PPC-optimized build of Leopard — leaving one to conclude, even if provisionally, that ditching PPC support completely from the release version of SL was more a marketing move to coerce end users to ditch gear they spent a lot of money on in the not-too-distant past in exchange for newest Intel gear. In other words, ditching the fastest PPC systems for SL was not so much a technical decision than one to press end users into a faster cycle of planned or even coercive obsolescence.

In short, Snow Leopard seemed to be the very essence of a decade of team refinement, optimization, and modernization within the OS X realm which hasn’t been duplicated in the years since they semi-started over with Lion. Even with High Sierra, arguably the culmination of an effort begun with Lion, it doesn’t run as stable or as smoothly on the machines it was intended for (e.g., my early 2015 MBP or 2013 iMac) the way SL runs across all the Macs I’ve ever used with it.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I've considered getting something like a 2009 Mini to try out El Cap since El Cap is considered pretty modern, yet runs on decade old Macs.

I'd highly recommend getting one, mine is indispensable in my setup.

I've personally been interested in an early Intel laptop, particularly one with Firewire. It would be nice to have something slightly more modern to help manage my old PPC macs, and virtual machines in Windows won't let me use the firewire port on my regular laptop.

An '09 MacBook would fit the bill nicely. You can dual boot SL and El Cap so when you need compatibility you can use SL and when you need more modern applications you can use El Cap.