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What have you done with a PowerPC today?

I was messing around with Void Linux and found that it had a third-party CLI Spotify client in the repos. I installed it and it works! It's made of two packages - spotifyd and spotify-tui. You can stream music directly from Spotify with it but you need to have a premium account. It's really lightweight, I also got it working on my 500 MHz iBook G3 and it was playing smoothly.
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scarlett7447 said:
I was messing around with Void Linux and found that it had a third-party CLI Spotify client in the repos. I installed it and it works! It's made of two packages - spotifyd and spotify-tui. You can stream music directly from Spotify but you need to have a premium account. It's really lightweight, I also got it working on my 500 MHz iBook G3 and it was playing smoothly.View attachment 2106869
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Very pretty screen.....😵
 
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Streaming Youtube Live stream at 360p, using my G4 500MHz Sawtooth setup; ffplay uses 60% CPU average and playback has no stutter or freeze, all running wirelessly from an Airport Extreme PCI card.

Honestly, I'm not sure how this is possible, after lackluster results I've had on some G3s. Is it the G4 handling the video better, or the 500Mhz speed, or the 64mb Radeon 8500? Either way, it's very satisfying and makes this PPC machine very usable.
D7BD5D6F-D85A-4742-ADDE-2F5E01DB711C.jpeg
 
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Never seen before Mac-compatible non-apple keyboard (well, excluding my ancient Logitech Office Internet Navigator USB, which requires software for proper keys work) 🙂. Does it works fully natively?
 
Tratkazir_the_1st said:
Never seen before Mac-compatible non-apple keyboard (well, excluding my ancient Logitech Office Internet Navigator USB, which requires software for proper keys work) 🙂. Does it works fully natively?
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There are a ton of Mac-compatible 3rd party keyboards from this era – Macally is prominent, but there was also Kensington, Adesso, Filco, Micro Connectors, Macsense.

They all work natively, but some have drivers. My Macally iMediakey in the photo has OS 9 and OS X drivers, that are necessary for the media keys up the top (PPC only).
 
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Dronecatcher said:
I suspect it's Altivec plus the sizeable L2 cache - my Sawtooth 450Mhz happily streams 360P too:

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I'm in agreement. As was discussed here, the G3's really struggle in this respect due to the absence of Altivec and this was compensated for by the availability of third party cards for the PowerMac G3 models and substantial increases in the clock speeds.
 
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Technically it was yesterday, but I got something from my workplace's warehouse location a few towns over for my Apple collection...
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I'm gonna set up this 400 MHz iMac G3 (early 2001 model) as a retro Apple gaming machine! I've already ordered a RAM upgrade (gonna max it out to 1 GB) and a replacement PRAM battery, and I also plan to replace the original 20 GB hard drive with an 80 GB ATA hard drive (I'm probably going to get a 5400-RPM drive, so it doesn't get super-hot). Then I'm going to install Mac OS 9.2 on it and probably some version of Mac OS X (either Panther or Tiger) as a dual-boot configuration.
And since it's got a pair of FireWire 400 ports, I can use a FireWire-compatible external hard drive to transfer or copy files (even if I use a 6-pin to 9-pin adapter) so I don't have to deal with the pokey USB 1.1.

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I also already went and updated the firmware on this.
 
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I need to pick up a slot loader & off one of my tray loaders. I had a blueberry slot loader iirc was (500 or 600mhz?) many many moons ago and still miss it. If you can believe it, my cat Kenny at the time somehow knocked it off a top closet shelf and killed it ! Lol. Oh well dems da breaks.
 
Talking about Videos - I remember watching the trailer on RE Village on my VLC on my G5 (Dual back then) and thinking well if this even run on a Mac it'll be cool. Then the story is long and complicated but basically I bought a PC to play the game only to be released last month for M1 (where I bought it as well).
 
Btw Is AirPlay possible at all on the PPC - I tried compiling some open source project and on 10.6 I had some success - my modern Apple Airplay devices were recognised but there were only options to stream a URL link and a picture or smh.
 
sasho648 said:
Btw Is AirPlay possible at all on the PPC [...]
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Airfoil is worth checking out. Version 3.5.7 is the last one for Leopard.

Apart from that, you might have more look with an older AirPort Express at the receiving end.
I also remember using AirServer 3.1.2 on a PowerBook G4 running Tiger to receive an AirPlay audio stream from an iPhone, but don't remember which version of iOS it was running. Maybe iOS 6.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Wow, that looks great. What's noise and power consumption like?
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It's pretty quiet actually! You can barely hear the fans. Power usage is also pretty good, it stays around 100w plus or minus depending on the load


ifrit05 said:
How much that cost ya? Lol.
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The cpu and board plus heatsink were around 2k, and it's since gone up form when I bought it 😕 The stimulus checks helped out a lot haha
 
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Great friend’s brother gave me a G5 Dual 2.0, complete with box, unused keyboard and mouse, along with a Mac Pro 3,1.

Both have seen some upgrades (actually quite a few on the 3,1) with the G5 only a single drive added, and it has sat unused (Sadly) in the corner of my living room for weeks.

I short term gave up on the G5 as I wasn't able to boot this system using my external Firewire drive, nor any USB so I was stuck on the base 10.3 install that came on it. Knowing I had DVDs around the house (someplace) never got to the point of trying open firmware, or other methods. Nearly all of my software required 10.4 or newer, so the system was somewhat worthless to me 🙁.

Last night I found my old Tiger install DVD (and a packaged T-shirt from the day I purchased it at Apple) and got to work today on getting this system upgraded!
  • Installed 10.4 from DVD
  • Patched it to 10.4.11
  • Installed X-Code
  • Installed Aperture 2 (Thank heavens I still had my license key)
  • Patched / compiled / installed a fresh copy of TFF
  • Ordered up some treats!
    • Ebay order of some software
      • Final Cut Express
      • iLife 08
      • NOS 10.5 Install DVD / Box
      • 8GB of RAM
      • 512 SSD for the new OS
Fairly sure this system will stay in regular use, and looking forward to diving back into some old projects using software versions I like from the older days. Not quite as cool as my 840av, but still super happy.

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