Pushing the boulder up hill

[AL1630]

The only social media I have is instagram, which I never bother posting on, mostly just to chat with friends and see what they're up to. I've tried to quit using reddit as much as possible as it seems like the site gets more toxic every time I visit. It helps that many of my interests (namely vintage cars, computers, and old electronics like radios/turntables), have long-established forums with longtime users that won't move anywhere else because of the community. Those people are also more likely to be experts that have done something many times over the years.

Come to think of it, pretty much all the sites I use outside of school are easily accessible using a G4 Mac running Tiger or Leopard. A lot of them probably last saw a UI update around the time G4s were current too! Maybe that's a good metric to measure site value on - if it's not easily usable on a G4, it might not be worth using!

 

[repairedCheese]

The only social media I have is instagram, which I never bother posting on, mostly just to chat with friends and see what they're up to. I've tried to quit using reddit as much as possible as it seems like the site gets more toxic every time I visit. It helps that many of my interests (namely vintage cars, computers, and old electronics like radios/turntables), have long-established forums with longtime users that won't move anywhere else because of the community. Those people are also more likely to be experts that have done something many times over the years.

Come to think of it, pretty much all the sites I use outside of school are easily accessible using a G4 Mac running Tiger or Leopard. A lot of them probably last saw a UI update around the time G4s were current too! Maybe that's a good metric to measure site value on - if it's not easily usable on a G4, it might not be worth using!

As others have said, as long as you have reasonable expectations and optimize your web browsing, you can still have quite a good experience taking these old machines online. Sadly, the web has become a bloated mess, and that's not just a problem for these computers. I've seen Twitter take up a gigabyte of ram. Not the web browser, Twitter, the site. There's something horribly wrong with that.

 

[AL1630]

As others have said, as long as you have reasonable expectations and optimize your web browsing, you can still have quite a good experience taking these old machines online. Sadly, the web has become a bloated mess, and that's not just a problem for these computers. I've seen Twitter take up a gigabyte of ram. Not the web browser, Twitter, the site. There's something horribly wrong with that.

I agree. I use TFF with tweaks and it's great. The problem is UIs have gotten way heavier, and all the backend stuff has as well. (And of course a lot of the bloat is just to help track you around). I've heard people say 8GB of RAM is the bare minimum for even a web browsing computer today, when it was 4 just a couple years ago.

Here's what twitter looked like in 2011:

I sometimes wish we could go back to the skeumorphic era.

 

[retta283]

I agree. I use TFF with tweaks and it's great. The problem is UIs have gotten way heavier, and all the backend stuff has as well. (And of course a lot of the bloat is just to help track you around). I've heard people say 8GB of RAM is the bare minimum for even a web browsing computer today, when it was 4 just a couple years ago.

Here's what twitter looked like in 2011:

I sometimes wish we could go back to the skeumorphic era.

As someone who does not use social media/news sites, 6GB RAM is a realistically comfortable amount for web browsing, with plenty of headroom to have other apps open too. If I do any processing (photo/video work) at the same time it does start to drag but 6GB is fine to me. I have 8GB in my 2010 iMac and on Sierra it's great. RAM is not a bottleneck at all. I could put this thing up to 16GB, but it seems completely pointless to me.

 

[bobesch]

Another way social media is bad

Social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc., has been in the news this week for obvious reasons due to the political unrest in the United Stat...

tenfourfox.blogspot.com

So, having just read the latest TenFourFox blog post, it really made me think. For me, this is pure retro computing, a thing I don't actually need, but something I love to do because of the challenge of it all. But for some, they still want these old systems to interact with the internet like it's the year 2000. Which, is hard as the demands of getting onto the internet have grown so much in that time.

But it's worse than that. The first 1Ghz PowerPC Mac was introduced in 2002, and the Intel transition was announced in 2005. What's worse is that 1Ghz + systems didn't become standard until mid 2003. The Powerbook line saw this happen slightly slower, but at the end of the day, Apple had clearly made PPC Macs mostly into second class citizens by 2007. But why shouldn't they have? They had a new target.

Having finally gotten to test out my G4 MDD in Linux, I now know just the kind of power I've been missing out on. This system has frankly been hampered with Mac OS 10.5, particularly. I rarely used it as it was such a pain, but app support split between 10.5 and 10.4 so what was I to do? Of course, Linux isn't a fix, as particularly, 32-bit PPC Ubuntu support is going away in April. Even if it wasn't, it'd become a 2nd class citizen some years ago. Sure, there are other options, and I could just leave it as it is, but that's not the point. The point is that the largest supporter of these systems gave up some time ago. Heck, I've even seen an article about intentions to possibly remove PowerPC code from the Linux kernel.

In keeping these and older systems running, and especially interacting with the modern internet, we are fighting the tide. Unlike older 90's and 80's systems, the G3, G4, and G5 systems all came with the promise of internet access. That, I believe, is where the struggle really is. Most older computers can be used the way they had been 30 years ago, with no trouble, because nothing involving using them has changed. That's not the case with the internet. It very much has changed.

And yet, I don't think it's bad to fight the tide. In doing so, it's helping to keep the original purpose of quite a few of these machines alive. Was not the clamshell iBook claim to fame its wifi? Sure, that was on an 800x600 screen, but that didn't matter, they were cool in a world of black Dells Latitudes and IBM Thinkpads. By struggling to keep these old computers doing the things they were made to, even if we have to resort to software never intended to do so, we're keeping this a living history. And as far as I'm concerned, a living history is the best kind of history there is.

Unfortunately once something is hooked up to the internet and depend on this connectivity it will inevitably perish sooner or later ...
This happend to Palm's webOS, WindowsMobile and the legacy (versions of) desktop operating systems ...
Either bloated websites or expired APIs/certificates combined with lack of further maintainance will make things come to an halt.
I think, the only way to keep us away from frustration is to let these legacy systems make use of further advanced devices, e.g. to use those advanced devices to connect to cloud-services, browse the web, gather/save/transfer information and run "heavy loads" like streaming video or OCR/conversion-stuff.
The great think of a legacy-environment is, that it just keeps on running regardless of the demands of regular payments, newer systems and software do ask for. You just have to care for keeping the tiny window open, that connects the old stuff to newer devices (which can do great stuff in this moment, but may be doomed tomorrow ...)

 

[repairedCheese]

Unfortunately once something is hooked up to the internet and depend on this connectivity it will inevitably perish sooner or later ...
This happend to Palm's webOS, WindowsMobile and the legacy (versions of) desktop operating systems ...
Either bloated websites or expired APIs/certificates combined with lack of further maintainance will make things come to an halt.
I think, the only way to keep us away from frustration is to let these legacy systems make use of further advanced devices, e.g. to use those advanced devices to connect to cloud-services, browse the web, gather/save/transfer information and run "heavy loads" like streaming video or OCR/conversion-stuff.
The great think of a legacy-environment is, that it just keeps on running regardless of the demands of regular payments, newer systems and software do ask for. You just have to care for keeping the tiny window open, that connects the old stuff to newer devices (which can do great stuff in this moment, but may be doomed tomorrow ...)

Oh, I don't think you're wrong. That's why this is effectively a sisyphean task. No matter how long we get this old hardware on the internet more or less perfectly, eventually it'll be kicked off in one way or another. It's really just a matter of time. We're probably lucky the Mac OS wasn't more web focused, because as you said, it could have been much worse.

And yet, I do think it's worth trying. Getting on the internet was part of their purpose, and even if it's much more difficult now, achieving that helps these machines do what they were made to do, what they were promised to be able to do.

That's why I think some people get upset if they can't manage to get their old systems online. It's not like a computer 20 years older, and not really like one just 10 years older, those can do basically everything they were made to do now, decades on, because those tasks haven't changed. A lot of tasks we use our computers for simply have not changed, but this is one where change is baked in. That's what makes it such a challenge.

 

[bobesch]

Oh, I don't think you're wrong. That's why this is effectively a sisyphean task. No matter how long we get this old hardware on the internet more or less perfectly, eventually it'll be kicked off in one way or another. It's really just a matter of time. We're probably lucky the Mac OS wasn't more web focused, because as you said, it could have been much worse.

And yet, I do think it's worth trying. Getting on the internet was part of their purpose, and even if it's much more difficult now, achieving that helps these machines do what they were made to do, what they were promised to be able to do.

That's why I think some people get upset if they can't manage to get their old systems online. It's not like a computer 20 years older, and not really like one just 10 years older, those can do basically everything they were made to do now, decades on, because those tasks haven't changed. A lot of tasks we use our computers for simply have not changed, but this is one where change is baked in. That's what makes it such a challenge.

I'm with you!
In the first place basic stuff, like IMAP, FTP, webDAV, SMB/AFP-filesharing etc. should be preserved.
Then connectivity by up-to-date certificates.
If web should become too much bloated and overwhelming, then any proxies to render down bloated traffic could be of help.

But beyond that efforts: PPC and other legacy stuff will finally become "the island of the blissful". That's a feature, not a bug. Having your personal stuff kept privat and tucked off-line in a save place. I still have a few TRGpro and other Palm-handhelds for a disconnected life ...
And yet in the other pocket a new smartphone that can cope with current demands.

 

[m1maverick]

I'm with you!
In the first place basic stuff, like IMAP, FTP, webDAV, SMB/AFP-filesharing etc. should be preserved.
Then connectivity by up-to-date certificates.
If web should become too much bloated and overwhelming, then any proxies to render down bloated traffic could be of help.

But beyond that efforts: PPC and other legacy stuff will finally become "the island of the blissful". That's a feature, not a bug. Having your personal stuff kept privat and tucked off-line in a save place. I still have a few TRGpro and other Palm-handhelds for a disconnected life ...
And yet in the other pocket a new smartphone that can cope with current demands.

I fail to see the logic in attempting to get old computers to do things they were not or are no longer suited to do. Web browsing is one such thing. There are all kinds of more capable systems which are no or very low cost which can better serve those needs. I realize this is a forum for older technology but at some point one has to accept the effort to get old systems to work for a certain task is not worth the effort (outside of hobbyist use).

I have a lot of older systems but I accept that getting them to work on the modern web is, for me, more trouble than it's worth. I suspect that wold be the case for most people. Old computers are a joy to use but we should accept it may not make sense to use them for some tasks. Unfortunately web browsing is one of them.

 

[eyoungren]

I fail to see the logic in attempting to get old computers to do things they were not or are no longer suited to do. Web browsing is one such thing. There are all kinds of more capable systems which are no or very low cost which can better serve those needs. I realize this is a forum for older technology but at some point one has to accept the effort to get old systems to work for a certain task is not worth the effort (outside of hobbyist use).

I have a lot of older systems but I accept that getting them to work on the modern web is, for me, more trouble than it's worth. I suspect that wold be the case for most people. Old computers are a joy to use but we should accept it may not make sense to use them for some tasks. Unfortunately web browsing is one of them.

I disagree.

Before my purchase of a MacPro in May 2003 I was using my Quad G5 as my daily driver. That included web browsing using T4Fx with my own modifications. It could tell no difference in response time compared to my 2008 MBP.

Granted, my Quad G5 has 16GB ram. I've given up using the net on my 17" PowerBook.

But the only real reason I upgraded to the MBP is because Leopard 10.5.8 cannot run QuarkXPress 2020 or Adobe CC 2020.

Lastly, the point of getting old computers to do things they were not suited to do is the challenge. If we didn't take up that challenge then the foxPEP project and my own tweaks to T4Fx would not currently exist. If we didn't take up that challenge, you wouldn't be able to watch YT video on a G3 as @Dronecatcher has made possible. We never would have had an additional four years of Dropbox PowerPC support if @Czo had never taken up the challenge. We have a user here who got Java 1.6 and 1.7 installed and working on PowerPC. Because of the challenge.

Granted, there are some challenges that just are not worth the effort or are just not possible, but part of using these old Macs is that challenge. Eventually the net will get to the point where nothing we do will make even the most powerful PowerPC Macs functional on it - but while we are close, that isn't just yet.

 

[retta283]

I fail to see the logic in attempting to get old computers to do things they were not or are no longer suited to do. Web browsing is one such thing. There are all kinds of more capable systems which are no or very low cost which can better serve those needs. I realize this is a forum for older technology but at some point one has to accept the effort to get old systems to work for a certain task is not worth the effort (outside of hobbyist use).

I have a lot of older systems but I accept that getting them to work on the modern web is, for me, more trouble than it's worth. I suspect that wold be the case for most people. Old computers are a joy to use but we should accept it may not make sense to use them for some tasks. Unfortunately web browsing is one of them.

It's a hobbyist pursuit. I think it's realizable from a mile away that there are much better alternatives for cheap, even ones that will work well 5-10 years from now, but we do it out of an enjoyment and passion for the hardware and software we are running on, and certainly the challenge is a large factor of that. The idea of PPCs being a budget Mac for basic uses is/has faded away. It's not the same as it was 5 years ago.

 

[m1maverick]

I disagree.

Before my purchase of a MacPro in May 2003 I was using my Quad G5 as my daily driver. That included web browsing using T4Fx with my own modifications. It could tell no difference in response time compared to my 2008 MBP.

Granted, my Quad G5 has 16GB ram. I've given up using the net on my 17" PowerBook.

But the only real reason I upgraded to the MBP is because Leopard 10.5.8 cannot run QuarkXPress 2020 or Adobe CC 2020.

Lastly, the point of getting old computers to do things they were not suited to do is the challenge. If we didn't take up that challenge then the foxPEP project and my own tweaks to T4Fx would not currently exist. If we didn't take up that challenge, you wouldn't be able to watch YT video on a G3 as @Dronecatcher has made possible. We never would have had an additional four years of Dropbox PowerPC support if @Czo had never taken up the challenge. We have a user here who got Java 1.6 and 1.7 installed and working on PowerPC. Because of the challenge.

Granted, there are some challenges that just are not worth the effort or are just not possible, but part of using these old Macs is that challenge. Eventually the net will get to the point where nothing we do will make even the most powerful PowerPC Macs functional on it - but while we are close, that isn't just yet.

You're free to disagree but your use of a Mac Pro as a DD reinforces my point.

 

[m1maverick]

It's a hobbyist pursuit. I think it's realizable from a mile away that there are much better alternatives for cheap, even ones that will work well 5-10 years from now, but we do it out of an enjoyment and passion for the hardware and software we are running on, and certainly the challenge is a large factor of that. The idea of PPCs being a budget Mac for basic uses is/has faded away. It's not the same as it was 5 years ago.

I agree and said as much in my post.

 

[bobesch]

I fail to see the logic in attempting to get old computers to do things they were not or are no longer suited to do. Web browsing is one such thing. There are all kinds of more capable systems which are no or very low cost which can better serve those needs. I realize this is a forum for older technology but at some point one has to accept the effort to get old systems to work for a certain task is not worth the effort (outside of hobbyist use).

I have a lot of older systems but I accept that getting them to work on the modern web is, for me, more trouble than it's worth. I suspect that wold be the case for most people. Old computers are a joy to use but we should accept it may not make sense to use them for some tasks. Unfortunately web browsing is one of them.

Yep, that's what I've meant, more or less ...
There are still web-sites, that are essential to visit (like Macintoshgarden etc.) and there could be much more sites, that are primarily related to information than to tons of click-baits and ads.
IMHO keeping IMAP-email and certificates/API alive on legacy hardware is basic. As well as (S)FTP / FileSharing.
And I agree that using new devices is much more convenient for e.g. modern web-browsing and streaming but should be kept working as the tool to connect with legacy hardware.

It's not a hobbyist pursuit to work on Office-documents, PDFs etc and maintain paperless office (with scanner and e.g. DEVONthink) and send/receive emails and fax. It's mostly the same as on modern machines, but keeping the old stuff connected is essential to these tasks.
But, as @retta283 said, "the time of PPC as budged Macs fade(d) away ... " It's a constant flow towards the next-best Mac.

 

[repairedCheese]

I fail to see the logic in attempting to get old computers to do things they were not or are no longer suited to do. Web browsing is one such thing. There are all kinds of more capable systems which are no or very low cost which can better serve those needs. I realize this is a forum for older technology but at some point one has to accept the effort to get old systems to work for a certain task is not worth the effort (outside of hobbyist use).

I have a lot of older systems but I accept that getting them to work on the modern web is, for me, more trouble than it's worth. I suspect that wold be the case for most people. Old computers are a joy to use but we should accept it may not make sense to use them for some tasks. Unfortunately web browsing is one of them.

Sometimes you climb the mountain because it's there. The thing of it is, we don't really know how tall this particular mountain is until we try. And yeah, the line where this becomes not worth doing regularly is slowly moving, but as long as we have people who are able to provide compliant enough web browsers, others are going to keep on trying them out and deciding where that line is for themselves.

And for me, 1+ GHz and especially multi cpu Power Macs are still powerful enough that getting them online is worth it for more casual use. That goes double for Linux. If anything, having these old Macs is going to give me a reason to learn a lot more about Linux, because when it just works, why are you going to learn?

Yes, for me this is a hobby, but making hardware do what it wasn't made for is all part of the fun.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060219183346/https://appletalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/

That's why this is still legendary to me. Emulating a PowerPc Mac on a 68k Mac? Love that.

 

[mectojic]

Thanks for this excellent topic and the following discussion.

I love that there's always a tension here between the authenticity of using an old PPC the way it was meant to, and trying to make it perform modern tasks. Most of this tension comes from the evolution of the internet, naturally, as we already all know that 90% of modern software left us behind long ago, leaving the internet as the only place where we can maintain some modern functionality.

However, that flicker of hope and joy is that we really do use the internet so much these days, that trying to access the internet with our old internet-capable PPC macs is a true joy and thrill. I love the look of those macs, and I love the history in them.

If we all just loved the look of those old G3/G4/G5s, we would just build hackintoshes within the cases and scrap the hardware. But we don't. We genuinely enjoy having a Mac which contains all the original features, though perhaps augmented with the typical memory and (inauthentic but acceptible) SSD upgrades.

Sometimes what I love about using my PPC macs is what I can't do on them. It really makes me think, and it's great... do I really need to check Facebook? Do I need Instagram? Discord? Do I need a Youtube video to load in 1080p within 2 seconds? When I sit at my G4, I realise, no.

Without such modern features, you do feel like you're in a simpler, possibly happier time. I agree with @AL1630 , modern social media doesn't bring much to the table that I find very admirable. Mild spoiler: I was born in the late 90s, so I may be rather young here – certainly too young to have used PPCs seriously in their golden age – but I nonetheless still prefer early OSX compared to the crap of today.

As a final note, thanks to everyone at Macrumors who contributes. You have a very pleasant (but opinionated!) community. These discussions are what keep bringing me back.

 

[repairedCheese]

Thanks for this excellent topic and the following discussion.

I love that there's always a tension here between the authenticity of using an old PPC the way it was meant to, and trying to make it perform modern tasks. Most of this tension comes from the evolution of the internet, naturally, as we already all know that 90% of modern software left us behind long ago, leaving the internet as the only place where we can maintain some modern functionality.

However, that flicker of hope and joy is that we really do use the internet so much these days, that trying to access the internet with our old internet-capable PPC macs is a true joy and thrill. I love the look of those macs, and I love the history in them.

If we all just loved the look of those old G3/G4/G5s, we would just build hackintoshes within the cases and scrap the hardware. But we don't. We genuinely enjoy having a Mac which contains all the original features, though perhaps augmented with the typical memory and (inauthentic but acceptible) SSD upgrades.

Sometimes what I love about using my PPC macs is what I can't do on them. It really makes me think, and it's great... do I really need to check Facebook? Do I need Instagram? Discord? Do I need a Youtube video to load in 1080p within 2 seconds? When I sit at my G4, I realise, no.

Without such modern features, you do feel like you're in a simpler, possibly happier time. I agree with @AL1630 , modern social media doesn't bring much to the table that I find very admirable. Mild spoiler: I was born in the late 90s, so I may be rather young here – certainly too young to have used PPCs seriously in their golden age – but I nonetheless still prefer early OSX compared to the crap of today.

As a final note, thanks to everyone at Macrumors who contributes. You have a very pleasant (but opinionated!) community. These discussions are what keep bringing me back.

I think it's important to remember that the G3 era was effectively when Apple finally started to make Macs all intended to run internet connected apps, and it's also important to remember that the internet has grown impossibly more demanding since then. Even the space of time between the early G3 systems and late G5 ones is a wide power gap. But for the longest time, the web seemed like a fairly constant thing.

And then it wasn't. The "SSL apocalypse" really only showed how much change there had already been, but I do feel like there's been some acceleration since then.

 

[Project Alice]

This is a great topic.

I find that most my G4s and G5s can use the majority of what I do online. I stopped using FaceBook last summer, and I haven't looked back. I still have an Instagram, but I don't really post on it much. Aside from being bought out by FB a few years ago it still seems to work okay for its original purpose. I also use snapchat but only because every single one of my friends use it so I didn't really have a choice. I've never had a twitter, I still don't understand how to use it if I did. Seems like its main purpose is an outlet for famous people to make me wish I was a member of a different species.

YouTube is a pain but I've only really started using it since I stopped using Facebook, and most the stuff I watch is podcast stuff or vintage mac stuff and I mainly use it on my phone or Apple TV. And all of us here know it works fine with the many alternative ways to use it on a PPC Mac.

I see quite a few replies on this thread talking about school\college. It seems the general consensus is that you can't use these computers well for that. Why? Is it the website and online portal's your school uses for turning in assignments and stuff? I have noticed that (not unlike facebook) those web sites are poorly developed and don't work well on modern systems either. That said, there is no reason that web research, note taking, paper\report writing isn't feasible on basically any computer. When I was in high school, my main portable was an iBook G4 till I got a 2007 C2D MBP in 2013. (I graduated HS in 2013). There was no reason my iBook G4 didn't work. At one point I also got a dual 800Mhz QS and used that at home during the same time period.
For anything that needs to be turned in through a poorly built web portal, you can stick it on a flash drive real quick and upload it using a modern computer.

In 2018, I went to Police academy. We were allowed (recommended actually) to bring a laptop. I brought a 15" PowerBook G4 (Aluminum 1.5Ghz). It worked perfectly. I could take notes, and even access their webportal via Wifi. Not to mention the it has the best keyboard I've ever used. I even had a classmate comment that it was "faster then their computer", to which I laughed and said something was probably wrong with his.
My point is that these are very basic uses for any computer and I'm surprised people are having problems using them for school, unless they need a modern machine, either for real power or specialized apps. I'd imagine that applies to photographers, video editors, developers, ect.

 

[Amethyst1]

I'd imagine that applies to photographers, video editors, developers, ect.

... and engineers. When a friend of mine enrolled in engineering school back in 2007 or so, he was told to get the beefiest laptop he can find. He got a Dell XPS M2010 LOL.

 

[Project Alice]

... and engineers. When a friend of mine enrolled in engineering school back in 2007 or so, he was told to get the beefiest laptop he can find. He got a Dell XPS M2010 LOL.

That was marketed as a laptop? Lol. It looks like an AIO that folds down. I guess it was definitely the beefiest "laptop" at the time.

 

[repairedCheese]

This is a great topic.

I find that most my G4s and G5s can use the majority of what I do online. I stopped using FaceBook last summer, and I haven't looked back. I still have an Instagram, but I don't really post on it much. Aside from being bought out by FB a few years ago it still seems to work okay for its original purpose. I also use snapchat but only because every single one of my friends use it so I didn't really have a choice. I've never had a twitter, I still don't understand how to use it if I did. Seems like its main purpose is an outlet for famous people to make me wish I was a member of a different species.

YouTube is a pain but I've only really started using it since I stopped using Facebook, and most the stuff I watch is podcast stuff or vintage mac stuff and I mainly use it on my phone or Apple TV. And all of us here know it works fine with the many alternative ways to use it on a PPC Mac.

I see quite a few replies on this thread talking about school\college. It seems the general consensus is that you can't use these computers well for that. Why? Is it the website and online portal's your school uses for turning in assignments and stuff? I have noticed that (not unlike facebook) those web sites are poorly developed and don't work well on modern systems either. That said, there is no reason that web research, note taking, paper\report writing isn't feasible on basically any computer. When I was in high school, my main portable was an iBook G4 till I got a 2007 C2D MBP in 2013. (I graduated HS in 2013). There was no reason my iBook G4 didn't work. At one point I also got a dual 800Mhz QS and used that at home during the same time period.
For anything that needs to be turned in through a poorly built web portal, you can stick it on a flash drive real quick and upload it using a modern computer.

In 2018, I went to Police academy. We were allowed (recommended actually) to bring a laptop. I brought a 15" PowerBook G4 (Aluminum 1.5Ghz). It worked perfectly. I could take notes, and even access their webportal via Wifi. Not to mention the it has the best keyboard I've ever used. I even had a classmate comment that it was "faster then their computer", to which I laughed and said something was probably wrong with his.
My point is that these are very basic uses for any computer and I'm surprised people are having problems using them for school, unless they need a modern machine, either for real power or specialized apps. I'd imagine that applies to photographers, video editors, developers, ect.

I'm glad you've been having a good experience doing modern things with the effectively retro computers. Of course, the iBook G4 wasn't retro when you were using it, not as we entered a new age of computers, one where a computer was no longer ancient garbage 5+ years after it came out. That does seem to be the other thing to come out of the internet age, that computers have needed to change less to keep up.

It is fairly impressive that your PowerBook was able to keep up in 2018, but considering it could easily have been up against some of the lowest end x86 systems, and ones that could also be several years old themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if it did could run circles around some of them.

Really, I would suspect it's still a decent performer, even if it would need linux to go to certain sites.

 

[repairedCheese]

... and engineers. When a friend of mine enrolled in engineering school back in 2007 or so, he was told to get the beefiest laptop he can find. He got a Dell XPS M2010 LOL.

I had to look that thing up, and in what world is that a laptop?

 

[Amethyst1]

I had to look that thing up, and in what world is that a laptop?

Not in mine It's still more portable than e. g. the Macintosh Portable tho.

 

[m1maverick]

Sometimes you climb the mountain because it's there. The thing of it is, we don't really know how tall this particular mountain is until we try. And yeah, the line where this becomes not worth doing regularly is slowly moving, but as long as we have people who are able to provide compliant enough web browsers, others are going to keep on trying them out and deciding where that line is for themselves.

And for me, 1+ GHz and especially multi cpu Power Macs are still powerful enough that getting them online is worth it for more casual use. That goes double for Linux. If anything, having these old Macs is going to give me a reason to learn a lot more about Linux, because when it just works, why are you going to learn?

Yes, for me this is a hobby, but making hardware do what it wasn't made for is all part of the fun.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060219183346/https://appletalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/

That's why this is still legendary to me. Emulating a PowerPc Mac on a 68k Mac? Love that.

Which falls under my hobbyist use qualifier.

 

[m1maverick]

This is a great topic.

I find that most my G4s and G5s can use the majority of what I do online. I stopped using FaceBook last summer, and I haven't looked back. I still have an Instagram, but I don't really post on it much. Aside from being bought out by FB a few years ago it still seems to work okay for its original purpose. I also use snapchat but only because every single one of my friends use it so I didn't really have a choice. I've never had a twitter, I still don't understand how to use it if I did. Seems like its main purpose is an outlet for famous people to make me wish I was a member of a different species.

YouTube is a pain but I've only really started using it since I stopped using Facebook, and most the stuff I watch is podcast stuff or vintage mac stuff and I mainly use it on my phone or Apple TV. And all of us here know it works fine with the many alternative ways to use it on a PPC Mac.

I see quite a few replies on this thread talking about school\college. It seems the general consensus is that you can't use these computers well for that. Why? Is it the website and online portal's your school uses for turning in assignments and stuff? I have noticed that (not unlike facebook) those web sites are poorly developed and don't work well on modern systems either. That said, there is no reason that web research, note taking, paper\report writing isn't feasible on basically any computer. When I was in high school, my main portable was an iBook G4 till I got a 2007 C2D MBP in 2013. (I graduated HS in 2013). There was no reason my iBook G4 didn't work. At one point I also got a dual 800Mhz QS and used that at home during the same time period.
For anything that needs to be turned in through a poorly built web portal, you can stick it on a flash drive real quick and upload it using a modern computer.

In 2018, I went to Police academy. We were allowed (recommended actually) to bring a laptop. I brought a 15" PowerBook G4 (Aluminum 1.5Ghz). It worked perfectly. I could take notes, and even access their webportal via Wifi. Not to mention the it has the best keyboard I've ever used. I even had a classmate comment that it was "faster then their computer", to which I laughed and said something was probably wrong with his.
My point is that these are very basic uses for any computer and I'm surprised people are having problems using them for school, unless they need a modern machine, either for real power or specialized apps. I'd imagine that applies to photographers, video editors, developers, ect.

It's my opinion these systems are quite capable for many tasks which do not rely on web based services. I can still write documents, work on spreadsheets, view / edit photos, edit certain types of video content, chat, etc.

They're quite capable systems with the largest weakness being the web. I would never have thought the web would be one of the most demanding things these systems would ever need to do. The only other negative is the lack of application support for older operating systems. For example tax software no longer supports Leopard and since it needs to be updated annually a program these systems can easily run cannot be used.

 

[MysticCow]

Oh, I don't think you're wrong. That's why this is effectively a sisyphean task. No matter how long we get this old hardware on the internet more or less perfectly, eventually it'll be kicked off in one way or another. It's really just a matter of time. We're probably lucky the Mac OS wasn't more web focused, because as you said, it could have been much worse.

And yet, I do think it's worth trying. Getting on the internet was part of their purpose, and even if it's much more difficult now, achieving that helps these machines do what they were made to do, what they were promised to be able to do.

That's why I think some people get upset if they can't manage to get their old systems online. It's not like a computer 20 years older, and not really like one just 10 years older, those can do basically everything they were made to do now, decades on, because those tasks haven't changed. A lot of tasks we use our computers for simply have not changed, but this is one where change is baked in. That's what makes it such a challenge.

Then, just out of curiosity, is there a browser than can perform better than TFF for internet usage AND can be installed on a G3 running 10.4? Or a G4/G5 running 10.4 or 10.5? This can include anything that would need installed from a command line.

We're just at that point, so anything could be a help to get even the tiniest bit of a better experience.