It is so awesome to see this on an Apple TV of all things, can I put this picture on the Links2 page?! Does the graphics mode work by the way?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
PPC Challenge '21
- Thread starter Project Alice
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You are welcome to repost the photos
Last edited:
I got somewhat distracted and forgot about the challenge, so I'll be pulling out either the iBook G4 or the AlBook tomorrow morning. I think I can get away with using intel for school (it's from 2006, so pretty close anyway), and PPC for anything else. It's been a while since the iBook was used, so it'll be fun!
@uller6 well, that's one unique setup! Browsing at all with 256MB RAM on a TV box in 2021 is pretty cool!
@uller6 well, that's one unique setup! Browsing at all with 256MB RAM on a TV box in 2021 is pretty cool!
Try browsing on a 1st gen iPad that has 256MB RAM, it's almost laughable how it handles certain sites. So close, yet so far away...
I pulled out the PowerBook 15" today, discovered my speaker is starting to blow... Overall the 15" seems worse than I remember it being, but that's probably just because I've become so accustomed to using my 17" 2006 MBP. MBP is a lot faster on the web, especially given that I'm running the latest version of Firefox ESR under Mavericks versus TenFourFox with much less RAM on Tiger. Nice to have access to Classic though, even the poor Tiger version is better than nothing.
I will say though, I greatly prefer the PowerBook design. While they are very close overall, it's the small things that make the PB look better. IR sensor makes the front of the MBP less clean, the cool grilles on the side of the PB are gone, the rubber piece on the hinge ages horribly and looks inconsistent, and most importantly the top bezel looks way out of proportion on the MBP. The PowerBook bezels are very nice. Honestly, if I could fit my MBP's guts into a 17" PB shell I would, but it would require some machining of the case to align the ports which would ruin it.
I pulled out the PowerBook 15" today, discovered my speaker is starting to blow... Overall the 15" seems worse than I remember it being, but that's probably just because I've become so accustomed to using my 17" 2006 MBP. MBP is a lot faster on the web, especially given that I'm running the latest version of Firefox ESR under Mavericks versus TenFourFox with much less RAM on Tiger. Nice to have access to Classic though, even the poor Tiger version is better than nothing.
I will say though, I greatly prefer the PowerBook design. While they are very close overall, it's the small things that make the PB look better. IR sensor makes the front of the MBP less clean, the cool grilles on the side of the PB are gone, the rubber piece on the hinge ages horribly and looks inconsistent, and most importantly the top bezel looks way out of proportion on the MBP. The PowerBook bezels are very nice. Honestly, if I could fit my MBP's guts into a 17" PB shell I would, but it would require some machining of the case to align the ports which would ruin it.
I wanted to join the challenge in spirit, but this is the closest thing I have to PPC since my G5 died a few years ago. I miss that beast.
Being stuck with a ridiculously old Safari doesn't help either does it?
Use matching silver paint to hide it
Agreed. To hell with the iSight.
Now that would be the ultimate sleeper
Right now I'm watching NFL playoffs on ipTV via VLC on my Powerbook G4 12" (1.5Ghz), running smooth
I will soon be sourcing schematics of the layout of the PowerBook G4 17" casing and see if it is possible to retrofit it so it can be used for a 17" MBP. It will depend on changes in logic board size more than anything. My machining tool can take care of the rest if needed. Shame they made it deeper, otherwise the lid part would work and the problem would be 98% solved...
My biggest issue is, that I use Writerduet quite a bit for work, and the javascript makes it pretty sluggish. It is tolerable in a tenfourfoxbox, but still slow sadly. It's just "sad", that javascript makes a writing app so slow. Oh well... "progress".
Oh, as you earlier said, trying to mod the bottom case of the 17" PB to fit in the innerts of the 17" early-intel MBP will certainly ruin it ...
Except from the cooling grilles on the sides of the PB (and the slightly smelling keyboard on the PB) I can't see any significant differences between these two generations books.
But I'd also rather like to have the metal hinge-cover of the Powerbook to be on my 17"MBP! I wonder, if that replacement is possible!?
Same thing with my iPhone 3GS, iOS 4, 256MB RAM, 600mhz single core. Some sites load just fine, others not so much. My complaint is that every browser is reskinned safari so it's impossible to actually improve it. Ancient safari is what really kills it, with a more modern browser it would be fine.
I pulled the 3GS out today as kind of an extension of the challenge, and the iPhone actually handles youtube better than most of my PPCs. No stuttering or anything.
So far, so good. I've only needed to use my Intel machines for a few thing related to more serious matters, but other than that I've been using my PPC Macs for almost everything (other than restoring one of my iPods to factory).
After pulling another ViewSonic (PT813) off a shelf, I installed a new (new to me, just bought off eBay), Rage Pro 128 like the original, and fired the system back up. It came back up and did everything correctly. Back in business! Hooray!
A couple of days ago I got the PCI version of the Rage 128 for Macintosh (VGA output only), installed it in a PCI slot and it is working just fine.
So, now to the next effort, to flash a PC Radeon 9000 Pro AGP card so that it will work in the G4.
Where is the best info to do that task? I would assume, since I have a PCI card in the G4 I can use it while flashing the AGP card? If not, I can connect the Mac to my PC via an Ethernet cable and then go through the process from the PC (with the Mac in "server" mode).
I've been very interested to try some of the other things that have been suggested on this PPC Challenge.
Thanks for the help!
A couple of days ago I got the PCI version of the Rage 128 for Macintosh (VGA output only), installed it in a PCI slot and it is working just fine.
So, now to the next effort, to flash a PC Radeon 9000 Pro AGP card so that it will work in the G4.
Where is the best info to do that task? I would assume, since I have a PCI card in the G4 I can use it while flashing the AGP card? If not, I can connect the Mac to my PC via an Ethernet cable and then go through the process from the PC (with the Mac in "server" mode).
I've been very interested to try some of the other things that have been suggested on this PPC Challenge.
Thanks for the help!
During the Mac-Yak stream today, it was announced that the challenge would be extended another week so more people can participate.
Helpful for myself because I was also at work half the time and haven't had a whole lot of time on the computer.
When I have been home, my dual 1.8Ghz G5 has replaced my Mac Pro, and has been just fine doing all the "internet lifting" I need.
I also set up my snow iMac G3 earlier to test out a USB video capture device.
Helpful for myself because I was also at work half the time and haven't had a whole lot of time on the computer.
When I have been home, my dual 1.8Ghz G5 has replaced my Mac Pro, and has been just fine doing all the "internet lifting" I need.
I also set up my snow iMac G3 earlier to test out a USB video capture device.
The Mac Elite has pretty much all the info I've needed for flashing. Theres only a handful of stuff that I've had to find elsewhere, and mainly for nvidia cards.
Thanks. OK. Good so far.
However, what I want to do is to do it in the Sawtooth (AGP) G4 PPC Mac that will use the card.
I have a Mac PCI card in the PPC Mac right now. The video signal for the display is coming from it.
It seems to me that I should be able to put the Radeon 9000PRO 128M into the AGP slot, download the ROM image and then flash the 9000PRO.
What do you see - if anything - wrong with that plan? I've not done this before, so, even after looking at the Elite Wiki, I'm not sure that this will work.
Thanks for any help, comments, suggestions.
I don't have an AGP PC and it looks like the flashing software is Windows or DOS only. Any workarounds that allow a Mac to be used instead?
Didn't bother to do any PowerPC challenge, as it was a waste of time, except for word processing and light video work. Internet was awful.
It's stuff like this that is going to make me end up buying a PC Radeon 9800 for my G4 MDD, to go with the Radeon 9200. I have no idea how most of the operating systems I want to run handle having more than one graphics cards, but they're cheap enough that I'm probably going to find out.
Why run both? More screens? Or OS 9 support? Just curious.
I'm not sure how those two would fair. I've ran multiple cards before, but on my Mac Pro a couple years ago. Before Mojave came out I had High Sierra running on my MP3,1 with a GTX 1060, paired with the original Radeon for a boot screen. It worked fine. That is not the case with Mojave+ though unless both cards support Metal.
The only thing that might be weird about those two cards is that one supports CI and the other doesn't. I suppose it might just work without CI overall? I could probably test this out since I have a 9800 Pro in my MDD and a 9200 in my Beige.
It's the OS 9 support, pure and simple. I also pulled the Radeon 9000 out so Linux would boot. I just want to be able to cover as much software as I can on this old hardware. And, I want to put as much power into the thing as I can.
The wild thing is that I can't find a lot of documentation on how OS 9 handles milti graphics card support. Really makes me feel like I'm on the right track!
I've never tried booting OS 9 with multiple cards. I'd imagine that they would display the same on each card. But without driver support for the 9800 who knows how that would go. Sounds like an interesting experiment for sure.
I do know that my both Beige G3s show both the onboard ATI graphics as well as the PCI cards installed in apple system profiler. My tower has a Radeon 9200, and my desktop has a Rage 128 Pro. I suppose I could just plug a monitor into both the onboard connector and the 9200 to see what it does...
I'd have my nice old Viewsonic CRT plugged into the 9200, and what I'm hoping is that the 9800 gets ignored in 9, that I can mirror it in 10.4 and 10.5, and there's not a huge advantage either way in Linux. That way, I could run the whole thing off a single screen and get all the advantages of full 3d support in OS 9, Quartz support in 10.4, and also get full Core Image support in 10.5.
No clue if what I want is really possible, but it doesn't cost too much to find out. If it did, I'd have a Mac that can run a lot of old software.
Eager to join PPC challenge in 21, but it seems I need to find Wacom Intuos 3 first.
I re-claimed 2.0 GHz G5 Dual, and only Intuos 3 have PPC driver compatibility for it. The latter model are Intel only. For artist alike, finding resources for PPC is like trying find a needle in a haystack. There's also Wacom Grafire 4 which perfectly matched with G4 tower aesthetics, but I prefer Intuos 3.
I am digital artist and my daily gear are indeed pen tablet/display, my current Cintiq/Intuos setup backwards compatibility seems only goes through 2012 OS.
Also software aside, no equivalent drawing software, but PS CS2 seems usable albeit still challenging...I need to use less layer...but that's ok, and I heard they free from Adobe now.
Thankfully I am rarely (almost never) do watching Youtube and other majority streaming services so there's should be zero issues when it come to older OSX (currently have 10.5.8). Back in the day my workflow still using animator light board and scanning each paper manually, computer only do the rest for coloring/painting. I can go full offline so I can entirely eschew compatible browser, I am leverages my communications duty to mobile phone for email and such. Might go to dumb phone but I afraid missed important email from my client.
Not my photo, but I think my setup would end up like this.
I re-claimed 2.0 GHz G5 Dual, and only Intuos 3 have PPC driver compatibility for it. The latter model are Intel only. For artist alike, finding resources for PPC is like trying find a needle in a haystack. There's also Wacom Grafire 4 which perfectly matched with G4 tower aesthetics, but I prefer Intuos 3.
I am digital artist and my daily gear are indeed pen tablet/display, my current Cintiq/Intuos setup backwards compatibility seems only goes through 2012 OS.
Also software aside, no equivalent drawing software, but PS CS2 seems usable albeit still challenging...I need to use less layer...but that's ok, and I heard they free from Adobe now.
Thankfully I am rarely (almost never) do watching Youtube and other majority streaming services so there's should be zero issues when it come to older OSX (currently have 10.5.8). Back in the day my workflow still using animator light board and scanning each paper manually, computer only do the rest for coloring/painting. I can go full offline so I can entirely eschew compatible browser, I am leverages my communications duty to mobile phone for email and such. Might go to dumb phone but I afraid missed important email from my client.
Not my photo, but I think my setup would end up like this.
I’m going to do the challenge but it’s going to have to be between college semesters. I take 9 week mini semesters as they call it. But, on the plus side, I’ll have all of March off before starting back in April. So I’ll try to do the challenge then. I already know my setup: 14 inch iBook G4 for my go-to portable, Powermac G5 for photoshopping and web browsing, and 17” iMac G4 as a jukebox/tv viewer through IPTV.