The end of PPC

[Lil Chillbil]

You do if you want to continue doing what I do (Graphic Design).

Many of our customers (including the Citys of Glendale and Peoria, Arizona) send ads and legal documents in .docx format. The City of Glendale's weekly cable guide comes in .xlsx format. Word 2000 and Excel 2000 on a PC will not open .docx or .xlsx. I cannot open late version .ai files with Illustrator 6. How do I open a late version ID file with Adobe Pagemaker 7? Acrobat 5 for camera ready PDFs with no Quite a Box of Tricks and PitStop Pro? Photoshop 6 Educational for modern PSDs? That's just the stuff coming in.

Going out? The printer want's PDF/X-4:2008 That's NOT even in cards for Pagemaker 7. Sure I can export a postscript file or a series of EPS files. But Acrobat Distiller 5 does NOT have the option to create that PDF format. We're screwed unless we update (which I have forced over time to what we have now).

Sure, you're right if your own isolated process is all you have to meet or what you do matters only to you. But sooner or later outside forces will force change on you and my industry does not exist in a vacuum. There's one print customer we have who is about to experience this as there will no longer be anyone available to shoot his pasteups to negative, burn plate and then mount the plates on a press. All the printers in metro Phoenix want PDFs. So, his choice is to buy a computer and the software to produce his paper electronically — or fold.

NOTE. I am NOT arguing against PowerPC. For my own personal purposes I prefer it and I have more than one PowerPC Mac in my home. But web browsing, light word processing and email, occasional design work is fine as it's not what I depend on for my income. But at work, it doesn't and hasn't since 2006 cut it anymore. I don't particularly like the newer Intel Macs too much, but I do need them to keep up so that I can do my job.

Adding onto another field where powerpc is useless is gaming and video editing,


no game being made this year runs on powerpc period.

video rendering is very very slow even on powermac g5 quads. They all have a total of 10Ghz and can't be overclocked. my current workstation is more than 3 seconds faster per operation and is not even at its max clock.


now supporters would argue that 3 seconds is not a big deal, 3 seconds per second of 1080p footage rendered means that if you are rendering an hour of 1080p a g5 would Finnish half an hour behind my pc.


they are just not useful in the pro market either

 

[rjcalifornia]

Adding onto another field where powerpc is useless is gaming and video editing,


no game being made this year runs on powerpc period.

video rendering is very very slow even on powermac g5 quads. They all have a total of 10Ghz and can't be overclocked. my current workstation is more than 3 seconds faster per operation and is not even at its max clock.


now supporters would argue that 3 seconds is not a big deal, 3 seconds per second of 1080p footage rendered means that if you are rendering an hour of 1080p a g5 would Finnish half an hour behind my pc.


they are just not useful in the pro market either

Well, Wii U is the last one, and it is having the same problem we are having:

EA already pull the plug on PowerPC Wii U development. No more games will be developed from EA. You might say Microsoft made them take that decision, however it is more profitable to focus on one architecture.

PowerPC based Game Consoles was a bad choice. Look at the first Xbox 360, so many issues. The PS3 was a power hungry device. At the time, 2005, PowerPC was the "right" choice. Now, completely useless. AMD is an expert in reducing heat without sacrificing performance. I know, my desktop pc is a Cool-And-Quite AMD.


Mark the year, 2013 is the year PowerPC died. Power7, Power6 completely useless, cannot fit on a small console, and never will. You might say IBM business is corporation, but the day will come when AMD creates a Mainframe as powerful as any IBM, but with 50% less power.

 

[TacticalDesire]

You do not need to move forward if softwre that you use does your job on hardware that you have.

Even 10.5.x is better OS than W7.

Entirely subjective. It depends on what you do. As a network admin and technology adviser no way would I say Leopard is a better OS than Windows 7. Even vista. But that's because needs vary.

 

[rabidz7]

Well, Wii U is the last one, and it is having the same problem we are having:

EA already pull the plug on PowerPC Wii U development. No more games will be developed from EA. You might say Microsoft made them take that decision, however it is more profitable to focus on one architecture.

PowerPC based Game Consoles was a bad choice. Look at the first Xbox 360, so many issues. The PS3 was a power hungry device. At the time, 2005, PowerPC was the "right" choice. Now, completely useless. AMD is an expert in reducing heat without sacrificing performance. I know, my desktop pc is a Cool-And-Quite AMD.


Mark the year, 2013 is the year PowerPC died. Power7, Power6 completely useless, cannot fit on a small console, and never will. You might say IBM business is corporation, but the day will come when AMD creates a Mainframe as powerful as any IBM, but with 50% less power.

How about the Power8? I could see it possible for IBM to returning to the desktop PC market if they launched a desktop version. They will most likely not do it although I would love to see that. Like the PPC970 was compared to the Power chips of the time.

 

[MisterKeeks]

I could see it possible

I couldn't. There is no market for them.

 

[rjcalifornia]

I couldn't. There is no market for them.

Never will. PowerPC is dead.

 

[MisterKeeks]

Never will. PowerPC is dead.

Commercially, yes. Otherwise, no.

 

[rjcalifornia]

Commercially, yes. Otherwise, no.

Dead Commercially = No $$$ = Death

 

[MisterKeeks]

Dead Commercially = No $$$ = Death

No. Just because there aren't any in the market doesn't mean the ones that are around cease to be useful or relevant.

 

[seveej]

About websites being heavy and stuff...

On my iBook G4 I've done projects, heavy projects that uses a lot of CSS3, HTML5, a lot of graphics, etc. So heavy that my ibook almost can handle it. It is kinda funny, I can design, write and create heavy web applications on my ibook, but cannot be run on it.

Have to tell you this anecdote: I was (once upon a time) working with this small small multimedia design agency (age of macromedia director and cd-rom's) and was asking the boss-man, why his designers were using outdated hardware (I remember observing, that they were so slow to use, it was painful).

His answer was revealing: "well, if the programmers use a machine which equals half the hardware requirements, the resulting software is sure to work at minimum spec. Also it helps them focus on not adding stupid frills.". I guess his company respected it's users more than it's workforce. I could never have worked there - I'm too impatient.

RGDS,

 

[jeffzoom91]

I recently bought a 17'' PB 1.67 DLHR (I always loved the design and the display, it was a cool toy for under $100), and I've got to tell you, I want to love the thing.

I want to say that it's still useful. And I get around on it just fine when I'm using it. I know where it's going to fall down and it doesn't bother me so much. It has such a gorgeous display, great speakers, and a fantastic Wolfson DSP. The keyboard is great, and as old as it is it still feels like a quality product.

That said, most of the those feelings evaporate once I switch to an intel mac. The difference is staggering. Even with the ram maxed out the Powerbook can't seem to handle iTunes and Webkit even on a moderately simple page. Multitasking, at least the way I'm become accustomed to it, is nearly impossible. At that point, it becomes pretty much useless for any real work. It becomes a toy, but that's okay, that's what I bought it for.

Any video above 480P is impossible, even when played in Quicktime with the graphics card over clocked. No new software exists for it. It's like living in a 2005 time bubble. B that's how I want it to be. The view is pretty nice looking back for PPC. The state of Software can't move forward dragging these archaic PowerPC chips. It just can't.

Here in 2013 however, unless you have a G5 PowerMac, the PPC mac is completely useless for anything other than absolute niche uses. Even at that point using a G5 Tower is only as useful as the software you're using it for.

When you really think about it though, staying on these machines, and using them as your daily workhorse, is not a good thing. Sure it's fun to be nostalgic (I've bought three PPC macs for this purpose), but trying to use them in your day to day life is a willful ignorance. You're just staving off the inevitable. "My PPC Mac is still perfectly fine for me". No, it's not, you just want to believe that it is. Steve didn't decide to move to intel just to make everyone buy new macs. It's easy to see why he moved, the performance per watt increase, especially in "non-watercooled" form was so great, it made you wonder why they didn't switch sooner. Don't believe me? Go watch the Keynote when it was announced. They said they had been running OSX on Intel for years.

So like the Clydesdale, let PPC macs fade into recreation, where they will be appreciated for what they are, rather than hated for what they're not. Because what they're not, is fast

 

[du0wow]

I have a desktop for all my heavy stuff (media, gaming etc.), but still use my 1.67 PB regularly for server management (SSH), audio production (Logic), casual gaming (Quake 3 etc.), minor photo editing (Aperture), development (Python), web surfing etc. etc.

Which version of Logic and what VSTs are you using? Even on my C2D MacBook, Live 8 and 9 seems to be crawling with very basic manipulation of audio tracks.

 

[Wildy]

I'm using Logic 8 with the default AUs. Most of my signal chain is run through outboard gear though - there's not that much done in software. That said, I've done a couple of all-software tracks before and it went ok - but the heaviest thing in the mix was space designer.

I had an Ableton Live demo, but also found it too slow to be usable.

 

[GermanyChris]

I think we're all taking ourselves a bit too seriously.

We've all been wrong in the past and we'll be wrong again in the future.

We're all learning here

 

[rjcalifornia]

I think we're all taking ourselves a bit too seriously.

We've all been wrong in the past and we'll be wrong again in the future.

We're all learning here

Tru dat

 

[eyoungren]

I recently bought a 17'' PB 1.67 DLHR (I always loved the design and the display, it was a cool toy for under $100), and I've got to tell you, I want to love the thing.

I want to say that it's still useful. And I get around on it just fine when I'm using it. I know where it's going to fall down and it doesn't bother me so much. It has such a gorgeous display, great speakers, and a fantastic Wolfson DSP. The keyboard is great, and as old as it is it still feels like a quality product.

That said, most of the those feelings evaporate once I switch to an intel mac. The difference is staggering. Even with the ram maxed out the Powerbook can't seem to handle iTunes and Webkit even on a moderately simple page. Multitasking, at least the way I'm become accustomed to it, is nearly impossible. At that point, it becomes pretty much useless for any real work. It becomes a toy, but that's okay, that's what I bought it for.

Any video above 480P is impossible, even when played in Quicktime with the graphics card over clocked. No new software exists for it. It's like living in a 2005 time bubble. B that's how I want it to be. The view is pretty nice looking back for PPC. The state of Software can't move forward dragging these archaic PowerPC chips. It just can't.

Here in 2013 however, unless you have a G5 PowerMac, the PPC mac is completely useless for anything other than absolute niche uses. Even at that point using a G5 Tower is only as useful as the software you're using it for.

When you really think about it though, staying on these machines, and using them as your daily workhorse, is not a good thing. Sure it's fun to be nostalgic (I've bought three PPC macs for this purpose), but trying to use them in your day to day life is a willful ignorance. You're just staving off the inevitable. "My PPC Mac is still perfectly fine for me". No, it's not, you just want to believe that it is. Steve didn't decide to move to intel just to make everyone buy new macs. It's easy to see why he moved, the performance per watt increase, especially in "non-watercooled" form was so great, it made you wonder why they didn't switch sooner. Don't believe me? Go watch the Keynote when it was announced. They said they had been running OSX on Intel for years.

So like the Clydesdale, let PPC macs fade into recreation, where they will be appreciated for what they are, rather than hated for what they're not. Because what they're not, is fast

My PowerPC Macs work just fine on the internet. But, I'm not using Webkit (which I hate). Come on, there are other browser alternatives out there! TenFourFox and Aurorafox are modern browsers equivalent to Firefox 20 and 21! And I use them, and the internet works just great!

It's really starting to cheese me off that comments about PowerPC Macs and the internet get made based on outdated Safari and webkit. Safari is just junk in my opinion, especially the older versions and I only use it when I have to. Sure, comparing it side by side to the Safari on an Intel Mac is going to be night and day. But, look SAFARI IS NOT THE BE ALL END ALL OF INTERNET BROWSING ON Macs! And if you want to use Webkit, do yourself a favour and install the nightly PowerPC Webkit builds!

Come on! TenFourFox, AuroraFox, Camino and Sea Monkey are out there and the first two are HTML5! There's even a plethora of OTHER Webkit browsers that absolutely kill Safari. Sunrise, Stainless, Radon, Demeter. Don't base assumptions of PowerPC capability on the standard install Apple apps. You'll just get skewed results!

You're right, I'm not using these Macs to do design work. But for my everyday at home tasks they are just fine. And they are more than capable of filling in the gap when called on. I used my 17" DLSD for two weeks when our work G5 burned out and it handled the same load the G5 handled until we got the new Intel Mac. Yeah, it was a bit slower, but all of our work got out on time. If I'd not had it we would have been royally screwed the last two weeks.

 

[skateny]

You're right, I'm not using these Macs to do design work. But for my everyday at home tasks they are just fine. And they are more than capable of filling in the gap when called on. I used my 17" DLSD for two weeks when our work G5 burned out and it handled the same load the G5 handled until we got the new Intel Mac. Yeah, it was a bit slower, but all of our work got out on time. If I'd not had it we would have been royally screwed the last two weeks.

Hey there.

Always appreciate your input, and very much enjoy your accounts describing your everyday use of PowerPCs.

What I took away from Jeff's post was that, when compared to using Intel Macs, the PowerPC is slow. Well, I think I knew this already. And, yes (and as you've suggested elsewhere), some day they will no longer cut it, and we'll have to move one, no matter how much we like using our PowerPC Macs.

I have nothing against Intel Macs. Like many here, I enjoy using my iBook, which is also fine for the work I'm doing -- SPSS, word processing, research, bibliograpy apps, and Blackboard for online teaching. That said, my days of purchasing "new" PowerPCs are over. When I allow myself to think about such things, I imagine I'll need/want to move to Intel in early 2014.

 

[eyoungren]

I have nothing against Intel Macs. Like many here, I enjoy using my iBook, which is also fine for the work I'm doing -- SPSS, word processing, research, bibliograpy apps, and Blackboard for online teaching. That said, my days of purchasing "new" PowerPCs are over. When I allow myself to think about such things, I imagine I'll need/want to move to Intel in early 2014.

I do [have something against Intel Macs]. That's my problem. It's irrational and not based on fact. I "know" the Intel Macs are faster and more powerful. I "know" they are more modern and capable.

But I also "know" that they lack character. That particular point may change for me as I get acquainted with the new MP Xeon at work but for right now I'm just not there yet.

That said, yes, the time for me is coming. I've been around Macs long enough now to see how the tech moves in price stages. The first round of early Intels are now entering the price range I can afford them at. And while both my PowerBooks are great machines I've been using them consistently for the last three and a half years. They are great and do all I want and I don't take back anything I've previously said. But, sadly, any new purchase I get now will be an Intel.

My boss doesn't know it, but I have an internal compulsion that I have to honor that forces me to meet my deadlines. To that end I often do what it takes and that always includes an emergency plan in case something at work breaks down. My PowerBooks have always been a part of that backup plan. Plug them in when there is an emergency and get the work out - on time. But, now with the new Intel Mac I am going to need a backup Mac that is equal to the task. That's another point my boss and I strive on at work is to keep the machines in Composing equal. Same OS, same apps, etc. Right now there is a disparity because my coworker is still on the old PowerMac G4. That will be rectified soon. But now, to meet my own self-imposed backup requirments I am going to have to find an Intel Mac laptop.

Change is a bummer (this is a family forum so I cannot use the word I want to use) some times, but I have to roll with it.

 

[MrPilot]

I recently bought a 17'' PB 1.67 DLHR (I always loved the design and the display, it was a cool toy for under $100), and I've got to tell you, I want to love the thing.

I want to say that it's still useful. And I get around on it just fine when I'm using it. I know where it's going to fall down and it doesn't bother me so much. It has such a gorgeous display, great speakers, and a fantastic Wolfson DSP. The keyboard is great, and as old as it is it still feels like a quality product.

That said, most of the those feelings evaporate once I switch to an intel mac. The difference is staggering. Even with the ram maxed out the Powerbook can't seem to handle iTunes and Webkit even on a moderately simple page. Multitasking, at least the way I'm become accustomed to it, is nearly impossible. At that point, it becomes pretty much useless for any real work. It becomes a toy, but that's okay, that's what I bought it for.


Any video above 480P is impossible, even when played in Quicktime with the graphics card over clocked. No new software exists for it. It's like living in a 2005 time bubble. B that's how I want it to be. The view is pretty nice looking back for PPC. The state of Software can't move forward dragging these archaic PowerPC chips. It just can't.

Here in 2013 however, unless you have a G5 PowerMac, the PPC mac is completely useless for anything other than absolute niche uses. Even at that point using a G5 Tower is only as useful as the software you're using it for.

When you really think about it though, staying on these machines, and using them as your daily workhorse, is not a good thing. Sure it's fun to be nostalgic (I've bought three PPC macs for this purpose), but trying to use them in your day to day life is a willful ignorance. You're just staving off the inevitable. "My PPC Mac is still perfectly fine for me". No, it's not, you just want to believe that it is. Steve didn't decide to move to intel just to make everyone buy new macs. It's easy to see why he moved, the performance per watt increase, especially in "non-watercooled" form was so great, it made you wonder why they didn't switch sooner. Don't believe me? Go watch the Keynote when it was announced. They said they had been running OSX on Intel for years.

So like the Clydesdale, let PPC macs fade into recreation, where they will be appreciated for what they are, rather than hated for what they're not. Because what they're not, is fast

Strange, I have a 15" PBG4 DLHR and I go to the most advanced pages without issues. At this second I'm currently installing newest itunes on to win7 using VPC 7 while restoring my iphone in OSX. I will use the VPC for jailbreaking using the PB. Btw, while doing this I have OSX itunes playing music and 3 tabs open on OSX Webkit browser. That surely qualifies as multitasking, right? Btw, havent touched my intel 17" for 6 weeks now.
I can do 720p youtube within xbmc and project free tv plays great on xbmc.
I can play SOME movies in 1080p but at 14fps so not that fluid but watchable. 720p movies work fine. My flightsim setup works fine using x-plane 9 on this baby. (If I need x-plane 10, I got the 17" intel for that but havent needed it so far.

Btw, I recently sold my imac 27" 2011 i7 with the 6970M gfx card because my works keeps me too many days abroad. I didnt get back to PPC until last month... last time I used one was in early 2007.
The introduction of HTML 5 made all of the sudden these computers relevant again... at least for me

 

[goMac]

Strange, I have a 15" PBG4 DLHR and I go to the most advanced pages without issues. At this second I'm currently installing newest itunes on to win7 using VPC 7 while restoring my iphone in OSX. I will use the VPC for jailbreaking using the PB. Btw, while doing this I have OSX itunes playing music and 3 tabs open on OSX Webkit browser. That surely qualifies as multitasking, right? Btw, havent touched my intel 17" for 6 weeks now.
I can do 720p youtube within xbmc and project free tv plays great on xbmc.
I can play SOME movies in 1080p but at 14fps so not that fluid but watchable. 720p movies work fine. My flightsim setup works fine using x-plane 9 on this baby. (If I need x-plane 10, I got the 17" intel for that but havent needed it so far.

Running Windows through VPC to accomplish tasks is barely keeping it together.... Emulating an x86 to get things done isn't exactly proving the usefulness of a PowerPC Mac.

 

[Imixmuan]

Intel Macs...

...not only do not have character, they do not have a soul. Peroid. Steve was already in the process of dying when the switch happened, and the death of PowerPC was the death of the real Apple. Tim Cook's Apple is a pale iphone inspired ghost of the truly great company that one was. Before you call me a poser, I've been an Apple user since 82 and a Mac user since 87. I was there in the darkest days, evangelizing like a madman. I've used and sold more macs than I've had hot meals in the last twenty five years.

Just think of some of the macs made between 98 and 2006...

Wallstreets
Pismos
Titaniums
Bondi Blue and other G3 imacs
G4 imacs
Powermac G4's

Think of the OS'es

9 (yes, I like 9, still), Jaguar, Panther, Tiger. I am deliberately leaving out Cheetah and Puma which were beta releases.

Name anything post 2006 that is even in the same league design/function wise as the above. Don't say Macbook Air, cause those are unupgradable Chinese McGarbage. Those machines had...soul. Yes, I am deliberately leaving out the G5's, which pretty much sucked. Lion, Mountain Lion? Suck. Snow Leopard? Doesn't suck as much, mostly cause it still supports PowerPC apps through Rosetta, IMHO.

Truth is, I'd rather own a Dell or Lenovo than any new Intel Mac. I've only owned two Intel macs and they were both garbage. Just one former fanboys opinion.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, my conundrum is that I have worked very hard since 2004 to sell my boss on Mac. I may have gotten through finally. We need a new server and the cost I quoted him of a refurb 2011 Intel Mac Mini with OSX Server is 1/4 the cost that he's been quoted from the PC guy we call to take care of our current POS Dell Poweredge. Thats the difference between a credit card purchase and obtaining financing and it's made him very happy.

I'd like to be able to stay PowerPC, I really would. But we can't and as bad as Intel Macs might be I'd rather finally convince him to buy Apple then to surrender all my hard earned ground by going PC. Frankly my boss is completely clueless about character and soul so it's not going to matter so much to him.

Lastly, I'll just say that I love the fact that with System 7.5 on my Mac IIci I can apply Kaleidoscope and the Platinum theme and my IIci is "running" OS9.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

It's the internet that's the issue. Unnecessarily heavy websites loaded with muck. And especially Flash, if you don't have it blocked, video that loads by default, those annoying slideshows of images and stuff like iCloud.com that forces fast G5s to a crawl just because they force you to endure their fancy animations [hell, it's not exactly butter smooth on my Core 2 Duo MBP.]

Then there's newer versions of software. Example, there's one called "Memory Clean" on the App Store, what it does is it simply removes "Inactive" memory from the RAM cache or whatever it's called. It requires Mountain Lion 10.8, a 64-bit CPU, too. WTF. As far as I can tell, all that app is a fancy GUI wrapper around a single-word command-line utility called "purge." [You open Terminal > type "purge" > hit return > inactive RAM is purged.]

Developer tools like whatever the current Xcode is, v4 I think, they just don't allow you to build for PPC any more.] And with code signing requirements and new APIs to make things easier for developers that were added in 10.7 Lion and later, even Snow Leopard is being left behind quite frequently in the App Store. I wrote up a couple of decent whines and rants on my blog here:

http://michaelanthonyralph.com/blog/2013/05/15/app-store-developers-please-stop-dumbing-things-down/

http://michaelanthonyralph.com/blog/2013/05/27/great-free-apps-app-store-rant/

Yes, I'm melodramatic and like to rant

 

[eyoungren]

As far as I can tell, all that app is a fancy GUI wrapper around a single-word command-line utility called "purge." [You open Terminal > type "purge" > hit return > inactive RAM is purged.]

LOL!!!

Maybe I can make some money here! I have that command wrapped up in an Applescript [do shell script "purge"] app which I then ran through Dock Dodger so that it doesn't show in the Dock or the app switcher and then assigned a key command to it using FastScripts.

Sheesh!!!!

 

[SkyBell]

I've always been a rabid PPC fan; there's something about these machines that the Intel Macs just cannot compare to, no matter how shiny or powerful. I still love all my PPC Macs, but even I must admit; their time as jack-of-all-trades machines is nearing the end. My eMac is still able to do pretty much everything I ask of it, but it's requiring more patience and workaround tactics seemingly week by week, multi-tasking in particular. Just last night, I was experiencing severe stuttering and jerkiness while scrolling on some sites in TenFourFox, and some serious slow-downs attempting to run TFF, Safari, iTunes and VLC at the same time. Ripping DVD's can now take up to over 36 hours depending on length. These issues have been around for a while, but they are now reaching the point as to which they are causing me frustration and are hampering my enjoyment of my Mac.

Add that to the fact that for quite a while now, I have to spend hours figuring out ways to get newer tech devices to work properly with my architecture and OS, often times ending up with no solution. Put it all together, and even my rock-hard resolve as a PPC user has been considerably weakened.

My eMac is still a wonderful machine; Halo is always a favorite to jump into and get lost in for hours, it's still more than competent at audio editing, and it has zero problems as a media machine for watching movies and TV episodes. For these and other similar reasons, it is by no means, "useless", and will continue to play a part in my computer usage for years to come.

However, I did finally make the painful jump last night, and purchased a black MacBook from eBay (another site which my eMac has a little trouble with) to kill two birds with one stone; replacing my netbook (because my SO has been stealing it from me more and more often lately, lacking her own computer. ) and my main Mac at the same time.

PPC is not what it used to be, and I doubt it shall ever be close to its glory days again. But even though I suppose by some accounts I have "officially" moved on, it makes my day to see others still chugging along on these wonderful Macs. I plan very much to still make use of my PPC machines.

The day is indeed coming when they will no longer be viable for primary computer duty. But as an era ends, a new one beings; they have become quite the handy and useful backup and secondary machines, and have years ahead of them in these functions.