You are perfectly situated to employ a Sasquatch cam. I'm tired of looking at the Bob Gimlin footage.
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What to do with a G4 Mac mini
- Thread starter zachiedoo
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In that case he needs to ensure the webcam is QCIF resolution at 12FPS - everyone knows HD footage aint real....You are perfectly situated to employ a Sasquatch cam. I'm tired of looking at the Bob Gimlin footage.
The Internet Viewcam must be used, set to record in 160×120 at 2 FPS.
This is intriguing. I've done a little research just now. This will be a steep learning curve. 😝
ETA: We have an unused antenna tower that could serve here.
You did this once, right? Could you link to how it worked again?Leave it headless and connect it to a webcam looking out of your window and transmit to the world
OK, we have a winner. It can't record videos though!
“What to Do with a G4 Mac mini, or 101 ways to capture Blobsquatch”
Yes, that card will give you the full giggly bite the Mini can take
Bear in mind either Sorbet or standard Leopard without a fully compliant GPU (which can't be replaced in the Mini) will nibble away some CPU cycles in graphic duties - however, in practice you'll hardly notice.
Sorbet is recommended if you want a shortcut to an optimised setup instead of doing it yourself - however, there may be something down the line you try to install that expects a standard Leopard install that Sorbet has removed or replaced.
Really, what you intend to use it for dictates a lot of these choices...
Well, what I'm exploring right now is the ADS-B idea mentioned here. But I'm really not sure what use I'll put it to yet. So if I understand you right, the graphics card in my mini can't be changed?Yes, that card will give you the full giggly bite the Mini can take
Bear in mind either Sorbet or standard Leopard without a fully compliant GPU (which can't be replaced in the Mini) will nibble away some CPU cycles in graphic duties - however, in practice you'll hardly notice.
Sorbet is recommended if you want a shortcut to an optimised setup instead of doing it yourself - however, there may be something down the line you try to install that expects a standard Leopard install that Sorbet has removed or replaced.
Really, what you intend to use it for dictates a lot of these choices...
For now, I'm going ahead with the SSD and RAM upgrades, then I'll see where I go next.
Yes, I've no idea of the software availability for that on PowerPC - might be worth looking first but the usual hurdle is connecting online, most PowerPC apps from yesteryear that go online have an obsolete security layer that no longer works with modern connections.
I've not heard of anyone replacing the graphics card - certainly would be a re-soldering job.
So then there's no point adding an airport card while it's open. There's so much I don't know, but I'm learning some every day.
ETA: I don't think the ADS-B idea will pan out. The details I found for setting it up (already quite complicated for me) talk about OS X 10.11, which won't run on the G4 mini.
For fun and completion’s sake, sure. For everyday use, you’ll be better off using an 802.11n USB adapter with software/drivers known to work on PPC Macs, or using Ethernet, to get the most throughput — far and above what 802.11g can deliver.
No worries! That’s what this forum is all about.
Yah, current software-defined radio, or SDR-related projects — ADS-B from one’s laptop or desktop relies on SDR — seem to be limited to Intel Macs running a later version of macOS (though there are a few projects out there which will run on Snow Leopard 10.6.8). This isn’t terribly surprising, as a lot of the DIY SDR projects only came into being a few years after Apple switched to Intel, when savvy minds realized a particular Realtek chip intended for receiving DVT — digital video television — could also be used for receiving radio frequencies between about 30MHz and 1.6GHz, right out of the box (and with some homemade software to key into that).
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find any older SDR software known to work on even the fastest and last of the PowerPC Macs. Were one to emerge, I fear it would require either multiple processors or multiple cores — such as the later, multiple-processor Power Mac G4s and all the multi-processor and multi-core Power Mac G5s. Realistically, I get the sense the best-suited PowerPC Macs for the task would the late-2005 multi-core G5s — the A1117s.
Wow. Thank you for such a complete explanation of the SDR/ADS-B topic.For fun and completion’s sake, sure. For everyday use, you’ll be better off using an 802.11n USB adapter with software/drivers known to work on PPC Macs, or using Ethernet, to get the most throughput — far and above what 802.11g can deliver.
No worries! That’s what this forum is all about.
Yah, current software-defined radio, or SDR-related projects — ADS-B from one’s laptop or desktop relies on SDR — seem to be limited to Intel Macs running a later version of macOS (though there are a few projects out there which will run on Snow Leopard 10.6.8). This isn’t terribly surprising, as a lot of the DIY SDR projects only came into being a few years after Apple switched to Intel, when savvy minds realized a particular Realtek chip intended for receiving DVT — digital video television — could also be used for receiving radio frequencies between about 30MHz and 1.6GHz, right out of the box (and with some homemade software to key into that).
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find any older SDR software known to work on even the fastest and last of the PowerPC Macs. Were one to emerge, I fear it would require either multiple processors or multiple cores — such as the later, multiple-processor Power Mac G4s and all the multi-processor and multi-core Power Mac G5s. Realistically, I get the sense the best-suited PowerPC Macs for the task would the late-2005 multi-core G5s — the A1117s.
As for networking, I'll just connect it by ethernet. I think I'll stick with the idea of trying to make it a central music library accessible on the home network.
Yes, because it’s soldered onto the mainboard. This doesn’t mean it cannot be replaced no matter what, but it would require desoldering the current GPU, finding a new one that is compatible and soldering that onto the board.
More to the point: GPU manufacturers create unique, proprietary socket footprints for each of their GPUs — which is why swapping out GPUs isn’t very practicable on soldered systems such as laptops or all-in-one desktops like the Mac mini. Standardization of sockets never really happened in the GPU realm the way they did in the CPU realm.
Sure thing! I’ve spent a bit of time the last year or so trying our SDR on my early Intel Macs, and it’s been an impressive learning experience so far.
This will give you the lowest latency and is perfect for iTunes. Like you, my music and music video libraries live on a server, and I use networking to access those on other Macs.
There’s MXM, which is used by some iMacs, so you can upgrade the GPU in those.
Wow. I had no idea that was a thing! It’s a shame it didn’t carry on through to the 2013 iMacs: I could have added “improved GPU” to my grocery list of “stuff to upgrade all at once” on my A1418.
Technically, you can hook up a better GPU via Thunderbolt 1 but it would be bottlenecked (due to being restricted to four PCIe 1.0 lanes) and require an external screen to fully stretch its muscles.
Sadly, MXM sockets are kind of being phased out. Dell moved on to a proprietary socket for their Precision mobile workstations, and a lot of other OEMs are using them less and less. Clevo still uses them AFAIK.
@TheShortTimer and me have given this a go.
I use a Thunderbolt 2 eGPU “seriously” with my main Mac because its integrated GPU can’t run my monitors at their native resolution.
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We did and with fantastic results!
4K UHD playback on a 2011 MacBook Air! Who would've imagined such a thing? I bet Apple's engineers never did.