Hobby computing

[jbarley]

Here I sit in my "man cave" with several G4 MDD's and my Power Mac G5 quad, along with assorted G4 PowerBooks any one of which probably has more then enough computing power to send a man to the moon.
And what do I do with these magnificent machines, check my emails and read MacRumors forums.
I'm not complaining about this, more like it's about making a statement as to how fast technology has advanced.

 

[gavinstubbs09]

I use my MDD at work every day and that thing has been a nightmare. If this deal with the G5 Quad goes through, I will probably leave the Quad at work, or maybe bring in the 2.3 G5. No clue yet but mine see use often with my MBA right next to them

 

[jbarley]

I use my MDD at work every day and that thing has been a nightmare. If this deal with the G5 Quad goes through, I will probably leave the Quad at work, or maybe bring in the 2.3 G5. No clue yet but mine see use often with my MBA right next to them

No way trying to infer these older systems are not still useful, in fact I still remember being surprised to learn that the last NASA Mars Rover was powered by a G3 processor.

http://lowendmac.com/2012/macs-in-space-curiosity-rover-based-on-g3-processor/

 

[Dronecatcher]

Here I sit in my "man cave" with several G4 MDD's and my Power Mac G5 quad, along with assorted G4 PowerBooks any one of which probably has more then enough computing power to send a man to the moon.
And what do I do with these magnificent machines, check my emails and read MacRumors forums.
I'm not complaining about this, more like it's about making a statement as to how fast technology has advanced.

Thread title says it all - remember when having a computer at home was the territory of hobbyists and armchair scientists? A PC is now a consumer item like a washing machine or a TV.
I guess it's human nature that we take a technology as miraculous as the microprocessor and use it to chiefly create an internet of banal distractions from real life - much like TV of yesteryear.
The plus side is because of the huge competitive market, technological advance is swift and prices are pushed down which allows us to be buying these, by definition, "Supercomputer" (well, G4 onwards) PowerPCs at pocket money prices.

 

[eyoungren]

Thread title says it all - remember when having a computer at home was the territory of hobbyists and armchair scientists? A PC is now a consumer item like a washing machine or a TV.
I guess it's human nature that we take a technology as miraculous as the microprocessor and use it to chiefly create an internet of banal distractions from real life - much like TV of yesteryear.
The plus side is because of the huge competitive market, technological advance is swift and prices are pushed down which allows us to be buying these, by definition, "Supercomputer" (well, G4 onwards) PowerPCs at pocket money prices.

Apple's advantage was that they took the computer as an appliance perspective and made you take a second look at it.

In a sea of toasters they made art that stands out on the countertop.

Unfortunately, after 2006, Apple seems to have forgotten what that was and is now trying to copy itself.

 

[Hack5190]

Here I sit in my "man cave" with several G4 MDD's and my Power Mac G5 quad, along with assorted G4 PowerBooks any one of which probably has more then enough computing power to send a man to the moon.
And what do I do with these magnificent machines, check my emails and read MacRumors forums.
I'm not complaining about this, more like it's about making a statement as to how fast technology has advanced.

I was going to recommend volunteering CPU cycles to folding@home (https://folding.stanford.edu/), but just discovered there is no PPC version . Maybe you could start a petition of folding volunteers to help convince Stanford in releasing a PPC version

 

[Dronecatcher]

Apple's advantage was that they took the computer as an appliance perspective and made you take a second look at it.

I agree but I think the market was established at that point - consumers were buying PCs by then.
I'd say the real change came in the early 80s when Clive Sinclair decided consumers would want computers and then went on to produce affordable home micros that largely went stellar because of the games market. Higher spec machines like the Amiga came, that outclassed IBM PCs initially but couldn't keep up when PCs morphed into multimedia machines and then dominated as the CPUs got faster.

 

[Hack5190]

I agree but I think the market was established at that point - consumers were buying PCs by then.
I'd say the real change came in the early 80s when Clive Sinclair decided consumers would want computers and then went on to produce affordable home micros that largely went stellar because of the games market. Higher spec machines like the Amiga came, that outclassed IBM PCs initially but couldn't keep up when PCs morphed into multimedia machines and then dominated as the CPUs got faster.

The Amiga was hampered by Commodore. Commodore had a piss poor marketing department, financial ills due to a long battle with the US Govt over taxes. At one point Commodore sold more PC clones in Europe than IBM. My Amiga jacket still hangs in the closet, a reminder of what dreamers and marketing can do to the same idea.

 

[eyoungren]

I agree but I think the market was established at that point - consumers were buying PCs by then.
I'd say the real change came in the early 80s when Clive Sinclair decided consumers would want computers and then went on to produce affordable home micros that largely went stellar because of the games market. Higher spec machines like the Amiga came, that outclassed IBM PCs initially but couldn't keep up when PCs morphed into multimedia machines and then dominated as the CPUs got faster.

Sorry, I was meaning more from a design perspective versus power, application or usability.

Apple's products stood out among the beige boxes that the PCs had become in the early 00's.

I think Apple is also partly responsible for the diversity in the PC homebuilt case market for that reason as well.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

...any one of which probably has more then enough computing power to send a man to the moon.

My watch has more computing power than was used to send man to the moon. The Pebble Time has a 100 MHz ARM A4 CPU with 16 MB of flash storage. The Apollo Guidance Computer that ran both the Apollo Command Module and the Apollo Lunar Module ran at 2 MHz and had about 73 KB of ROM and 4 KB of RAM. So all of them, from every Apollo mission, from both CM and LM combined, still add up to less "total MHz" and less storage.

The Apple Watch is more powerful than the all of the Space Shuttle's "operational" computers combined. (i.e. not counting when crew members took laptops on board.)

 

[0248294]

And don't forget that the Curiosity Mars Rover uses a PowerPC 750, better known as the PowerPC G3, central processing unit, as found in many Apple G3 machines, including no other than the iMac G3. So somewhere in space, there's a car-sized Rover with brains that are the same as in the iMac G3. Crazy thought.

 

[flyrod]

If you want to contribute spare CPU time, distributed.net still welcomes PPC users. If you look here:

http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=28&view=tco

PPC Macs are pretty far down the list on one of their current projects. A room full of G4's would surely help!