The Argument For PowerPC

[MultiFinder17]

I just wanted to share with the conversation. This is my desk at school, complete with district HP desktop (it's really not that bad) that I don't use much, and the PowerBook that I run my classroom from. It's wonderful to have the little 12" PowerBook to tote between class and home; it lets me do all of my lesson planning, grading, and everything else I need in the classroom without a hitch.

 

[eyoungren]

I just wanted to share with the conversation. This is my desk at school, complete with district HP desktop (it's really not that bad) that I don't use much, and the PowerBook that I run my classroom from. It's wonderful to have the little 12" PowerBook to tote between class and home; it lets me do all of my lesson planning, grading, and everything else I need in the classroom without a hitch.

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Which grades do you teach?

My mom started out as a P.E. teacher in 1963 I think. Moved in to math, science, computers and yearbook for junior high and high school grades at one point. She retired about two years ago.

Three of her iBook G3s for Yearbook (district issued) have gone on to members here on MR.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Which grades do you teach?

My mom started out as a P.E. teacher in 1963 I think. Moved in to math, science, computers and yearbook for junior high and high school grades at one point. She retired about two years ago.

Three of her iBook G3s for Yearbook (district issued) have gone on to members here on MR.

I teach 9th and 11th reading and love every (well, most of them) minute of it. The couple kids that have asked about the PowerBook have been shocked to find out that it's an 11-year-old laptop!

 

[eyoungren]

I teach 9th and 11th reading and love every (well, most of them) minute of it. The couple kids that have asked about the PowerBook have been shocked to find out that it's an 11-year-old laptop!

Might I say…you're crazy!

9th and 11th?

Being the son of a teacher and the brother of a teacher (my sister is a teacher) and having friends who went into teaching - high school was one area (except for my mom) they all avoided!

But yeah, I can imagine the astonishment over your Mac!

 

[996085]

I teach 9th and 11th reading and love every (well, most of them) minute of it. The couple kids that have asked about the PowerBook have been shocked to find out that it's an 11-year-old laptop!

I own a 500MHz iBook G3 which I purchased specifically to natively run "Classic" Mac OS (9.2.1). It is configured with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. I've installed Microsoft Word 6.0 on this system and it flies. It is amazing how such an old system has been rendered all but unusable using today's software. However when used with contemporary software for its time it is a very usable system. I'm certain if I were to use contemporary software for its time there's no reason the system could not continue until "the wheels fall off". "Classic" Mac OS is, IMO, hands down better from a usability POV than OS X is. It's too bad Apple couldn't continue with the "Classic" OS interface while building it upon OS X internals...ah...what might have been!

 

[bobesch]

I own a 500MHz iBook G3 which I purchased specifically to natively run "Classic" Mac OS (9.2.1). It is configured with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. I've installed Microsoft Word 6.0 on this system and it flies. It is amazing how such an old system has been rendered all but unusable using today's software. However when used with contemporary software for its time it is a very usable system. I'm certain if I were to use contemporary software for its time there's no reason the system could not continue until "the wheels fall off". "Classic" Mac OS is, IMO, hands down better from a usability POV than OS X is. It's too bad Apple couldn't continue with the "Classic" OS interface while building it upon OS X internals...ah...what might have been!

I have no history in Classic Mac OS but was tempted to buy an old version of Office 2001 for Mac (I also still use Office 2000 for Windows as my most preferable Office suite)
Office 2001 runs on Tiger/Classic-environment-emulator(iBookG4). It looks much more space efficient than Office 2004 for OS X and launches even faster (faster than Office 2008 on the same iBookG4-Leopard and even faster than latest Office2015 on MBP-i7-2.9Ghz). Most new stuff eats a lot of processing-power just for eye-candy. It's often a huge waste concerning old and outsourced hardware (but I have to admit that fast processors enhance a lot of things, that weren't possible or practical a decade ago: fast scan&ocr, video/photo-editing).
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I teach 9th and 11th reading and love every (well, most of them) minute of it. The couple kids that have asked about the PowerBook have been shocked to find out that it's an 11-year-old laptop!

Same happens to me at work. I'm a pediatrician and started to use CubeG4, iMacG4-gooseneck and white intel-c2duo iMacs as thin clients a year ago. A lot of children and also parents are curious about the "new equipment" and sometimes do look a bit alienated if I tell them is from more then a decade ago. It's quite funny to run that little Apple-museum while at work.
Great fun - especially to run PhotoBooth and mix everything up. A day without laughing is just a lost day...
Cheers...

 

[MacCubed]

I just wanted to share with the conversation. This is my desk at school, complete with district HP desktop (it's really not that bad) that I don't use much, and the PowerBook that I run my classroom from. It's wonderful to have the little 12" PowerBook to tote between class and home; it lets me do all of my lesson planning, grading, and everything else I need in the classroom without a hitch.

View attachment 609111

Does every school in Florida look the same? The middle school I went to looks identical to that classroom!

 

[eyoungren]

Does every school in Florida look the same? The middle school I went to looks identical to that classroom!

Looks like my kids schools in Phoenix and Glendale, AZ. Must be systemic.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Does every school in Florida look the same? The middle school I went to looks identical to that classroom!

Haha, apparently! This one's in the suburbs of Tampa.
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Might I say…you're crazy!

9th and 11th?

Being the son of a teacher and the brother of a teacher (my sister is a teacher) and having friends who went into teaching - high school was one area (except for my mom) they all avoided!

But yeah, I can imagine the astonishment over your Mac!

Hahaha, honestly, I love 'em. I was a substitute for several years before I went full-time, and I tried elementary, middle, and high; high school was the only level that I wound up falling in love with. But hey, to each their own; somebody's gotta love those little hormones on legs in middle school!

 

[MultiFinder17]

I'd mentioned the PowerBook that I use in my classroom earlier in this thread - I just wanted to give some screenshots of how it's normally used. I snapped a couple at the end of classes today. First up is the Dock to show what's running - Finder, Safari, iTunes, Keynote, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, FirstClass, Calculator, QuickTime, and Preview. The second just shows all my Spaces with their open stuff.

Everything the district does and distributes is in Office, so Office 2008 is a must for proper compatibility with the XML Office stuff. I know that there are plugins for Office 2004, but they don't work nearly as well from my experience. I track the attendance and take care of the grading on online systems through Safari. I generally keep iTunes open to play some music while I'm eating lunch or on my planning period. FirstClass is for my school email and other district doodads. I show short video clips using QuickTime, and Calculator and Preview are pretty self explanatory.

This little machine, despite "only" having a 1.5GHz G4, only 1.25GB RAM, and running a version of OS X that's seven years and six versions out of date, handles all of this flawlessly. Add that to the fact that it's tiny, fits nicely on my desk, and has an awesome keyboard (I still like the keyboard on the PowerBooks better than the island on the MacBooks and post-unibody Pros, although I don't really mind that keyboard) and you have the perfect companion notebook for a teacher.

 

[blut haus]

The argument is simple: if it does what you need, use it. If not, use something else. I don't think it needs justifying at all. I used outdated machines for many years for a couple of reasons. I didn't know any better, my parents refused to buy anything new, then I didn't have enough money of my own for an Intel machine so I bought a G5...fast forward another 10 years and sure I've got the intel machines in my sig, but PPC's are still very useful.