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If only... [what is a task that you wish your PPC machine could do?]

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FigmentNewtonII

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 9, 2012
47
1
We all have different tasks to get done for work and pleasure through out the day. With support for PPC become few and few by the day, more modern machines have more luxury to get tasks done better and/or faster. For you, what is a task that you wish your PPC machine could do? Also if it could get that task done, with your standards met, how would that effect your usage?

For me it's watching YouTube videos. I write papers for my classes, listen to music via Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes, and chat with friends on Skype, on my 1GHz iMac G4. I've tried to get TenFourFox and Safari to play videos through HTML mode. Some times I can get it to work. Most of the time, though, not really. I also have MacTubes. I just use that to just download videos, though. Overall trying to get a single YouTube video to play smoothly is a hassle. Honestly if I could at least get a video to easily play smoothly at 360p, my PPC would practically be my main machine.
 
FigmentNewtonII said:
We all have different tasks to get done for work and pleasure through out the day. With support for PPC become few and few by the day, more modern machines have more luxury to get tasks done better and/or faster. For you, what is a task that you wish your PPC machine could do? Also if it could get that task done, with your standards met, how would that effect your usage?

For me it's watching YouTube videos. I write papers for my classes, listen to music via Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes, and chat with friends on Skype, on my 1GHz iMac G4. I've tried to get TenFourFox and Safari to play videos through HTML mode. Some times I can get it to work. Most of the time, though, not really. I also have MacTubes. I just use that to just download videos, though. Overall trying to get a single YouTube video to play smoothly is a hassle. Honestly if I could at least get a video to easily play smoothly at 360p, my PPC would practically be my main machine.
Click to expand...

My quad is still my main machine. And it still get the job done. I don't frequent youtube, and I am no need yet for a new software.
 
FigmentNewtonII said:
For you, what is a task that you wish your PPC machine could do?
Click to expand...
For work, run the following programs…Adobe CC, QuarkXPress 10, Acrobat Pro X! and Suitcase Fusion 5. For play, it'd be nice to have an OS that integrated with Facebook, instead of having to use a browser.
FigmentNewtonII said:
Also if it could get that task done, with your standards met, how would that effect your usage?
Click to expand...
The usage wouldn't change really at work or at play. I use my PowerPC Macs to do the same things, it's just workarounds.
 
i'm very lucky. i don't like to watch videos on the net. when i'm on the net i usually have music or a tv playing in the background. sometimes i just like silence. on the net i prefer to read or look at pictures. i have a couple of g4 imac's also that i use for my main machines. i don't feel like i'm lacking anything. i also have a macbook but i rarely use it.
 
Right now not much, but I fear the day is fast approaching when some of my core uses will be impacted Spotify (I'm a premium suscriber so it's my main/default music player) Skype (video has already gone) etc.

YouTube runs fine for me, I don't need HD on my computer screen only on my TV so no problems there at all.

When those core apps start dying it's bye bye but right now there's not much I miss and all praise to those few people that continue keep us running with an up to date browser (Webkit, TFF etc) andEmail client (TenFourBird).
All credit to VLC (until the latest version), Dropbox, GIMP etc for sticking to PPC/OSX support as well.
Thats what really keeps this platform viable.
 
My line of PPC machines goes back pretty far, I had an iMac G3, a Pismo in College ( with a P3 Dell Tower ), a couple G4 laptops, and two G5 towers.

As much as I like them, my line of work always needs new software and hardware as it changes so rapidly in my line of work, so unless a PPC machine could do...everything. I could never use one as my main machine :(

That being said, I still keep mine around, mostly collecting dust. Only the MDD and the G5 Quad see any use these days. Tho they sit next to my 486 and my Pentium II machine in the basement man cave ;)
 
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FigmentNewtonII said:
Overall trying to get a single YouTube video to play smoothly is a hassle. Honestly if I could at least get a video to easily play smoothly at 360p, my PPC would practically be my main machine.
Click to expand...

I can run youtube in HD (720p) smoothly on this powerbook g4 1.67

One way is by using youtube extension for XBMC v11. The other is by using Aurorafox 17espre and download helper addon to display on VLC 2.0.8.

If nothing else, 460p should be running fine on your machine.
 
My eMac pretty much still does everything I need it to; the only thing I really "need" my MacBook for is ripping DVD's in HandBrake. While my eMac can complete such a task, compared to my MacBook, it is painfully slow. :(
 
My PowerBook does web browsing, pages upon pages of writing every day, movies, YouTube, photo editing - the lot. And it handles everything really unbelievably well. I've said this before - but you could take my Mac Pro away from me now & it wouldn't be a massive hindrance at all. Sure the Pro's infintly quicker,and has the benefits that come with continued support. But I reckon I'd cope fine.

If you're going to be using PowerPC for anything half modern on the interwebs then workarounds are going to be extremely beneficial & in most cases essential. For instance; YouTube is a doozy. Personally I have three potential ways of streaming 480p video without an issue. MacTubes & YouView are standalone apps and play video w/o an issue. MacTubes gives you the option to download but YouView allows you to log in to your Google account & view subscriptions etc. which for me is a deal maker. But my favourite way is ClickToFlash. This kills two birds with one stone, as it gets rid of the ucky flash content - speeding up general browsing no end. But it also sends any flash video to play through QuickTime player.

Then other simple stuff like AdBlock, using an up to date browser etc. also makes a huge amount of difference.

In fact - come to think of it. The web is the only place the PowerPC platform struggles. Doing standard stuff, running standard apps is an absolute breeze, even on something like my little G3 iBook.
 
Web browsing.

I wish the 10.5.8 just worked for browsing without issue. Just a wish. It works ok. Just wish it was more like when it came out. It's plenty fast enough just wish it was like it used a be.
 
There is a PowerPC version of Silo 3D. I don't know if it's just that I have less than 1GB of RAM in my iMac G4, but it doesn't work correctly. It just starts freezing up after adding a cube to the grid.

That's pretty much it.
 
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