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This is my oldest mac and I just wanted to see if it was still running. My HTPC is a 2013 Mac mini and 3 3TB drives of movies, TV, and tunes. I thought that I should see what other people are doing with their old G4's.
 
This is my oldest mac and I just wanted to see if it was still running. My HTPC is a 2013 Mac mini and 3 3TB drives of movies, TV, and tunes. I thought that I should see what other people are doing with their old G4's.

That G4 is plenty usable for most any task today except maybe HD video and streaming Flash. There are ways around the streaming video deficiency by avoiding the pig, I mean Flash, all together.
 
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iMac G4 17" 1.25GHZ, 2GB RAM, 64GB SSD, Leopard. This sits on a shelf to the right of my main desk, which used to have a Mac Mini on it, but now has a Dell XPS PC. I couldn't afford a Mac Pro! Darwin finger puppet keeps it company - the rum in the background is the cover to a photo album of our trip to Cuba :D

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Powerbook G4 12", 1.5GHz, 1.25GB ram, 32GB SSD, Leopard.

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"Workshop" desk - now where the Mac Mini resides, but no worse as it now has a 27" BenQ 1080p monitor, as well as the old Hercules ProphetView up top.

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With cat sleeping underneath, next to the AMD K6/2 550 project and Raspberry Pi.
 
Is the SSD worth it for the powerbook? I have the same model and am curious if it really speeds things up.
 
Is the SSD worth it for the powerbook? I have the same model and am curious if it really speeds things up.

TBH I bought it as the drive in there had died, and I knew I didn't need the space. Of course an SSD is far too fast for the IDE bus, but it means no spooling times for the platters, so it is a little bit quicker.

If I needed more room, I wouldn't hesitate to get a decent spinning drive in there though, I doubt you would notice the performance difference. I have a Firewire external hard with 1TB of space for backups and downloads etc. and only use the laptop itself for writing and web browsing.

If you can find the IDE SSD cheap, then go for it, if not, I would say a good spinner is almost as fast.
 
I've added to my PPC "herd" recently. Picked up these two iBook G4's for $5 each last weekend from some electronic recyclers that showed up at our local weekend outdoor flea market for the first time. They had at least 30 of them. These are 1.2 GHz with AirPort Extreme cards. Got one cleaned up and running Leopard right now. Even the battery still lasts 2+ hours.

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Found this Apple Cinema HD 23" Display for $15 at the same flea market about a month ago. Didn't really want the G4 MDD that came with it... but the seller threw it in getting tired of hauling it around and I'm happy I got it now. It's a 1.25 GHz dual with 2 GB ram, 120 GB hard drive, and GeForce Ti 4600 video. Can't see the MDD because it's sitting behind the monitor.

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I've added to my PPC "herd" recently. Picked up these two iBook G4's for $5 each last weekend from some electronic recyclers that showed up at our local weekend outdoor flea market for the first time. They had at least 30 of them. These are 1.2 GHz with AirPort Extreme cards. Got one cleaned up and running Leopard right now. Even the battery still lasts 2+ hours.

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Found this Apple Cinema HD 23" Display for $15 at the same flea market about a month ago. Didn't really want the G4 MDD that came with it... but the seller threw it in getting tired of hauling it around and I'm happy I got it now. It's a 1.25 GHz dual with 2 GB ram, 120 GB hard drive, and GeForce Ti 4600 video. Can't see the MDD because it's sitting behind the monitor.

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Get more iBooks. I'd buy one for $10 plus shipping! They are great Macs.
 
I've added to my PPC "herd" recently. Picked up these two iBook G4's for $5 each last weekend from some electronic recyclers that showed up at our local weekend outdoor flea market for the first time. They had at least 30 of them. These are 1.2 GHz with AirPort Extreme cards. Got one cleaned up and running Leopard right now. Even the battery still lasts 2+ hours.

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Found this Apple Cinema HD 23" Display for $15 at the same flea market about a month ago. Didn't really want the G4 MDD that came with it... but the seller threw it in getting tired of hauling it around and I'm happy I got it now. It's a 1.25 GHz dual with 2 GB ram, 120 GB hard drive, and GeForce Ti 4600 video. Can't see the MDD because it's sitting behind the monitor.

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That is a great MDD. Best OS9 bootable, plus best OS9 Graphics card, plus the Cinema HD Display. You are lucky!!
 
Post Your PowerPC Setup

Get more iBooks. I'd buy one for $10 plus shipping! They are great Macs.


For you... Altemose... I'd do that. Let me see if they have some left next Saturday and I'll PM you.

The guys were becoming frustrated because everyone looking at them was asking if they run Netflix! Yeah right... Netflix on a $5 10 year old computer. Everyone wants the world for free anymore...
 
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For you... Altemose... I'd do that. Let me see if they have some left next Saturday and I'll PM you.

The guys were becoming frustrated because everyone looking at them was asking if they run Netflix! Yeah right... Netflix on a $5 10 year old computer. Everyone wants the world for free anymore...

PM me! I was kind of joking when I made that statement so PM me before you buy it.
 
The guys were becoming frustrated because everyone looking at them was asking if they run Netflix! Yeah right... Netflix on a $5 10 year old computer. Everyone wants the world for free anymore...

You can kinda wedge Netflix on them with the Plex work through.
 
Kinda wedge. It is a very iffy rig then wouldn't you say.

It needs a few things to all work together well for it to work. A powerful Core2Duo system, about 2008/2009+, to serve it and a CoreImage GPU in the PowerPC Mac for it to work.
 
It needs a few things to all work together well for it to work. A powerful Core2Duo system, about 2008/2009+, to serve it and a CoreImage GPU in the PowerPC Mac for it to work.

I think that defeats the purpose of buying the affordable PowerPC Mac to start with...
 
I've added to my PPC "herd" recently. Picked up these two iBook G4's for $5 each last weekend from some electronic recyclers that showed up at our local weekend outdoor flea market for the first time. They had at least 30 of them. These are 1.2 GHz with AirPort Extreme cards. Got one cleaned up and running Leopard right now. Even the battery still lasts 2+ hours.

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Found this Apple Cinema HD 23" Display for $15 at the same flea market about a month ago. Didn't really want the G4 MDD that came with it... but the seller threw it in getting tired of hauling it around and I'm happy I got it now. It's a 1.25 GHz dual with 2 GB ram, 120 GB hard drive, and GeForce Ti 4600 video. Can't see the MDD because it's sitting behind the monitor.

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That is one great flea market find. I'm looking for an iMac 20" next. I guess I'll try some flea markets.
 
Thanks I never thought that Goodwill had an online site. I will also try their local goodwill store.

It is an auction like on eBay. They usually have some great prices and selection. I just snagged a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 15" with the backlit keyboard and all for $23.50 + shipping!
 
Finished setting up my iMac G4 since my MacBook Pro died.

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In the Spaces on my screen, I'm running Safari, Aperture 2.1, Adobe Flash CS4, and Ulysses.

I also have Scrivener, Soulver, Evernote, TextExpander, Photoshop and InDesign CS4, and Cheetah3D.

My new iHome AirPlay speakers work fine with it, actually maybe a little too well. I turned on something in iTunes and immediately got an ear full. The thing is LOUD.

I'm using iTunes Match and had to rename iTunes Helper so it wouldn't open iTunes every time I plugged my devices in.
 
Post Your PowerPC Setup

Just picked this Mac up last night. 500mhz iMac G3 Snow. Added 256mb ram to bump it up to 768mb total. It has a fresh install of Tiger. Came with an airport card but unable to use it with my home network. $5 and worth every penny.

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Just picked this Mac up last night. 500mhz iMac G3 Snow. Added 256mb ram to bump it up to 768mb total. It has a fresh install of Tiger. Came with an airport card but unable to use it with my home network. $5 and worth every penny.

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Always had a special attachment to the Snow iMac G3s. Beautiful design in my opinion.

That is a bargain from the original price of $1499.00 in 2000.

I bet the people didn't want to see their $1500 computer sell for $5.00 though...
 
Yeah I'm loving the look, have 2 other imac g3s and this one is definitely the nicest looking one. I just changed out the hdd to a spare one I had and it's so much quieter now and went from 20gb to 128gb
 
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