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I'm staying with PowerPC for as long as I can who's with me?

Lil Chillbil

Lil Chillbil

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 30, 2012
1,335
111
California
I have 4 computers That I use daily all are PowerPC based and upgraded.
Main desktop:power Macintosh g4 400mhz highly upgraded
Main laptop:powerbook 3400c only ram upgraded
secondary desktop:power Macintosh g5 ram and hard drive upgraded
Third desktop:power Macintosh g3 ram, cooling and hard drive upgraded

And for the time being I an going to stay with PowerPC until a quad core g5 2.5ghz is about as useless as a 512k mac is. Who is with me?

and yes it is cause I am cheap :D
 
I think anyone who is still holding on and using their PPC systems now is doing about as good a job as can be expected. Intel Macs have been around for 6 years now and support for early ones has already been falling off. I love my PPC Macs and use them all the time, but eventually software choices will force my hand. It probably won't be for a while, but within the next year or so I would expect support for Leopard as an OS and especially the PPC chips to really drop off to nearly nothing. Once Apple stops releasing iTunes that'll be a big nail in the coffin. Now that Adobe, Microsoft, Intuit, and many others have stopped creating universal programs there is only so long you can go before the move will need to be made.
 
My old G4 Mini makes an excellent file server still. I have to run Windows VMs for work, so otherwise all my Macs have been Intel since the first Intel Mac Pro came out. And if you're cheap, at this point you could by a 6 year old used Intel Mac for very little :p
 
I'd like to keep using my iBook G4 but I had to stop when I couldn't watch Youtube on it anymore. One day it just stopped working on it. And now the screen is beginning to get dark around the corners.
 
Hrududu said:
I think anyone who is still holding on and using their PPC systems now is doing about as good a job as can be expected. Intel Macs have been around for 6 years now and support for early ones has already been falling off. I love my PPC Macs and use them all the time, but eventually software choices will force my hand. It probably won't be for a while, but within the next year or so I would expect support for Leopard as an OS and especially the PPC chips to really drop off to nearly nothing. Once Apple stops releasing iTunes that'll be a big nail in the coffin. Now that Adobe, Microsoft, Intuit, and many others have stopped creating universal programs there is only so long you can go before the move will need to be made.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I see that too. HTML5 isnt making it easier either.

I think I will keep mine, maybe buy a G5 and throw PC innards into it,
These machines are perfect for modding and playing around with. I like doing it, they are also easy-ish to work with. I wont be using them as a "main" type machine, but as a hobby they are great.
 
That's right! Us Apple fans will fight to the very end! I've got my unibody white MacBook (I call it my white MacBook Pro) and it's next door neighbor is an iMac G4. I'm planning on adding a PowerBook G4 to the family soon.
When Leopard becomes too old and outdated and it's gone we will dual boot with PowerPC Linux, and we will go on until the very end when the motherboards blow out! And when that happens, we'll empty the base of our computers and put new computer parts inside them and make Hackintoshs out of them. Who needs to keep buying new computers?
 
Our PowerPCs will stay in this house as long as they still power on. I really hope we get some hobbyist developers onboard to join us. It would be so cool to have a huge community of people creating software that's just for our machines.
 
While I have a new iMac that I use day to day with parallels for (Visual Studios).

I really depend on my G5 for a lot.

I have a PowerMac G5 2.3 DP with 8gigs (early 05).
I use it to serve:
iTunes media
I also having it copying all content from 3 different iTunes accounts.
I have it running my PHP development web site and Game Forums.
It also host all my backups using CCC.
I'm slowly converting all my DVD with it.
Running Ventrilo.

Also have a windows box and a linux laptop... yea i'm all over the place.
 
I took my first 'bite' of a PPC-based Mac in mid-2011. It was a 1999 PowerMac G4 (AGP Graphics) 450MHz. Pretty low end machine, but it only cost me thirty bucks. I was mainly into it for the history, and it was pretty useless for anything but light word processing and OS 9 gaming, but by fooling with it I learned that I can make due with older hardware, and save a lot of money (by not buying Intel :p).

And from then on my love for PPC Macs and lower-spec machines began.

Since I've acquired that 450MHz G4, I've also bought:
- 1999 400MHz PowerMac G4 (AGP) $20
- x2 1999 500MHz iMac G3's $50 (I sold one of them for cash to buy a PowerMac G5)
- 1991 16MHz Macintosh LC (sold it for cash to buy a PowerMac G5) $90
- Late 2004 PowerMac G5 1.8GHz (latest purchase) $120

Here are the current uses of the computers I own:
- PowerMac G4 450MHz: 90's games (used to be a file server).
- iMac G3 500MHz: A machine I have for kids to play with if friends bring them over, with kid-friendly games.
- PowerMac G5 1.8GHz: Main desktop machine. Word processing, web browsing, 2000's games, file serving, iTunes library, all media purposes.

In the future I plan on purchasing:
-1.42GHz eMac (purchasing one next week!)
-200-200MHz PowerBook G3
-1.67GHz PowerBook G4
-1.8GHz or 2.0GHz iMac G5
-1.42GHz Dual PowerMac G4 MDD
-2.5GHz Quad PowerMac G5

Anyways, I plan on sticking with PPC until they're hard to come by, and decent (2GHz dual core) Intel machines become as cheap as these things are now.
 
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My eMac's coming with me to my grave. :p

Honestly, I can't see myself needing another machine for a while yet to come. There's really nothing I need to do with a computer that my eMac cannot handle, PPC is more than good enough for me. :)
 
Cassie said:
My eMac's coming with me to my grave. :p

Honestly, I can't see myself needing another machine for a while yet to come. There's really nothing I need to do with a computer that my eMac cannot handle, PPC is more than good enough for me. :)
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I really wish I could do the same, but since my word processing career didn't take off and I somehow ended up in the world of 3D rendering I can't stick to the hardware I really love.:apple: :-(
 
Lil Chillbil said:
Main laptop:powerbook 3400c only ram upgraded
Click to expand...

do you use internet with it? what os are you running,and browser?

my ibook g3 runs os 9.2 with classilla pretty well...

ps: it tryed staying with ppc,but a couple months ago got a great deal on a 2.2GHz macbook,i upgraded hd to ssd and os to snow leopard...as much as i like playing with ppc macs,you would have to take this macbook from my cold dead hands ;-)
 
Hrududu said:
Once Apple stops releasing iTunes that'll be a big nail in the coffin.
Click to expand...

Why? I mean, the current version that works on PPC is up to date - won't it make the cut for several years to come? Maybe it won't sync with iPod 8 or iPad 5 but...
 
I use my dual 1.8 G5, 1gb RAM, 160gb HDD, FX5200 daily for just about everything. It's scraping by with 1gb RAM but over the summer will be putting 4gb RAM, and a much nicer card in there. When it's all upgraded, I don't see anything stopping me using it until Mac OS 11 :p

My portable is a 1.67ghz PowerBook G4, 1gb RAM, 80gb HDD, Mob. Radeon 9700 - I, again, use this everyday and it flies by. YouTube, DVD's, iTunes, Websurfing, Pages, TextEdit - you name it, it does it. I'm hopefully going to stick a 64 or 128gb SSD in there and get myself an extra gig of RAM but I'll be using this PowerBook for as long as I can.

I think Mountain Lion may be the last version of OS X (just speculation) and if/when OS 11 arrives, support for Leopard will literally be non existent and, for me, will be a tearful goodbye to main machine use on the PowerPC architecture.
 
Until Apple consider / actually replace the current Mac Pro (next year?), I'll be holding onto my G5 for work duties. Its a 2.5 Quad Core from 2005. Fitted with 16GB RAM and for OSX / apps, 120 GB OWC 3G boot drive, a 500GB HDD second internal for files. Its pretty snappy with Adobe Creative Suite 3 and has performed from day 1 when I bought it new. Its a work machine and its been used day in day out and has been great. The only reason to move up will be software requirements :)
 
I still use my 2.0Ghz PowerMac G5 a lot. Mostly to heat up my workshop. It does a very good job at that when it's encoding movies. I also use my 1.5Ghz eMac for Internet and music. They have such lovely speakers.


Starfighter said:
Why? I mean, the current version that works on PPC is up to date - won't it make the cut for several years to come? Maybe it won't sync with iPod 8 or iPad 5 but...
Click to expand...

Apple is rumored to be giving iTunes a big overhaul for the next iPhone release. This overhaul may the the excuse to drop Leopard support from iTunes. iTunes is the last Apple made thing that still gets updates and run on Leopard. If iTunes 11 is released in October, it'll be required for iOS 6 and the 6th generation iPhone leaving PPC Macs out.
 
Universal apps are getting harder and harder to find. All new apps are Intel only most. I have a iMac G5 and am going to have to get an Intel Mac soon.
 
Intell said:
Apple is rumored to be giving iTunes a big overhaul for the next iPhone release. This overhaul may the the excuse to drop Leopard support from iTunes. iTunes is the last Apple made thing that still gets updates and run on Leopard. If iTunes 11 is released in October, it'll be required for iOS 6 and the 6th generation iPhone leaving PPC Macs out.
Click to expand...

Thats just what I was getting at. Loss of support for the iTunes store and new iOS devices will drive a lot of holdouts toward new computers. Lastly, lack of security updates will also become a problem even if guys like tenfourfox continue making updated web browsers. Within the next 2 years I don't think PowerPC based computers will have enough modern, safe and secure software options to be used as a primary setup anymore. Much like Mac OS 9 can still be tinkered with, but nobody can comfortably used daily.
 
Buffsteria said:
I'd like to keep using my iBook G4 but I had to stop when I couldn't watch Youtube on it anymore. One day it just stopped working on it. And now the screen is beginning to get dark around the corners.
Click to expand...

I use my ibook G4 and youtube daily. Mactubes. Hands down the best youtube solution for older macs. Also, can watch at 360p in safari or omniweb using greasekit and viewtube. Can even watch and STREAM HD (720p) using Coreplayer (1.07 ghz G4, 1.25 GB RAM).

Avoid flash and all is good.
 
utahman130 said:
Universal apps are getting harder and harder to find. All new apps are Intel only most. I have a iMac G5 and am going to have to get an Intel Mac soon.
Click to expand...

But...do you really NEED those new apps, or are you being driven by marketing from Cupertino and app developers? If you need them to make a living, or fill an empty life, sure, jump ship. What we really NEED on PPC macs is a secure, stable browser, with leopard webkit and tenfourfox we have that, though the newer tenfourfox builds really seem to be leaving older macs like the G3's behind.

I know I am a luddite, but I am constantly amazed at the money people plop down to have the latest and greatest, when all they really need is the old mac that now gathers dust on a shelf. I was one of those people for years, now I can't imagine spending more than 100 dollars for ANY computer.

Typing this on a Dell Latitude 600, Linux Mint LXDE 12.04 (Precise Pangolin). Cost= $ 0 .
 
Fortimir said:
I accidentally stumbled upon the PPC forum.

Is this real life?
Click to expand...

welcome to the true cult of mac esay

----------
tom vilsack said:
do you use internet with it? what os are you running,and browser?

my ibook g3 runs os 9.2 with classilla pretty well...

ps: it tryed staying with ppc,but a couple months ago got a great deal on a 2.2GHz macbook,i upgraded hd to ssd and os to snow leopard...as much as i like playing with ppc macs,you would have to take this macbook from my cold dead hands ;-)
Click to expand...
I don't use it for internet (though that would be nice). its got 128mb ram a 10 gig harddrive and is running os 8.6. Currently its only way to get information to the outside world is a portable usb 3.5 floppy disc drive. A lot of people say that its to old to be useful but all I use it for is taking notes at school and presenting short powerpoint presentations.
 
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