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What have you done with a PowerPC today?

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Apr 19, 2014
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Even though PowerPC Macs are useless and you can't use them in 2020 (heh), some of us do anyway, so I figured we should have a thread to post anything we've done with a PPC computer today. Inspired by the various PowerPC Challenge threads, but more for those of us who use them continuously year round, even if not always exclusively.
 
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556fmjoe said:
Even though PowerPC Macs are useless and you can't use them in 2020 (heh), some of us do anyway, so I figured we should have a thread to post anything we've done with a PPC computer today. Inspired by the various PowerPC Challenge threads, but more for those of us who use them continuously year round, even if not always exclusively.

Today on the Tibook I hacked a bit more on a lightweight Ansible alternative I've dubbed standoff, and tested it by configuring 6 PC Engines APU4 routers. It fared pretty well, but still could use some polishing.
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I love this idea! I used my Power Mac G4 to manage some files in my media library. It also served one of its normal duties as a file server. :)
 
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I used my PowerBook G4 (Late 2005) today for some uni stuff (learning Spanish vocabulary and reading literature mainly). It is still good for that and browsing Wikipedia and online translators are also quite possible. For taking notes I use Pages 09 or Word 2008, sometimes I annotate or comment things directly inside Adobe Acrobat 9. During my breaks I watch Youtube via PPCMC. I used it a couple of hours today (I use it very frequently in general) and it is a very neat machine. I do also have other PowerBooks that I use now and then and they do their job (office tasks and some multimedia or vintage gaming) quite well. For heavier tasks, if I choose to use PPC, I use my PowerMac G5 (Late 2005) or iMac G5 (Late 2005). The (Mac)-PowerPC platform is unfortunately dead from a general perspective but definitely not for us enthusiasts. If I had to guess, I use about 30% of the time my PowerPC Macs and 70% of the time my Intel Macs (due to the limitations of PowerPC like the lack of Skype support and other more recent applications, not to mention the barries due to considerable weaker CPU performance in comparison to Intel Macs). In spite of that, they still serve a purpose in my case and I can't see changing that for another couple of years :)
 
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netsrot39 said:
I used my PowerBook G4 (Late 2005) today for some uni stuff (learning Spanish vocabulary and reading literature mainly). It is still good for that and browsing Wikipedia and online translators are also quite possible. For taking notes I use Pages 09 or Word 2008, sometimes I annotate or comment things directly inside Adobe Acrobat 9. During my breaks I watch Youtube via PPCMC. I used it a couple of hours today (I use it very frequently in general) and it is a very neat machine. I do also have other PowerBooks that I use now and then and they do their job (office tasks and some multimedia or vintage gaming) quite well. For heavier tasks, if I choose to use PPC, I use my PowerMac G5 (Late 2005) or iMac G5 (Late 2005). The (Mac)-PowerPC platform is unfortunately dead from a general perspective but definitely not for us enthusiasts. If I had to guess, I use about 30% of the time my PowerPC Macs and 70% of the time my Intel Macs (due to the limitations of PowerPC like the lack of Skype support and other more recent applications, not to mention the barries due to considerable weaker CPU performance in comparison to Intel Macs). In spite of that, they still serve a purpose in my case and I can't see changing that for another couple of years :)
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Which translators are you using? A couple years ago when I was learning Russian I was accessing Google Translate via a small Python program so I wouldn't have to go through its bloated web interface which was hammering my PowerBook. I don't know how well Google Translate works with Spanish, but it sucked for Russian so I gave up.
 
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I mainly use bab.la and context.reverso.net so that I can immediately see in which particular context a word is used and how I can use it in a sentence. Other translators I use quite often are PONS and DICT. I hardly use Google Translator TBH. All the websites I've mentioned can be easily accessed with TenFourFox, yes of course there will be loading times but it isn't an eternity.

BTW If you are looking for apps that can help you memorise vocabulary I'd suggest "StudyBuddy" (available on Macintoshgarden) and "iFlash" (PowerPC version available on the WayBackMachine by visiting the developers website from ca. 2007). They work great :)
 
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556fmjoe said:
Because PowerPC Macs are NOT useless and you can use them in 2020 (heh), some of us do anyway, so I figured we should have a thread to post anything we've done with a PPC computer today. Inspired by the various PowerPC Challenge threads, but more for those of us who use them continuously year round, even if not always exclusively.

Today on the Tibook I hacked a bit more on a lightweight Ansible alternative I've dubbed standoff, and tested it by configuring 6 PC Engines APU4 routers. It fared pretty well, but still could use some polishing.
Click to expand...
I fixed that for you.

Today, my PowerMac G3 server and my PowerMac G4 NAS will continue to take backups from five different Macs. Tomorrow, they will repeat. And the day after that, and so on.

Before last week, I would have told you, web browsing (on a Quad G5) and word processing and graphic design. My new Mac Pro has since replaced the Quad, but I've been using PowerPC as a daily driver since 2001 so don't get any funny ideas. :)
 
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Today? Dont you mean every day? ;)
My dual G5 and mini G4 are my main machines, even though I have some newer Intel's. Those just aren't fun. I use my intel iMac for printing wirelessly, and its other use is as a "TV" using PlutoTV app. Otherwise it sits powered off 95% of the time.

My dual G5 is used for development and daily browsing, YouTube, Twitch, email, irc etc. The mini G4, pretty much the same. If the dual is compiling stuff I let it be and use the mini for the above. The PowerBook sits in the living room as my couch computer, which also handles the above, and the keyboard is soooo much nicer than my MacBook's. I really only use my Intel Macs for devel/building arctic fox, spiderweb and interweb for that platform. Otherwise I always choose one of the ppc Macs first.

Cheers
 
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eyoungren said:
I fixed that for you.

Today, my PowerMac G3 server and my PowerMac G4 NAS will continue to take backups from five different Macs. Tomorrow, they will repeat. And the day after that, and so on.

Before last week, I would have told you, web browsing (on a Quad G5) and word processing and graphic design. My new Mac Pro has since replaced the Quad, but I've been using PowerPC as a daily driver since 2001 so don't get any funny ideas. :)
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No, they're completely useless and should all be sent to me for proper disposal.;)
 
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556fmjoe said:
Even though PowerPC Macs are useless and you can't use them in 2020 (heh), some of us do anyway, so I figured we should have a thread to post anything we've done with a PPC computer today.
Click to expand...

Listening to streaming audio all evening, checking email, and file-serving like a ghostbuster.
[automerge]1588396109[/automerge]
556fmjoe said:
No, they're completely useless and should all be sent to me for proper disposal.;)
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Except for the key lime clamshell iBooks, any condition, any speed, which should be sent directly to me. :D
 
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I recently bought an awful Chinese "PenCam" from around 1999, purely for nostalgia as I used to carry one when walking the dog back then - shown in this post.

However, missing it's orginal CD ROM, the drivers online I found didn't work and the camera can't be picked up by Windows or OSX.

So, plugging it into my DLSD running the Lubuntu 12 Remix, it was recognised and mounted as USB Storage and I was able to retrieve photos that happened to be in a far from obvious format - ppm.
No problem, they open in GIMP and can be output as traditional tifs or jpgs.

Screenshot020520.png
 
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I use a 12" powerbook as my main workstation. Funny thing is I have a quad g5, dual g5, and a dual g4 but they generate too much heat, noise and take up too much space. The only exception is when browsing javascript heavy sites whereby I VNC into a cheap Xeon Linux box.

We run a farm. I record all the seedling and planting dates, design and print labels, manage my invoices and receipts, all from the little powerbook. We are also building a timber frame barn which I designed using sketchup 7 on the powerbook.
 
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I’ve been using the 12” PowerBook that got me through college an awful lot lately to play The Sims during quarantine. Other than that, I use the same PowerBook an awful lot for creative writing because I still love its keyboard, and I use it whenever I need to change settings on one of my AirPort base stations around the house because the old setup utility is so much handier.
 
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Unfortunately my PPCs are on standby just now.
Had to fix 3 early intels for my colleague's home-office (15"MBP4,1 A1260 for VPN/RemoteDesktop to the WinServer at the office).
Unfortunately I couldn't get the Powerbooks do that task (VPN: no Cisco IPSec; RDP: no Client for PPC with working certificate-handling), even though I tried a lot during the last few years ...
Because of the shutdown no meetings - my beamer-companion and fax-machine, an iBook-G4, is also on standby.
My current DD is an A1260 too, because I also depend on VPN/RDP and I use it for watching streaming-video.
Even Starcraft moved from the PB-G4 to a Win2k virtual-machine recently ...
I really enjoy the Powerbook-like feeling of the A1260 combined with SSD, USB 3 and Mojave.
They really should have made an early-intel 12" MBP ... 😍
 
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Synced an old iPod Shuffle of mine from 2007/2008 on my Sawtooth running Leopard. Been getting quite nostalgic for old iPods lately. Wish my 5th gen iPod didn't have a smashed screen, so I could've synced that too. Might buy one from eBay. If I get the 60gb model I could fit my entire library, but I have so much nostalgia for the 30gb one since that was my first ever iPod.

If I could use my Sawtooth as my daily driver instead of my Windows 10 laptop and iPhone XI I would, but I can't. Still love using the Sawtooth though on the occasions when I can use it.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Do they all have the fixed GPU?
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No - not all, but two "emerald-books" with the green dot.
I primarily got A1260s for me and for the option of home-office. Additionally a unit as a present for my nice, one for a friend
and also 3 very cheap units for spare parts (sold as partially defective or non functional).
Then I became aware, the GPU is the critical part and prone to fail ...
My nice happend to overheat hers MBP within 3 weeks (placed beneath cushions while watching streaming-video) and I gave her my 2008_13"_MB-unibody and got the "burned" A1260 back.
One of the defective units (only isight-cam defective and some bumps and scratches) turned out to be a gem - carrying the green-dot, what a surprise under the ugly hood!
Finally I managed to apply "my temporary fix" (AKA "Voldemort") on 3 defective logic-boards/GPUs (those ones meant for replacement) and I still have the initially purchased working units left on stand-by (one of them sports a green dot too) for the very occasion, that those revived spare-part-machines should fail. (Which hopefully won't ever happen - my father was a baker ... ;))
You may call me crazy, but the whole stuff hasn't been more expensive, than my first Mac - a 2009 13" MBP - or any fully equipped workstation at the office.
I've learned a lot of lessons while here in the PPC-forum.
 
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