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Goodbye to PPC for now?
- Thread starter mectojic
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There's green-washing, pink-washing, and rainbow-washing. NONE OF THESE ARE GOOD AND ARE JUST PLATITUDES
DISCLAIMER: personally in the rainbow club and am sick of rainbow-washing.
EDIT: We can add "trans-washing" and "red-washing" to said list.
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Big mood. (i.e., utterly on the same page as you on so many of these levels)
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Apple is using security as a cover to reduce the number of systems on the secondary market.
It is this exact behavior that kept me from buying the 2019 Mac Pro when I upgraded my virtualization system. Instead I went with a Z840 system where I have no worries about upgradability / repairability.
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Past disposal, one thing that gets me about the "new appliance to save energy" is how often the new appliance won't last. I'm hearing so many horror stories about a modern refrigerator that breaks and is prohibitively expensive to fix when it's only a few years old. Yes, it may have saved energy vs. the 20 year old refrigetator, but perhaps it has more overall negative environmental impact since it took energy and resources to make.
Well, I think I may have beaten some here. I haven't really moved on from PPC, because I never really fully moved to using PowerPC systems in the first place! LOL
The last Macs I seriously and heavily used were all 680x0 systems. Let that newfangled PPC prove itself--and look! It lasted only a bit more than a decade. LOL
Joking aside... I did heavily use 608x0 systems long after PPC came along. (With some occasional use of PowerPC hardware, but that was mostly pretty light.) The older software I had worked, and it seemed to have the features I needed, with little of the bloat. The 680x0 machines weren't usable for Internet stuff, but I could get around that with a cheap PC running Linux.
The last Macs I seriously and heavily used were all 680x0 systems. Let that newfangled PPC prove itself--and look! It lasted only a bit more than a decade. LOL
Joking aside... I did heavily use 608x0 systems long after PPC came along. (With some occasional use of PowerPC hardware, but that was mostly pretty light.) The older software I had worked, and it seemed to have the features I needed, with little of the bloat. The 680x0 machines weren't usable for Internet stuff, but I could get around that with a cheap PC running Linux.
For me the biggest issue is a lack of a fast laptop on PPC. G5 2.3x2 would be sufficient, but it does not exist.
For banking apps and Signal there is an iPhone, after all.
I loved the 68K days. Interestingly I remember using such systems to browse the Internet. Yeah, it didn't offer the same rich user experience as todays Internet but I'm not sure that was such a bad thing. Despite looking a lot nicer I'm not convinced I am getting any better information than I did back then.
A friend of mine used a 486 running Windows 3.1 to browse the web in 2001, possibly later, using the IE/Netscape/Opera trio.
Since I just purchased a Pentium II laptop I am going to see how well I can browse the web with it. I'll need to find a somewhat modern web browser which supports Windows XP. It'll be interesting to see how (or it) it performs with 96MB of RAM.
I think the last time I used Windows 3.1 (and used it to also go online) would have been early 2000. It was some bog-standard Pentium desktop which still ran
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I was “the fixer”: my job was to come in, to fix what was broken (insofar as departmental operations went), and to train who they later hired to permanently replace the person(s) before my arrival (who’d helped to break it/make it dysfunctional in the first place). I had to do all of that in under two months (and I succeeded, which is why I went on to the next assignment to, more or less, do the same thing at a different place).
What was available to me was that Pentium box and CRT. Other folks had various and assorted G3s and 604s to do their Photoshop/Quark/Illustrator work. People in those roles, a number of whom had less applied experience doing that than I did (but also had a university degree I lacked), were paid just a smidge over 2x what I was paid to fix the aforementioned mess. 🙃
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This page lists another few. A text-based browser may be your best bet since a stock XP install eats around 70 MB RAM sitting at an idle desktop, so things are going to be tight.
If I’m reading the specs correctly the 4005CDS has 32 MB RAM onboard and one slot. If you find a low-density 256 MB SDRAM module — only these are compatible with the Intel 440BX chipset — you should be able to take it to 288 MB. (A much more common high-density 256 MB module will be seen as 128 MB, giving you 160 MB.)
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If you want a Mac, Apple will force you to pay the full whack.
This represents the loss of a customer. Imagine how many others they've lost by alienating people in this manner? Apple are too myopic to realise that they're shooting themselves in the foot by pursuing this direction.
During that period, I had a dial-up CD-ROM from a leading UK ISP that included compatibility with Win 3.1.
Basically any dial-up ISP was compatible since you just needed a modem.
When stuff like this upsets us, we tend to think in these terms, whatever product or service we may be using. The reality is that this only means something to us.
The loss of one customer, or even many as you suggest, has no appreciable effect on profit-driven, shareholder held businesses. Collectively, all of us upset customers (or former customers) are an insignificant group in the larger scheme of things. Instead, the vast majority of customers continue to buy.
Only when things directly affect those customers by personally hurting their economic, social, or professional lives will any of that change. People are largely self-focused and only turn their attention when external forces intrude.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but Apple and other business don't cater to a minority customer segment.
Not disputing that - and yet Apple still provides the online updates for Tiger and as @B S Magnet pointed out a while ago, they made the 13" 2012 MBP available for purchase till 2016.
That's a welcome surprise.
I suppose they were bought by more than a minority customer segment thenand as @B S Magnet pointed out a while ago, they made the 13" 2012 MBP available for purchase till 2016.
For the first, I don't think it costs them anything to leave those updates up. If you told me those were on some long forgotten Xserve G5 in a back room closet at Apple HQ I wouldn't be surprised. Apple does also maintain signed backups for all models of iPhone/iPad too.Not disputing that - and yet Apple still provides the online updates for Tiger and as @B S Magnet pointed out a while ago, they made the 13" 2012 MBP available for purchase till 2016.
For the second, I'd agree with @Amethyst1. Apple doesn't do anything unless it makes sense to their bottom line. So a sufficient demand for that model of Mac was probably still there - until it wasn't.
While people rag on it because it's the old chassis, the current $1299 13" Pro is the best 13" Pro Apple has ever sold, and per WWDC last year, it's the second best selling Mac despite that 'old' design. Given that you can get it for $1099 pretty regularly, I imagine it (like the MD101LL/A) serves a market who wants a "Pro" but doesn't want to pay an arm and a leg.
It made updating this iBook G4 that I purchased at the end of 2022 a matter of simplicity.
I suppose they were bought by more than a minority customer segment then
Which suggests that we did represent a sizeable demographic that has dwindled due to disillusionment with Apple but we've been replaced by a consumer base who are fine with disposable tech that's jettisoned in the manner that a fashionista discards last season's trends.
Alternatively, following the logic that Apple doesn't do anything unless it benefits their bottom line, it's quite plausible that given the 13" 2012 MBP retailed in the UK at £999 GBP - minority customer segment or not, that would've represented a decent revenue which wouldn't be sniffed at. Let alone if they purchase Apple Care on top.
BTW that's interesting about signed backups for the entire iPad/iPhone range. So, in theory even if you have the first generation of those products, they can still be restored/updated online?
Not sure about online, although you could probably find the IPSW somewhere. But if you were going to update on the device itself or through iTunes/Finder then the device would be served the last signed version of iOS (depending on model).
Take the 3GS for instance, if you want to update it, then you're going to be served iOS 6.1.6. It all just depends on device model and what Apple determined should be signed. Some models might have two different versions you can use because Apple was either being nice or determined that it was necessary or desirable.
None of that of course accounts for jailbreaking, which with certain devices and certain jailbreaks can get around signing and allow you to install older iOS versions.
I've got this downloaded, now just need to try it out. I'll report back when I've had an opportunity to do so.
EDIT: Got it installed and running. Nice to see a Windows program that is merely decompress and run. Currently using 174MB of RAM so I think a RAM upgrade is in order (I'll probably get the 128MB module as it's $12).
Tried to connect to MacRumors but SSL errors, as with everything else I've attempted to use with this install of XP, are preventing me from doing so. It looks as if I'll need to grab some offline updates for the OS.
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