PowerPC popularity 2018-beyond ?

[eddjedi]

I've tried TenFourFox on my G4 cube, and it is a far inferior experience to using the internet on my Macbook Pro or even my iPhone. Sorry but it is. I got my Cube to run OS 9 and play old games that don't run either at all or well on Intel Macs, and to access some old Quark files I made 10+ years ago that I was struggling to open on my Intel MBP. PPC Macs absolutely have a use, I agree. But it is not accessing the internet, or photo editing, or most of the other things I do on a daily basis.

I appreciate this is just my position, not knocking any of yours. But in my computer room there is definitely room for both old and new computers, and I use whichever will do the job best. OK sure sometimes I'll load up the Interent in iBrowse on my Amiga just because I can, but the 30+ seconds load times and SSL errors get boring pretty quickly.

 

[eddjedi]

While we're on the subject I'll tell you one thing I miss about old PPC Macs, PRAM batteries. I went on holiday last week and shut down my Mac before I left. With my old G4 iBook, if I charged it and then stored it away, it would still happily boot up a month later. Not the case with the modern Macbooks, apparently even when switched off they are doing stuff in the background that drains the battery in just a few days. It also lost the time and date because apparently with no battery power there is no other way to store it, so I got a bunch of security errors when I switched it back on.

That's 1-0 to PPC (or older Macs) for sure.

 

[eyoungren]

I've tried TenFourFox on my G4 cube, and it is a far inferior experience to using the internet on my Macbook Pro or even my iPhone. Sorry but it is.

Have you taken a look at my tweak thread for T4Fx?

There's a link to it in my signature.

That said, if raw speed is your focus with browsers then Leopard Webkit is probably your best bet. I hate Webkit's lack of customization so I willingly sacrifice a small amount of speed with T4Fx for customization.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Well, as of right now my G5 Quad is in its box downstairs because I had no room in my area for it. I may even sell it because i need the money. There was a time I owned a G4, G3, and also the G5. The only remaining PPC computer I have is a DLSD G4 17 inch that is so painfully slow on the internet. I can imagine that I will break down before the PPC machines I have do. 2020 -2072 = 52 years left for me. I bet in 2072 my G5 and G4 will still be working.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, as of right now my G5 Quad is in its box downstairs because I had no room in my area for it. I may even sell it because i need the money. There was a time I owned a G4, G3, and also the G5. The only remaining PPC computer I have is a DLSD G4 17 inch that is so painfully slow on the internet. I can imagine that I will break down before the PPC machines I have do. 2020 -2072 = 52 years left for me. I bet in 2072 my G5 and G4 will still be working.

I have a 17" PowerBook. It's the A1013, 1.0Ghz with 2GB ram.

I do just fine using TenFourFox on the net. It's the Mac I take to coffee shops.

Of course I've applied the tweaks for T4Fx mentioned in the link in my signature so that makes it a lot better.

If you haven't tried that or Leopard Webkit and are trying to browse with just plain old Safari or something older then there is a reason your internet experience is so bad.

 

[AphoticD]

I can imagine that I will break down before the PPC machines I have do. 2020 -2072 = 52 years left for me. I bet in 2072 my G5 and G4 will still be working.

You already know your expiration date? I don’t think I’ll make it to 2072 somehow. I sure hope the world is still inhabited by humans by then and we haven’t been self-exterminated.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I sure hope the world is still inhabited by humans by then and we haven’t been self-exterminated.

I think we'll still be around - despite all the warning signs now - however, we'll be massively 'enhanced.' I suspect most people will largely live their lives in the digital domain and AI will be rife.

 

[dbdjre0143]

Well, as of right now my G5 Quad is in its box downstairs because I had no room in my area for it. I may even sell it because i need the money.

Depending on where you're located and/or cost of shipping, I sure wouldn't mind a shot at buying that G5 quad.

 

[eyoungren]

You already know your expiration date? I don’t think I’ll make it to 2072 somehow. I sure hope the world is still inhabited by humans by then and we haven’t been self-exterminated.

I will be a young 102 in September 2072. I expect to be sorting all my stuff out at my new home on Mars at that time.

Hopefully Tesla will have made the commercial flights between Earth and Mars easier by then.
[doublepost=1525544096][/doublepost]

…and AI will be rife.

Possible, although Cortana in her late HALO incarnation probably won't be a thing my wife wants in the house.

 

[dbdjre0143]

I do just fine using TenFourFox on the net. It's the Mac I take to coffee shops.

Of course I've applied the tweaks for T4Fx mentioned in the link in my signature so that makes it a lot better.

+1 for the awesome tweak thread. I didn't apply everything but what I did apply greatly improved my Ten4Fox experience. The biggie was the uMatrix add-on. Disabling extraneous crap makes for a so much better experience in many cases. Leopard Webkit combined with tweaked T4Fx leaves very little that is uncomfortably slow internet-wise on my Powerbook.

 

[pl1984]

With all due respect they are already obsolete. Sure you CAN work with them, but why use a big, inefficient behemoth like a G5 when a $100 phone will do a better job these days.

Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of vintage computing - I own an Amiga, a PPC Cube, loads of old games consoles. But I've never understood the fascination with trying to bring them up to date. It is especially prevalent in the Amiga scene, I'm sure you've all heard of Morph OS. I just don't get it, I like using old computers for nostalgia, not to try and make them do a second-rate job at modern tasks.

What is a modern task? Is using a computer to do your taxes a modern task? Is using a computer to perform electronic banking a modern task? Of course they are. But they're also modern tasks which shouldn't need a modern computer. A dual 2.0GHz G5 computer should be adequate for both of these tasks. But they're not. The first because software is no longer produced for them, the latter just requires a bunch of nonsense Java code for reasons unknown.

I completely understand technology marches forward but I have to question why do many site require so much processing power when the underlying task does not.
[doublepost=1525563959][/doublepost]

While we're on the subject I'll tell you one thing I miss about old PPC Macs, PRAM batteries. I went on holiday last week and shut down my Mac before I left. With my old G4 iBook, if I charged it and then stored it away, it would still happily boot up a month later. Not the case with the modern Macbooks, apparently even when switched off they are doing stuff in the background that drains the battery in just a few days. It also lost the time and date because apparently with no battery power there is no other way to store it, so I got a bunch of security errors when I switched it back on.

That's 1-0 to PPC (or older Macs) for sure.

Not sure what specifically you're referring to when you say MacBooks but I have a couple of 2,1 MacBooks and this has not been the case.

 

[1042686]

All the ideological arguments for or against ppc in 2018 aside, the real answer is easy - because we can. Not because ppc’s speed or efficiency or architecture or security.

It boils down to the reality that we can, therefore we do.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Depending on where you're located and/or cost of shipping, I sure wouldn't mind a shot at buying that G5 quad.

I am located in Maryland.
[doublepost=1525578623][/doublepost]

You already know your expiration date? I don’t think I’ll make it to 2072 somehow. I sure hope the world is still inhabited by humans by then and we haven’t been self-exterminated.

The way the world is going, extinction could happen. The world has enough nuclear power to destroy itself.

 

[1042686]

the world had enough firepower to destroy itself before nukes. Heck, we tried not once but twice & we’re still here. In an ironic twist, nukes saved us from ourselves the second time around.

We’ll be fine. Go enjoy your ppcs.

 

[mzs.112000]

I think that popularity is going to wind down, but people will still find uses for them well into the 2020's or as long as the machines still work.
Even in 2018, some people still have them as daily drivers, and they are still suitable IMO for some basic computing usage.

Office 2008 and iWork 09 on PowerPC are still perfectly viable in 2018. There are other office programs as well that still work just fine.
DVD's are just 480p MPEG2 and the G4 played them nicely in 2004 so should work fine now. Even 720p video played from an external drive or network share works.
Photoshop CS2 still works. Old versions of GIMP and other editing software are still available, which use less resources than Photoshop.
Spotify still works, and Pandora has an unofficial client that still works, so music streaming is fine. Of course, people(like me) still use library's of music on an external hard drive, phone or iPod.
Any printer older than 2009 is still supported. Some new ones still work as well, but it's hit or miss.
Built-in email still works on some providers.
With a browser extension even 720p Youtube is still playable. That may not be the case for long though, unless someone can come up with an efficient WebM decoder that's AltiVec optimized.
Mobile user agent even makes general web browsing bearable.
Syncing older iOS devices still works. Any older iPad, iPhone or iPod will still work just fine under PowerPC.

I could probably use a PowerBook G4 or iBook G4 as a daily driver, of course, I would want the 15" screen and not smaller. As a desktop machine, it would be an iMac G5 or PowerMac G5, which does give you more modern IO options and more powerful graphics.

 

[SkyBell]

I think as far as using PPC for daily drivers, that era is pretty much over unless your needs are very basic. 2013 or so is probably around the time I really started noticing how much slower my PPC machines were feeling, and 2015 is when they really became long in the tooth. Nowadays, I have to admit I spend quite a bit more time on my 2012 MBP than I do either my PowerBook G4 or eMac - though I am using the latter to type and post this message.

But these machines aren't without their uses; I still pop a DVD in my PowerBook every so often, and just the other week I used OpenOffice 3.x on my eMac to type up a letter to my apartment complex. I've got seven tabs open in tenFourFox all on various forums, plus eBay and my bank's website. All of them a bit slow, but still usable. There's really no reason to do this on these dinosaurs instead of my much faster MBP other than "because I can", and because they still work, so I might as well get some use out of them. I hate having things I don't use, and I've developed quite the unhealthy emotional attachment to these computers over the years, so there's no getting rid of them.

 

[Roman78]

Well... PowerPC is still there. But not in a Desktop market, only Server and Supercomputers. So it is more Power Architecture than PowerPC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Architecture

The latest at this moment is the IBM Power9 whit 12 or 24 Cores, running up to 4 Ghz and 120 MB lvl 3 cache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER9

And they planned for the year 2020 a 48 Core CPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER10

So what would it be like to have a 48 Core CPU in your PC

But for Apple an PPC. I thing we even past the lifespan of it. Using older software is no problem, only the internet. When browsing the web on a G4 is mostly not done. So it must be G5 Dual or quad. And compare that power consumption of a G5 next to a i5 or i7.

I planned to make a little review of 10.4.11 on a G5 Dual 2ghz and a Mac Mini 1.1 Core2Duo at 2 Ghz.

 

[macgeek18]

I love my PPC machines. But they are obsolete for my needs now. I can barely function on my C2D Mac Mini and even my Sandy Bridge i5 is starting to become sluggish. I will keep playing with my old machines but as time goes by they are getting turned on less and less.

 

[dbdjre0143]

@macgeek18 Just out of curiosity, what are your needs that make such a broad range of machines (PPC -> Sandy Bridge i5) seem sluggish?
To be fair, my Powerbook serves as my primary personal-use computer, but it would be "obsolete" for my job. I work on an internal web-app based enterprise content management system, and there is a list of needed software that isn't PPC-compatible. The biggie is that we only officially support Chrome. That said, the app works fine in TFF and Leopard Webkit, but there are some random little quirks, just as there are with current Firefox on current OSX for the same app. Hard to test your code if you can't know for sure how it'll behave in the end user's browser.

 

[macgeek18]

@macgeek18 Just out of curiosity, what are your needs that make such a broad range of machines (PPC -> Sandy Bridge i5) seem sluggish?
To be fair, my Powerbook serves as my primary personal-use computer, but it would be "obsolete" for my job. I work on an internal web-app based enterprise content management system, and there is a list of needed software that isn't PPC-compatible. The biggie is that we only officially support Chrome. That said, the app works fine in TFF and Leopard Webkit, but there are some random little quirks, just as there are with current Firefox on current OSX for the same app. Hard to test your code if you can't know for sure how it'll behave in the end user's browser.

I'm in IT and also a full time geek. I run Linux as my primary OS and run Windows in a spec'd out VM for games. The only system I have that can keep up with my work load is my 8Core Ryzen 7 machine. I have many machines from PPC G3 to Intel Core i7 3770K and they all are getting to a point of being too slow for me. I laugh though, just 9 years ago all I had was a 867Mhz G4 with 1GB of RAM and it was fine for me then. Needs change with time.

 

[AphoticD]

I think that for the most part it comes down to our perspective. It's no different to cars or motorbikes. You start out with something small and cheap and over the years the vehicles keep getting bigger, shinier and higher performing. Eventually you just can't imagine getting by with anything less than a high performance turbo diesel 7 seater SUV (or whatever your needs are). But in reality, a 20+ year old sedan would likely get you around just as easily.

The same could be said with any Mac, PC, tablet or smart phone. You just can't imagine getting by with something old(er) because you've grown accustomed to the performance, size, screen resolution, features, user interface, etc, etc..

This is where something like our PowerPC challenges (typically set by @Gamer9430), give us a good chance to test ourselves into shifting this thought pattern. By taking a step back and putting older hardware to use, you can gain some perspective.

Just like the cars and bikes, basically any computer from the past 20 years can ultimately achieve the same results as a modern machine. We just need a little patience.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Well... PowerPC is still there. But not in a Desktop market, only Server and Supercomputers. So it is more Power Architecture than PowerPC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Architecture

The latest at this moment is the IBM Power9 whit 12 or 24 Cores, running up to 4 Ghz and 120 MB lvl 3 cache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER9

And they planned for the year 2020 a 48 Core CPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER10

So what would it be like to have a 48 Core CPU in your PC

But for Apple an PPC. I thing we even past the lifespan of it. Using older software is no problem, only the internet. When browsing the web on a G4 is mostly not done. So it must be G5 Dual or quad. And compare that power consumption of a G5 next to a i5 or i7.

I planned to make a little review of 10.4.11 on a G5 Dual 2ghz and a Mac Mini 1.1 Core2Duo at 2 Ghz.

Think of the power Apple can have if they can use Power9 chips in their systems. Now, how about the MacBook Pro powered by Power9 ?

 

[z970]

Think of the power Apple can have if they can use Power9 chips in their systems. Now, how about the MacBook Pro powered by Power9 ?

The thought makes me salivate.

Too bad it would be bottlenecked by Apple's fetish for thinness, which equals less performance because thermal restrictions, and less external I/O options because thinness. It knows no bounds.

...I don't even care anymore... For me, the RISC processor architecture is the prize, not the brand, not the computer design, not even OS X. Not at this point... They've just...destroyed it all...

 

[Roman78]

Think of the power Apple can have if they can use Power9 chips in their systems. Now, how about the MacBook Pro powered by Power9 ?

Well very simple... Now the Power9 has a TDP of 190-300 Watts (source), so compared that to the latest MBP (source) whit a I7-7920HQ whit a TDP of 45 Watt (source) and maybe a better power management than the Power9, the battery will last.. maybe 30 minutes.. time enough to bake an egg on the MBP.

Do not place it on our lap... will bake the wrong eggs...

The Power CPU's are not made for Mobile Computing as the target market is High-end Servers and Supercomputers. They don't mind the power consumption.

I would like to see a geekbench of those....

@macgeek18: You said "Needs change with time." Indeed, but also is the Software getting heavier and overloaded. I noticed yesterday while playing at my G5. All the period software working great and fast.. till i just started iCab and did a little online search. Damn that was slow...

I remember a time when i did some video-editing on a MDD dual 1.42 Ghz. Nowadays i would even not think doing this. Because of the higher resolution. But digitalizing LP's and audiotapes is perfectly done on a G4 or even a G3. And you can get professional software very cheap.

 

[mzs.112000]

Well very simple... Now the Power9 has a TDP of 190-300 Watts (source), so compared that to the latest MBP (source) whit a I7-7920HQ whit a TDP of 45 Watt (source) and maybe a better power management than the Power9, the battery will last.. maybe 30 minutes.. time enough to bake an egg on the MBP.

Do not place it on our lap... will bake the wrong eggs...

The Power CPU's are not made for Mobile Computing as the target market is High-end Servers and Supercomputers. They don't mind the power consumption.

I would like to see a geekbench of those....

@macgeek18: You said "Needs change with time." Indeed, but also is the Software getting heavier and overloaded. I noticed yesterday while playing at my G5. All the period software working great and fast.. till i just started iCab and did a little online search. Damn that was slow...

I remember a time when i did some video-editing on a MDD dual 1.42 Ghz. Nowadays i would even not think doing this. Because of the higher resolution. But digitalizing LP's and audiotapes is perfectly done on a G4 or even a G3. And you can get professional software very cheap.

I found a Power9 with a TDP of only 90 watts, which is still way too much for any laptop, but still less than 190W, also it runs at 3.2GHz. Maybe it's possible some company who wanted a Power ISA laptop could underclock it to 1.6GHz, which would bring it to a managable tempurature range. Though, a 1.6GHz Power9 chip may not be much faster than an Intel 45W chip, like the new Coffee Lake i9 laptop chip with 45W TDP and 6 cores running at 4.8GHz

You know what would be nice, take an old Intel Mac Pro, like the 2006, and put one of the Talos motherboards in with an 8-core Power9 chip...