Second Annual Winter PowerPC Challenge! January 1-8, 2018

[Lastic]

Ok, reason I mentioned it is my Addonics adapter shipped with a jumper connected to the pins and failed to work on the Newertech universal adapter in various jumper positions until I removed the jumper completely. I installed it in my PB17” with no jumper (master).

This seems odd, does the iBook’s IDE plug connect to the jumper pins too? It shouldn’t.

Since I was doubting now, I disassembled the iBook again , becoming quite the expert in this, takes me only 30 minutes now





But this time I thought let's connect everything without closing the case again and first give it a boot to see if it works and tadaah , no folder found icon but it does recognise the Lindy -> mSATA SSD all of the sudden ,maybe a bad connection ?

Closed up the iBook again and I'm currently cloning Leopard to it, only noticed that my sound doesn't work so will have to disassemble it again to check the sound cable , oh well, 4th time is a charm , I guess.

SSD benchmarks coming up, and iBook is ready for the Challenge as my 3rd participating device.

 

[AphoticD]

Since I was doubting now, I disassembled the iBook again , becoming quite the expert in this, takes me only 30 minutes now

View attachment 738407

View attachment 738408

But this time I thought let's connect everything without closing the case again and first give it a boot to see if it works and tadaah , no folder found icon but it does recognise the Lindy -> mSATA SSD all of the sudden ,maybe a bad connection ?

Closed up the iBook again and I'm currently cloning Leopard to it, only noticed that my sound doesn't work so will have to disassemble it again to check the sound cable , oh well, 4th time is a charm , I guess.

SSD benchmarks coming up, and iBook is ready for the Challenge as my 3rd participating device.

Perseverance is key! That IDE connection does appear to make use of the jumper pins. I haven’t seen that in any of my ‘books.

Well at least you’re on now. Go again for the audio, but before you do, give it a quick PRAM reset in case the volume is just muted!

 

[Lastic]

Perseverance is key! That IDE connection does appear to make use of the jumper pins. I haven’t seen that in any of my ‘books.

Well at least you’re on now. Go again for the audio, but before you do, give it a quick PRAM reset in case the volume is just muted!

Plugging in the headphones and unplugging them did the trick apparently so still have to wait for the Leopard Cloning to finish but no more disassembly needed for today .

 

[iTurbo]

I'd love it if this challenge resulted in a YouTube video or two.

I'm hardly a power user, but I think I'll be just fine with the 6500 for challenge week. I just wish there was a web browser that could function in MacOS 8.6. It's my MIDI/audio machine so I guess it's not a big deal anyway.

 

[AphoticD]

I'd love it if this challenge resulted in a YouTube video or two.

I'm hardly a power user, but I think I'll be just fine with the 6500 for challenge week. I just wish there was a web browser that could function in MacOS 8.6. It's my MIDI/audio machine so I guess it's not a big deal anyway.

The latest Classilla 9.3.3 runs perfectly in Mac OS 8.6.

 

[Gamer9430]

Hello everyone, just a reminder that we are less than a month away from the challenge, so make sure your PowerPC's are stocked and loaded, and any new or spare parts are being ordered! Dust off those PowerBooks, stop using your PowerMac G5 as a cheese grater, wipe off your iMacs, polish those eMacs, remove the pile of papers from the top of your G4 Cube, stop using your Mac mini as a drink coaster (what else could it possibly be good for), and lastly, make sure your iPod's are loaded with your favorite 1000 songs to go in your pocket

 

[macgeek18]

I may join this year since I now have a G5. I work in IT though so I will be using a modern Intel box all day at work. But at home I have been using a 2009 Mac Mini 90% of the time so the G5 shouldn't be that much slower right?

 

[skinniezinho]

Well, after some years without mac, and more specifically without a powerpc, a deal about a mint Powerbook G4 12 1.5GHz Appeared (boxed, all cds, paperwork, two chargers, two batteries (don't know the state)).
I will receive it in the Christmas week so I will see if it is all ok and try to prepare it for this challenge.
I don't have an older iphone, but I may try to live with my trusty Nokia 6510.
At work I am using my X230 but I will try to get a vga adapter for the powerbook.
Does dropbox still work on powerpc? and spotify? I know there are some older versions laying around but are they still usable? Otherwise, it's time to fill up my ipod shuffle.
I guess the only issue I may have is connecting my Suunto Ambit 2, but I guess I can hold it a week, or use another pc for that.

 

[0248294]

Does dropbox still work on powerpc? and spotify? I know there are some older versions laying around but are they still usable?

There's a thread on Dropbox, it's stickied in the PowerPC Macs forum. I think currently Dropbox is temporarily not working as a new patch is still in the works. As for Spotify, the last version for PowerPC came out in 2011. After 6 years, it still searches and plays songs and playlists just fine, but don't expect any modern features.

 

[bobesch]

Well, after some years without mac, and more specifically without a powerpc, a deal about a mint Powerbook G4 12 1.5GHz Appeared (boxed, all cds, paperwork, two chargers, two batteries (don't know the state)).
I will receive it in the Christmas week so I will see if it is all ok and try to prepare it for this challenge.
I don't have an older iphone, but I may try to live with my trusty Nokia 6510.
At work I am using my X230 but I will try to get a vga adapter for the powerbook.
Does dropbox still work on powerpc? and spotify? I know there are some older versions laying around but are they still usable? Otherwise, it's time to fill up my ipod shuffle.
I guess the only issue I may have is connecting my Suunto Ambit 2, but I guess I can hold it a week, or use another pc for that.

Oh very nice, very good prospects to get that 12" PowerBook!
And you've got all options to stay connected with it and all of your other gadgets...
Get "iFiles2" for your current iPhone SE, and it will become the hub to exchange files between every cloud-source and your PowerBook.
Get VirtualPC7 and Win2k or WindowsXPFundamentals, if your Suunto Ambit 2 can be synced with pre Win7 OS.
The "Line-in"-App will stream your iPhones music through Klinke-audio-in to the PowerBook (I promise: no improvement over the iPhone-Speaker...)
There's a whole lot of fun waiting for you to kiss your PowerBook awake:
Leopard: TenFourFox, TenFourFoxBox, WebKitForLeopard, CorePlayer, Office '04/'08; Skim, Paintbrush, Cyberduck, Chicken, Airfoil, iMovie'06, VirtualPC7, DEVONthink, Moom, ScreenSharingMenulet, etc.)
Classic/Tiger: look at Macintoshgarden.net
Have fun!!!

 

[skinniezinho]

There's a thread on Dropbox, it's stickied in the PowerPC Macs forum. I think currently Dropbox is temporarily not working as a new patch is still in the works. As for Spotify, the last version for PowerPC came out in 2011. After 6 years, it still searches and plays songs and playlists just fine, but don't expect any modern features.

I seen the title but it only said Leopard and SL. I was planning on Tiger.

Oh very nice, very good prospects to get that 12" PowerBook!
And you've got all options to stay connected with it and all of your other gadgets...
Get "iFiles2" for your current iPhone SE, and it will become the hub to exchange files between every cloud-source and your PowerBook.
Get VirtualPC7 and Win2k or WindowsXPFundamentals, if your Suunto Ambit 2 can be synced with pre Win7 OS.
The "Line-in"-App will stream your iPhones music through Klinke-audio-in to the PowerBook (I promise: no improvement over the iPhone-Speaker...)
There's a whole lot of fun waiting for you to kiss your PowerBook awake:
Leopard: TenFourFox, TenFourFoxBox, WebKitForLeopard, CorePlayer, Office '04/'08; Skim, Paintbrush, Cyberduck, Chicken, Airfoil, iMovie'06, VirtualPC7, DEVONthink, Moom, ScreenSharingMenulet, etc.)
Classic/Tiger: look at Macintoshgarden.net
Have fun!!!

Thanks for all the inputs. I have almost all that software saved of my previous Powerpc experience, and even some licences (office, coreplayer (I know it is not working, but I know it has been "patched") . And I have been downloading some new versions of that software.
I had a license for VPC7, and I guess the suunto can be connected through Windows XP, but I didn't knew about Windows XP fundamentals. I remember of trying VPC7 with XP (maybe some lite version!) in some G4 I had and it was dog slow.Let's see how it goes!

 

[Lastic]

iBook G4 14" on it's way, Renkforce mSATA IDE adapter ready to be installed, Hynix mSATA SSD also on it's way.

In the previous challenge I mostly used the previous G5 and PB 12" G4 1.5 Ghz , this year it's iBook(s) time.

Which reminds me need to find a way to get from mini-VGA to VGA , VGA to DVI so I can use my Cinema Display with the iBook(s) , time to start looking into all converters I have laying around.

Almost must start to plot out some new challenges for myself :

• G5 install another OS , OpenSUSE ,Fedora Server ?
• been compiling/tweaking/installing a lot of pentesting tools.
  Complete a write-up for these
  
• GNS3 get Cloud/NAT working so you can connect your lab to the internet or real networking equipment
• Cyberduck PPC ?
• Objective-C / Perl / Java / Python programming ?
• BitBar/ShellWrangler

 

[skinniezinho]

Well as other have said, this forum is really a bad influence.
I haven't even receive my Powerbook G4 12' and I already ordered/bought:
Lindy IDE to mSata Adapter+ Kingston SMS200 S3 60Gb Sata
1Gb PC2700 Ram
New battery from aliexpress (LMDTK, from what I've seen from the macbook batteries feedbakc they are ok)
Unfortunately I guess all parts won't be here for the challenge, but I will use it as it is!

 

[Lastic]

iBook G4 14" on it's way, Renkforce mSATA IDE adapter ready to be installed, Hynix mSATA SSD also on it's way.

In the previous challenge I mostly used the previous G5 and PB 12" G4 1.5 Ghz , this year it's iBook(s) time.

Which reminds me need to find a way to get from mini-VGA to VGA , VGA to DVI so I can use my Cinema Display with the iBook(s) , time to start looking into all converters I have laying around.

Almost must start to plot out some new challenges for myself :

• G5 install another OS , OpenSUSE ,Fedora Server ?
• G5 play Games, I've never used the G5 for Gaming only the G4's been reading a lot about Racing Games
  since my colleague started talking about Project Cars 2
• been compiling/tweaking/installing a lot of pentesting tools.
  Complete a write-up for these
  
• GNS3 get Cloud/NAT working so you can connect your lab to the internet or real networking equipment
• Already completed the above challenge so GNS3 VPCS
• Cyberduck PPC ?
• C/Objective-C / Perl / Java / Python programming ?
• BitBar/ShellWrangler

A totally different question, I think when I bought my first PPC in 2009 , the 12" 1Ghz iBook G4 , that I replaced the beaten keyboard with a transparent one but I think that this is a G3 keyboard which would explain why the spacebar is weird and the keyboard sits like too high.

Are all the iBook G4 12" 800 MHz-1.2 GHz the same ? Ribbon-wise ?
I also noticed that there are 2 different layouts , the one with the flat rectangular ENTER key and the one I prefer with a big ENTER key like this

Will both layouts work in a 12" or is this picture a mis-labelled 14" keyboard ?

 

[LightBulbFun]

A totally different question, I think when I bought my first PPC in 2009 , the 12" 1Ghz iBook G4 , that I replaced the beaten keyboard with a transparent one but I think that this is a G3 keyboard which would explain why the spacebar is weird and the keyboard sits like too high.

Are all the iBook G4 12" 800 MHz-1.2 GHz the same ? Ribbon-wise ?
I also noticed that there are 2 different layouts , the one with the flat rectangular ENTER key and the one I prefer with a big ENTER key like this

Will both layouts work in a 12" or is this picture a mis-labelled 14" keyboard ?

as I understand it, for a given respective size all keyboards between the G3 and G4 iBooks are compatible with each other, (not counting the clamshell) but you cant fit a 12 inch keyboard to a 14 inch iBook or vice-versa. (you can only mix and match within one size)

for example I have an 800Mhz iBook G3 with an iBook G4 keyboard working just fine.

another fun one is, PowerBook G3 Lombard Keyboards work in iBook G3 clamshells

 

[Lastic]

as I understand it, for a given respective size all keyboards between the G3 and G4 iBooks are compatible with each other, (not counting the clamshell) but you cant fit a 12 inch keyboard to a 14 inch iBook or vice-versa. (you can only mix and match within one size)

for example I have an 800Mhz iBook G3 with an iBook G4 keyboard working just fine.

another fun one is, PowerBook G3 Lombard Keyboards work in iBook G3 clamshells

Well the difference is the ribbon cables , the G3 clear 12" keyboard has a longer cable which folds up and is pushing against my spacebar on my iBook G4 12".

As regarding the layout with the big ENTER key, I found an UK Ebay seller who confirmed such a keyboard ( UK Layout) is also a 12" keyboard.

 

[Camacorn]

Count me in! @Camacorn

iMac G3 Blueberry - 350Mhz - 512MB RAM - 120GB HDD - OS 9.2.2 & OS X 10.4.11
Powermac G4 Cube - 450MHZ - 512MB RAM - 40GB HDD - OS X 10.4.11

 

[amagichnich]

Count me in! @Camacorn

iMac G3 Blueberry - 350Mhz - 512MB RAM - 120GB HDD - OS 9.2.2 & OS X 10.4.11
Powermac G4 Cube - 450MHZ - 512MB RAM - 40GB HDD - OS X 10.4.11

What a brave lad we are that's quite the line up you have there. Really the opposite end of ppcs compared to a G5 quad

 

[Anonymous Freak]

While I could do it from a personal side fairly easily (if I do, I'd even do an *EARLY* PowerPC, maybe even an 8100/80,) but literally zero way of doing it with work. *MUST* use my work-provided Windows laptop to do 99% of my job, period.

Have to VPN in, our VPN only supports Windows - the software itself has a macOS client, but our IT doesn't allow it to connect. Have to use a Windows-only VOIP phone app. (Have to be on the VPN to even connect that app to our server.) Have to use Microsoft Remote Desktop to connect to various Windows servers I deal with (obviously, have to be VPNed in.) We run (I support) a web app that ONLY works with IE11, and up-to-date Firefox and Chrome. Yeah, I can run FF and Chrome on modern macOS, but TenFourFox doesn't work. If I don't spoof the agent, the web app outright displays "browser not supported." Spoofing the agent it tries to load, but isn't usable at all. Our ticketing system is web-based, and a giant resource hog - it's dog slow even on my quad-core, 16 GB RAM work system, on any browser. We use Exchange, I haven't tested our web interface on TenFourFox yet; but it should run. So literally the only job duty I could do on a PPC is check my email. Phone duties couldn't be performed by an older iPhone - I have no cellular signal in my home office, so I need a new enough phone that has WiFi calling. (Oldest iPhone with it is iPhone 5c.)

Heck, I'm hourly, and I couldn't even clock in/out, because our web-based timekeeping system is stupid and requires both a modern web browser *AND* Flash.

If the contest had been *THIS* week, when I'm on vacation, I could have done it 100%.

 

[AphoticD]

While I could do it from a personal side fairly easily (if I do, I'd even do an *EARLY* PowerPC, maybe even an 8100/80,) but literally zero way of doing it with work. *MUST* use my work-provided Windows laptop to do 99% of my job, period.

Have to VPN in, our VPN only supports Windows - the software itself has a macOS client, but our IT doesn't allow it to connect. Have to use a Windows-only VOIP phone app. (Have to be on the VPN to even connect that app to our server.) Have to use Microsoft Remote Desktop to connect to various Windows servers I deal with (obviously, have to be VPNed in.) We run (I support) a web app that ONLY works with IE11, and up-to-date Firefox and Chrome. Yeah, I can run FF and Chrome on modern macOS, but TenFourFox doesn't work. If I don't spoof the agent, the web app outright displays "browser not supported." Spoofing the agent it tries to load, but isn't usable at all. Our ticketing system is web-based, and a giant resource hog - it's dog slow even on my quad-core, 16 GB RAM work system, on any browser. We use Exchange, I haven't tested our web interface on TenFourFox yet; but it should run. So literally the only job duty I could do on a PPC is check my email. Phone duties couldn't be performed by an older iPhone - I have no cellular signal in my home office, so I need a new enough phone that has WiFi calling. (Oldest iPhone with it is iPhone 5c.)

Heck, I'm hourly, and I couldn't even clock in/out, because our web-based timekeeping system is stupid and requires both a modern web browser *AND* Flash.

If the contest had been *THIS* week, when I'm on vacation, I could have done it 100%.

Some (not so) clever people designed your systems with zero consideration for optimization! There’s little reason why a web based ticketing system and clocking system couldn’t be coded to run on even the most basic of hardware that can run a JavaScript enabled browser. No need for Flash, multiple cores or 16GB of RAM!

 

[Camacorn]

So for giggles, I Googled local computer shops, not knowing that there were any around me ( I live in a rural area ), and I found one! I called and asked if they had any PC100 or PC133 RAM, the guy told me he had plenty, and was getting ready to throw it out, he said I could have it all! So I brought it home and sorted through it, and am now able to make my old PowerPC machines usable, instead of paging everything. I've now got close to over 100 sticks of RAM sitting in my desk.

TLDR; My G4 Cube now has 1.25GB ram, which will help immensely with the challenge.

 

[mmphosis]

Some (not so) clever people designed your systems with zero consideration for optimization! There’s little reason why a web based ticketing system and clocking system couldn’t be coded to run on even the most basic of hardware that can run a JavaScript enabled browser. No need for Flash, multiple cores or 16GB of RAM!

Such is the state of the so-called "modern" web.

I need to run Flash for compatibility and need to use an Intel PC running Chromium on Linux for speed, but this will only be for work, otherwise I am committed to using PowerPC Macs for the week.

 

[eyeleica]

Count me in! Hopefully, I can get my new used Intel SSD 320 series installed and working in the G5 by Jan 1.

The Pismo, the WallStreet, the Clamshell and G4 powerbook will also get some use during the challenge.

Viva La Power PC !

 

[Gamer9430]

Here is the final warning bell. We are within 24hrs (in some areas) of the Challenge's start. Make sure everything is setup, transitioned, and ready to fire on single core, dual CPU single core, Dual Core, or Quad Core cylinders!

 

[skinniezinho]

Here is the final warning bell. We are within 24hrs (in some areas) of the Challenge's start. Make sure everything is setup, transitioned, and ready to fire on single core, dual CPU single core, Dual Core, or Quad Core cylinders!

Still cloning the ssd, but I will be in time!