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The PowerBook G3/G4 Thread
- Thread starter retta283
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I have a 15" 1.5Ghz PB G4 I use a lot. I use it mostly for older games. But It's pretty useable. In august, I was gone for a 1 month academy for my job and I decided to bring it down there. So opening powerpoints, word documents for notes and such. I used M$ office 2008 mostly. Webkit and tenfourfox for browsing.
iWorks 09 works pretty well too.
I use Leopard 10.5.8 on it.
I've got a 500Mhz G3 Pismo that I use too, for older games mostly. Like Age of Empires II and Starcraft.
Here are some good starting pages worth perusing;
The Panther Thread - Mac OS X 10.3 and a limited selection of supported software - Panther is possibly the best for low-end G3 systems like the Lombard, PDQ, Wallstreet and many of the early iMac G3s.
The Tiger Thread - Mac OS X 10.4 and many software choices - Tiger is the most optimized system for the faster PowerPC Macs and will provide great performance with 512MB or more of RAM. Tiger was also the last system to support Classic, which is the Mac OS 9 compatibility layer for running much older software (including support for many older games).
The Leopard Thread - Mac OS X 10.5 and an extensive list of software choices. Leopard requires a G4 867MHz or faster and in my experience, 1GB or more of RAM is best. The speed requirement can be circumvented, however it is ideal to run Leopard on a Mac which has a GPU with 32MB or more of VRAM such as the ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 found in the iBook G4 series. An ideal portable machine for Leopard is either the last generation (Mid-2005) iBook G4 12" and 14" which had the Mobility Radeon 9550 or any of the Aluminum PowerBook G4 15" or 17" as these Macs have a GPU which is much more capable and support "Core Image" (Radeon Mobility 9600 or 9700).
The ultimate PowerPC portable Macs, in terms of performance and screen real estate, are the last generation of 15" and 17" PowerBook G4s which had the Dual Layer SuperDrive (DLSD). Running Tiger on a DLSD is a very fluid experience.
The Panther Thread - Mac OS X 10.3 and a limited selection of supported software - Panther is possibly the best for low-end G3 systems like the Lombard, PDQ, Wallstreet and many of the early iMac G3s.
The Tiger Thread - Mac OS X 10.4 and many software choices - Tiger is the most optimized system for the faster PowerPC Macs and will provide great performance with 512MB or more of RAM. Tiger was also the last system to support Classic, which is the Mac OS 9 compatibility layer for running much older software (including support for many older games).
The Leopard Thread - Mac OS X 10.5 and an extensive list of software choices. Leopard requires a G4 867MHz or faster and in my experience, 1GB or more of RAM is best. The speed requirement can be circumvented, however it is ideal to run Leopard on a Mac which has a GPU with 32MB or more of VRAM such as the ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 found in the iBook G4 series. An ideal portable machine for Leopard is either the last generation (Mid-2005) iBook G4 12" and 14" which had the Mobility Radeon 9550 or any of the Aluminum PowerBook G4 15" or 17" as these Macs have a GPU which is much more capable and support "Core Image" (Radeon Mobility 9600 or 9700).
The ultimate PowerPC portable Macs, in terms of performance and screen real estate, are the last generation of 15" and 17" PowerBook G4s which had the Dual Layer SuperDrive (DLSD). Running Tiger on a DLSD is a very fluid experience.
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I have a 15” PBG4 I’ve used to the point of being unuseable. I even wrote, published, and maintained my first book on it. Not trying to promote myself, just saying. Unfortunately, it’s taken a lot of punishment over the years. I’m considering either getting another one, or an early MacBook Pro I can use Rosetta on
An early MacBook Pro would be a decent choice, since it can run Intel apps as well as a newer version of OS X The 2007 MBP can run Tiger all the way up to El Capitan
PowerBook G4: Mac OS 10.5.8, TenFourFox7450, and the Apple applications in Leopard: Terminal, Image Capture, Screen Sharing, TextEdit, System Preferences. Other "big endian" programs I use are built on another PowerPC Mac using Xcode and gcc: gcc, bash, dash, KEGSMAC, merlin32. I also run useful shell scripts that will run on either linux or darwin (MacOS X.) I try to keep things simple, and try not to run programs that will make the CPU fan start spinning, like web pages that load an unnecessary amount of JavaScript.
I just got my first AlBook from craigslist yesterday, and I have to say, this thing is NICE. It's a 15" 1.67GHz (Not DLSD, unfortunately), and it's incredibly capable. All the websites I've tried so far load quickly in TenFourFox, and it does low quality youtube without any problems using TenFiveTube. I might even consider having it take over as my main laptop for a few days.
It's an early 2005, right? That is the model that I am running right now, need to upgrade the RAM though
This is my humble MessagePad sync'er—a Wallstreet with a 12-inch passive matrix display. It's rather unique, though:
It has a 500MHz G3 Sonnet Crescendo upgrade
It has a 500MHz G3 Sonnet Crescendo upgrade