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My First PPC Entry - PowerBook G4 12"

R

Riviera122

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2008
488
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Hi everyone, after a few false starts I just wanted to make a post about my first PowerPC seeing as the community has really helped me make this great machine usable in 2015. I've always wanted one and it's great to see a relentlessly positive spirit around that has helped to elongate PowerPC's life span to almost ten plus years after its discontinuation. They don't make 'em like this anymore!

I found this PowerBook 12" on an eBay auction and managed to get it for £50. 1.5gHz, 1.25GB RAM, holding battery, 80GB... It's in great condition - although I did have to swap out the keyboard due to a few shorted keys. Wasn't impressed with Leopard's performance so I downgraded it to Tiger and it works very well.

Such a nice design.

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DFB496C6-7B2E-4DA6-ACF1-B97E6D76E8D6_zpsy72vwc4l.jpg


Here's to many more years of PPC computing. :apple:
 
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Great little Macs. My 12" PowerBook still gets a lot of daily use and it is easily in my top 3 favorite laptops. Looks like you got a good one there.
 
Justin122 said:
Such a nice design.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's about as compact as you can make a regular size keyboard, track pad, CD drive and screen. The only think it lacks is the ability to hot-swap batteries like you could with the Ti powerbooks.

Welcome!
 
That's a great machine :)
It might be worth persevering with Leopard - with optimisations on a PPC as fast as yours, it's not far behind Tiger for speed. I've found that installs from 'slimmed down' versions of Leopard on the web can be problematic - a full size retail copy is best.
Having said that, I still have Tiger on my 12" but that's only because the memory is 768Mb.
I did a lot of testing for video playback on my 12 and 15 Powerbooks and 12 iBook a while back and found the 12 PB to be the best - using XBMC, even 1080P playback was possible....so never underestimate these machines :)
 
I had the 12/1.25/100gb and I loved it! It was the main reason I was all over the MacBook this year.
 
Dronecatcher said:
That's a great machine :)
It might be worth persevering with Leopard - with optimisations on a PPC as fast as yours, it's not far behind Tiger for speed. I've found that installs from 'slimmed down' versions of Leopard on the web can be problematic - a full size retail copy is best.
Having said that, I still have Tiger on my 12" but that's only because the memory is 768Mb.
I did a lot of testing for video playback on my 12 and 15 Powerbooks and 12 iBook a while back and found the 12 PB to be the best - using XBMC, even 1080P playback was possible....so never underestimate these machines :)
Click to expand...

That's interesting. SD video is getting a bit stale! It's not like Leopard's performance was poor, I just didn't like the choppiness of animations in comparison to Tiger. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to software but the tweaks thread posted above has definitely made me consider reinstalling Leopard at some point.

Does the iTunes Store still work with Leopard?
 
Welcome to the PowerPC community! Isn't the 12" PowerBook a lovely lovely love little machine? Looks like you scored a machine that is in fantastic shape too!
 
Gav2k said:
I had the 12/1.25/100gb and I loved it! It was the main reason I was all over the MacBook this year.
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Yeah, Apple's smaller notebooks are really impressive at the minute. I would consider an 11" MacBook Air however I'm holding out for quad-core processing and a Retina display.
 
Justin122 said:
Does the iTunes Store still work with Leopard?
Click to expand...

Yes, 10.6.3 still connects with Store fine.

There is a learning curve to all these tweaks to get the best out of your PPC - not a particularly steep or technical one but you do have to do a bit of digging around, research and DIY to get there.
 
Justin122 said:
Yeah, Apple's smaller notebooks are really impressive at the minute. I would consider an 11" MacBook Air however I'm holding out for quad-core processing and a Retina display.
Click to expand...
You're not going to get any of that on a MacBook Air. You might as well go with a 12" Retina MacBook if you want a Retina display and small form factor, but quad-core is out of the question unless you go with a MacBook Pro.

Enjoy the 12" PowerBook. I have the same model as you, except unfortunately with a dead battery. The keyboard is especially nice.
 
redheeler said:
You're not going to get any of that on a MacBook Air. You might as well go with a 12" Retina MacBook if you want a Retina display and small form factor, but quad-core is out of the question unless you go with a MacBook Pro.

Enjoy the 12" PowerBook. I have the same model as you, except unfortunately with a dead battery. The keyboard is especially nice.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't they include those things in the Air?

Thank you, it's been a blast so far :)
 
Justin122 said:
Why wouldn't they include those things in the Air?
Click to expand...
Retina will remain exclusive to the new 12" Retina MacBook most likely, as the MacBook Air is eventually phased out just like the plastic MacBook it replaced. As for quad-core, there are a number of different reasons, including inadequate cooling and too much power consumption for such a small/thin form factor.
 
redheeler said:
Retina will remain exclusive to the new 12" Retina MacBook most likely, as the MacBook Air is eventually phased out just like the plastic MacBook it replaced. As for quad-core, there are a number of different reasons, including inadequate cooling and too much power consumption for such a small/thin form factor.
Click to expand...

That's a shame, I've always loved the MBA's form factor. It's baffling how they still haven't updated it to include a Retina display three years on after introducing it to the market, but I can see why they need to for the sake of product differentiation.
 
Justin122 said:
That's a shame, I've always loved the MBA's form factor.
Click to expand...
If form factor is your biggest concern, no question the Retina MacBook beats the 11" Air. Bigger display, but thinner, lighter, and smaller footprint. Of course there was a few sacrifices made to get there, just like what happened with the original Air.
It's baffling how they still haven't updated it to include a Retina display three years on after introducing it to the market, but I can see why they need to for the sake of product differentiation.
Click to expand...
I agree, that 2010 non-IPS panel gets rid of much of the Air's appeal in 2015.
 
Altemose said:
@556fmjoe How is the performance in comparison to OS X Leopard running WebKit and TenFourFox for browsing?
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I couldn't tell you; I have never run OS X. Browsing with Firefox would be worse, possibly much worse considering how optimized TenFourFox is. I use Netsurf for most browsing and it's very fast. GUI performance is instant, but I'm using a very lightweight tiling window manager (spectrwm). There are many others to choose from that provide similar performance. The NVIDIA GPU in the 12" provides 2D acceleration only, so a lot of things would be slower if you start using it for graphically intensive work or run a heavier WM/DE.
 
556fmjoe said:
I couldn't tell you; I have never run OS X. Browsing with Firefox would be worse, possibly much worse considering how optimized TenFourFox is. I use Netsurf for most browsing and it's very fast. GUI performance is instant, but I'm using a very lightweight tiling window manager (spectrwm). There are many others to choose from that provide similar performance. The NVIDIA GPU in the 12" provides 2D acceleration only, so a lot of things would be slower if you start using it for graphically intensive work or run a heavier WM/DE.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried the Ubuntu MATE project? I am bit curious but am probably never going to run it on one of my computers as I am dedicated to OS X!
 
Altemose said:
Have you ever tried the Ubuntu MATE project? I am bit curious but am probably never going to run it on one of my computers as I am dedicated to OS X!
Click to expand...

I never tried the MATE version, but I did try regular Ubuntu briefly on a DLSD and couldn't deal with it. I have used Linux many times on lots of different hardware and am generally not happy with it. While performance and hardware support are good, code quality and security are not and the system's organization is generally a mess and documentation is sporadic. OpenBSD is extremely clean, very thoroughly documented, and pretty secure. I run it on all my computers and my router and don't plan to use anything else. If I couldn't run it, I'd probably pick one of the other BSDs over Linux for similar reasons.
 
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