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Why do people still use PowerPC Macs?

Intelligent said:
Why do people still use PowerPC macs? I'm just wondering, not saying its bad or anything. I see a lot of threads where people buy them for web browsing and stuff, why would you want different computers, why not just buy one newer and use it for everything.

Thanks.
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For me, it's about the ability to customize the hardware, even if limited in comparison to an IBM-compatible but easier to work on than the modern Mac's and that they're now older, but still relevant.

I've recently rebuilt an iMac G5 and have bought from eBay a PowerMac G5 to tinker with which should arrive tomorrow.
 
Better question might be, why didn't you stop?

I'm typing this on a G4 PowerBook from late 2004, 1.5 GHz processor with 1GB RAM, came with an 80 GB HDD. It's still as gorgeous to me as the day I got it. 17" screen, brushed aluminum case without a scratch on it, sleek and thin. Yeah, it's gotten slower. Yeah, I had to replace the hard drive earlier this year when it finally failed after nine years of daily use and being lugged around the country. Yeah, it only runs Leopard, and I have to use TenFourFox (thank you, TenFourFox) for a browser so no flash. Can't upgrade any of my software any more, which has saved me a ton of money as I'm still using Photoshop CS from 2005. The only physical problem with the machine is the port where the power adapter plugs in is getting quirky, and I have to keep some downward pressure on the small adapter to keep the orange light on, which always stays orange so the battery is probably ruined by now, too. Other than that? Perfect machine. It's only in the last year that I've changed what I need to do - I can't upgrade RapidWeaver any more to support the new mobile pages, and I would like to watch some of the video links people send me - that I decided I needed to upgrade. I'm just waiting for the new Mini to come out, because now a tablet covers most of the mobility issues and I can save a lot of money with a mini.

I'm old school. Had a computer with an acoustic coupler for what passed for getting on line at the time. Built my first computer with the best high end components for the time - I even sprang for the CPU with the math coprocessor, a blazing Intel 386 with, as I recall, SIXTEEN MEGABYTES of RAM, woot woot! Since I was in IT, I used to get laptops to bring home and I upgraded every thing I could. PDAs, printers, phones, modems, keyboards, pointing device thingies, speakers, monitors, fans, cases, power supplies, any time something new came out I had to have it. And you know, it was all so short-lived. Next year or next month would be something newer better harder or faster and I had to get that. At some point there was just a sea change in what I cared about. The PPC was so much finer than anything I'd ever had, and so powerful, and it aged so well, and it doesn't frustrate me, it continues to give pleasure. It's peaceful. I don't feel anxious if I don't have the latest tech. I don't feel unhappy using this machine. It's still as beautiful to use as it ever was. Maybe that's the real answer here: the aesthetics and grace are so much more powerful than any competitor, so it takes quite a difference in functionality to be worth making a change. If I have the choice, I won't choose a more powerful, ugly tool over a finely engineered, graceful, adequate one.

When I get the new Mac, this one will continue to live on. I've gone over to bookbinding, which is the least modern job I could find, and it will serve in the bindery to look up data, edit pictures of books, play DVDs, and show me pretty pictures from the USB microscope of torn books. I think as long as I can get parts for it, I will keep using it. Speaking of which, any advice on fixing the power charger port, or anybody got some batteries or parts to sell from those old machines that need to go to a farm in the country - I've got the farm in the country and they can live out the rest of their lifespans in peace.

Sorry for the long post, but this questions gets at much more than just old tech vs. new tech. It's a mindset, an attitude. Finding pleasure in this old machine does more than just keep things out of a landfill - if we could all dial back on our needs and learn to be happy with what we have, the world really would be a better place.
 
I use my G5 Quad to play videos in my room. It can play 1080p video files and SD web videos. When it's cold I do processor intensive tasks to heat my room.

It's about as fast as my Core 2 Quad Wintel machine at encoding videos with Handbrake. Also the G5 is still faster(per core) than a modern Intel at distributed.net.

Nostalgia has something to do with it too. I thought G5s were so cool when they came out. And It's cool they are the last serious Unix based RISC desktop/workstation (that I know of). I am new to Mac but I'm excited to have my first Unix based PC. I can't wait to tinker with it.
 
I grew up enjoying PPC Macs. From the iMac DV-SE through two PowerBooks and now with my G5, I've had a lot of fun over the past 14 years. For the past two years, I've been building my own setups and I am very impressed with how things work. Learning IDE jumper settings was a pain, but after that, I've got it down. All of the software I use works without any issues, I can make movies and listen to music on a Mac with the Pro Speakers which sound brilliant, and I can do everything I need on my G4s and G5s.

The Intel Macs scare me, though some of the Xeon expansion options in the Mac Pros light me up sometimes.
 
I would love a new Mac Pro over my PowerMac G5, but I dont have 4k to spend on a desktop. My PPC can't do much editing, Netflix, but it can run MS Office, Most sites load, and its not slow for a computer of its age.
 
jrsx said:
Nope. This screensaver isn't supported on PowerPC.
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EDIT: I just saw that you already figured this out!

For Anyone else that still needs it though...

There was an older version that worked. The older version has the large block colon between the hours and minutes. The new version available on the site also works, but you have to show the package contents and drag the "iOS 7 lockscreen by bodysoulspirit.qtz" into your Screensavers folder.

http://bodysoulspirit.weebly.com/ios-7-screensaver-for-mac-os-x-by-bodysoulspirit.html

1. Download the ios_7_lockscreen_by_bodysoulspirit.dmg
2. Double click the dmg
3. Right-click on the "Install iOS 7 screensaver" and go to "Show Package Contents" (Quick note here, you cannot click on the "Install iOS 7 Screensaver" image itself for some reason, but you can right-click on the name of the file)
4. Go to Contents>Resources and you will find the "iOS 7 lockscreen by bodysoulspirit.qtz" file
5. Drag this file to your Screensavers folder in System>Library>Screensavers

You're all set. This new version has the skinnier colon between the hour and minutes and has more options. It looks great.
 
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iOS 7 lockscreen PPC!

BodySoulSpirit (the maker of the screensaver) has been talking to me via email, and he has decided to create a PPC installer! I created a drag-and-drop installer for him, but a lot of people delete their screensavers library folder, so a full installer is necessary. Between that and schoolwork, he should have it out within due time.
 
nemesiswar said:
Quite honestly i dont know if its in my head or true, I get the feeling of more stability when on a PPC machine rather on a x86 machine no matter what OS im running and that things work the way they should...
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I have this same "vibe" from my 68k Classic Macs. Particularly the Mac IIfx when the Radius Rocket 68040 is enabled. I must admit - it "drags" a little on only the original CPU. I can't decide between OS 7.6 and OS 8 for the most reliable.

I've designed PPC embedded hardware, but had no Mac experience with it. I would probably pick the last PPC MacMini as a toy, were I so inclined.

Quite happy with MacMini 2,1 (intel) but it does lack that "solid" feel I get from the Mac IIfx. Still much better than a Windows machine - and I can't really go back and retain the stable of Apps I need on a daily basis.

I can see the next machine in my future though - the new MacPro. It's been so long since my daily driver had ECC memory... but I think that "solid feel" may well accompany it. Hope so -
 
I don't understand why you guys hang on to them for design. The only time design matters, is if it's bad design, then it should be fixed. But my Mac mini 2012 is designed well, and I'm fine with that. A regular ass tower PC is designed well. You don't NEED to have an iLamp as a computer, and as cool as those things are, it's really not worth the compromise of usability. I'm aware that there are ways to make PPC macs still usable, but is it still more of a hassle then just using an intel mac. And to people who want to use OS X and aren't able to spend the dough on a brand new mac, that's fine, and I respect what you're doing, and PPC macs have plenty of other uses, like File Servers, or Linux Distro (if ya know what I mean) boxes, but PPC is really close to being dead, and you can't deny that, and hanging on to them because of the way they look is a silly oversight at best. I award your arguments no points, and may God have mercy on your souls.
 
SusanK said:
I needed my iBook this morning. Trouble shooting network issues, no Internet access. MBA running ML does not support the Airport Utility for my AE. I used the iBook. Got the error message that the issue was at the cable modem.

Double checked with Acer netbook running Win 7. Same message. Called Time Warner. Area wide outage. Service restored about 5 hours later.

Bottom line, PPC Macs and Wintel pc support my AE. Updated Mac does not :(
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I can't help but see the real issue here is that you're using an Apple Airport, which uses the Airport Utility to administer it, instead of every other brand of wireless router in existence, that has a web-based admin system you can access from any computer regardless of OS -- or not even a computer. I've walked people through fixing stuff using iPhones and Android tablets, too.

Also, not sure what the details were on your outage but you might have been able to determine the status of your Time-Warner internet connection just by looking at the lights on your modem. ;)

Edit: I do give you props for actually trying to determine the problem on your side in some way. So many people I talk to it's "webpage will not come up on browser = you're having a problem", ignoring that there are like 27 steps between what they see on screen and the site they're trying to access.

True fact: over 75% of the issue people have using the Internet that they blame on their provider are not the provider's issue.
 
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I still use some classic applications (MathCad, Blueprint CAD and FrameMaker). After my G5 Dual 1.8 died, I was happy to replace it by a faster G5 Dual Core 2.3.
 
SeaFox said:
I can't help but see the real issue here is that you're using an Apple Airport, which uses the Airport Utility to administer it, instead of every other brand of wireless router in existence, that has a web-based admin system you can access from any computer regardless of OS -- or not even a computer. I've walked people through fixing stuff using iPhones and Android tablets, too.

Also, not sure what the details were on your outage but you might have been able to determine the status of your Time-Warner internet connection just by looking at the lights on your modem. ;)

Edit: I do give you props for actually trying to determine the problem on your side in some way. So many people I talk to it's "webpage will not come up on browser = you're having a problem", ignoring that there are like 27 steps between what they see on screen and the site they're trying to access.

True fact: over 75% of the issue people have using the Internet that they blame on their provider are not the provider's issue.
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SeaFox, I am using Airport Extreme A1034 connected via Ethernet to Motorola SB5101 provided by TWC. Lights on cable modem looked as they should. I could connect to LAN but had no Internet access.

I did the usual basic troubleshooting, power cycle etc. My Airport Extreme requires AU 5.6 to administer. Apple no longer supports this version of AU in Mountain Lion. AU 5.6 is available for download from apple.com but cannot be installed on Lion 7.5 or Mountain Lion. Once installed the utility will run on both. Support for AU 5.6 is broken in Mavericks.

I used the iBook running 10.3.9 to check the AE. I booted Win 7 just to see if I got the same message. I did.

At that point I called TWC help desk. The rep told me there was an outage in my entire metropolitan area. Techs were working to restore service. Per the rep the problem was with a node serving my area.

There was no reason to phone TWC before checking things on my side.

Two days ago I downloaded AU 5.6 on Mountain Lion using Pacifist to open the package so the utility could be installed on ML.

Once installed AU 5.6 coexists peacefully with AU 6.3.1 included with ML.

There are a few workarounds on the user forum for Airport at Apple's site. That info is removed frequently by the host. I hung around long enough to get the info and did the install successfully.

Now if that wonderful team at Apple could do something other than talk it would not be necessary to attempt to render our working hardware inoperative to push current hardware.

If my AE dies of natural causes I will definitely look at another AE. If Apple bricks it or something to that effect I will not replace it with another Apple device on principle.

There is a workaround available for Mavericks as well. The link bots on apple.com are quick. if anyone is interested, don't blink.
 
SusanK said:
There was no reason to phone TWC before checking things on my side.
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This is a beautiful statement. Thank you, And it does sound like it was more than a simple outage if the modem still had sync. Last time I had an outage like that on my own service it was the DNS servers that were offline.

SusanK said:
Two days ago I downloaded AU 5.6 on Mountain Lion using Pacifist to open the package so the utility could be installed on ML.

Once installed AU 5.6 coexists peacefully with AU 6.3.1 included with ML.

There are a few workarounds on the user forum for Airport at Apple's site. That info is removed frequently by the host. I hung around long enough to get the info and did the install successfully.

Now if that wonderful team at Apple could do something other than talk it would not be necessary to attempt to render our working hardware inoperative to push current hardware.
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It's good to hear you found a solution to your problem, but I also feel such actions shouldn't be necessary on your part.

SusanK said:
If my AE dies of natural causes I will definitely look at another AE.
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Can I ask why you're loyal to the Apple router line? They are only "average" hardware-quality wise, and have less features than many less expensive products, and that's completely ignoring the app-based administration trying to keep you on the upgrade treadmill. I have an eight-year-old Linksys and I control it equally well from my Windows 8.1 desktop or my iBook G4 running Tiger.

Frankly, needing software on a computer to admin a router is suspicious IMNSHO. The router is a stand-alone device. Whenever I see instructions asking a user to run a "installation CD" to use their new router I mentally add "so we can install our spyware on your computer" to the sentence. Now, I don't think Apple is doing any snooping of this sort (I think they're a little too classy for that), but if you've heard anything about Cisco's new "cloud-based" router administration firmware you'll know what I mean.
 
ConfusedBatman said:
I don't understand why you guys hang on to them for design. The only time design matters, is if it's bad design, then it should be fixed. But my Mac mini 2012 is designed well, and I'm fine with that. A regular ass tower PC is designed well. You don't NEED to have an iLamp as a computer, and as cool as those things are, it's really not worth the compromise of usability. I'm aware that there are ways to make PPC macs still usable, but is it still more of a hassle then just using an intel mac. And to people who want to use OS X and aren't able to spend the dough on a brand new mac, that's fine, and I respect what you're doing, and PPC macs have plenty of other uses, like File Servers, or Linux Distro (if ya know what I mean) boxes, but PPC is really close to being dead, and you can't deny that, and hanging on to them because of the way they look is a silly oversight at best. I award your arguments no points, and may God have mercy on your souls.
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i'm sure you feel that way. most people do. that's all right. but i just love some of these older designs including my favorite, the g4 imac.
 
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SeaFox said:
This is a beautiful statement. Thank you, And it does sound like it was more than a simple outage if the modem still had sync. Last time I had an outage like that on my own service it was the DNS servers that were offline.



It's good to hear you found a solution to your problem, but I also feel such actions shouldn't be necessary on your part.



Can I ask why you're loyal to the Apple router line? They are only "average" hardware-quality wise, and have less features than many less expensive products, and that's completely ignoring the app-based administration trying to keep you on the upgrade treadmill. I have an eight-year-old Linksys and I control it equally well from my Windows 8.1 desktop or my iBook G4 running Tiger.

Frankly, needing software on a computer to admin a router is suspicious IMNSHO. The router is a stand-alone device. Whenever I see instructions asking a user to run a "installation CD" to use their new router I mentally add "so we can install our spyware on your computer" to the sentence. Now, I don't think Apple is doing any snooping of this sort (I think they're a little too classy for that), but if you've heard anything about Cisco's new "cloud-based" router administration firmware you'll know what I mean.
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SeaFox,

Thanks for the kind words on my attempt to troubleshoot the network before phoning the ISP. It saves time for all. My wireless skills are basic. I'm in the "is it plugged in class". Power cycle usually gets me up and running. Rarely is it necessary to contact the ISP.

I strongly agree that a third party solution to use an Apple product with another Apple product should not be necessary. This has not always been in my experience.

If my AE dies I would look at Apple's offering but I am no longer married to Apple. The access point in use now is an oldie but goodie. It has a 56k modem. We bought it while still dialup customers. Been awhile. At that time cable Internet was very costly. DLS was slow so we were dialup.

TWC made an attractive offer for cable service so we called. The offer was for a wired connection with the usual up sell attempt. We had Airport Extreme so I gave it a try. It works beautifully so we enjoy the more favorable price of the wired service.

When the time comes for a replacement checking with the ISP for wireless service would be the first thing. We do have another AE so that's an option.

I'm not thrilled with what appears to be Apple's attempt to force a purchase by rendering good equipment unusable.

I much preferred Steve's Apple. He seduced us with insanely great products that we wanted. Presentations were fascinating. Good times :)

Thanks for your thoughts on other wireless equipment. When my AE dies I will hold services and then check for all available options.

Cheers.
 
ConfusedBatman said:
I don't understand why you guys hang on to them for design. The only time design matters, is if it's bad design, then it should be fixed. But my Mac mini 2012 is designed well, and I'm fine with that. A regular ass tower PC is designed well. You don't NEED to have an iLamp as a computer, and as cool as those things are, it's really not worth the compromise of usability. I'm aware that there are ways to make PPC macs still usable, but is it still more of a hassle then just using an intel mac. And to people who want to use OS X and aren't able to spend the dough on a brand new mac, that's fine, and I respect what you're doing, and PPC macs have plenty of other uses, like File Servers, or Linux Distro (if ya know what I mean) boxes, but PPC is really close to being dead, and you can't deny that, and hanging on to them because of the way they look is a silly oversight at best. I award your arguments no points, and may God have mercy on your souls.
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I'm not certain I could speak for every one of us PPC diehards, but to try and put it simply: we know them inside and out, we know what they can and cannot do, and push their boundaries for the fun of the challenge; we're quite fond of how they look, work and feel, and to us they have a character and connection that Intel Macs simply never will have.

We know how to make them work for us, and the fact that there are still so many relying on a "dead" architecture for their personal and even professional use just goes to show how well designed in not just appearence, but functionality and longevity they were.

We know what we like and you can't take that away from us. :p
 
SkyBell said:
I'm not certain I could speak for every one of us PPC diehards, but to try and put it simply: we know them inside and out, we know what they can and cannot do, and push their boundaries for the fun of the challenge; we're quite fond of how they look, work and feel, and to us they have a character and connection that Intel Macs simply never will have.

We know how to make them work for us, and the fact that there are still so many relying on a "dead" architecture for their personal and even professional use just goes to show how well designed in not just appearence, but functionality and longevity they were.

We know what we like and you can't take that away from us. :p
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Yes, we love them :) My iBook was my first Mac notebook. Still love it and use it. Great machine.
 
I have a Apple Cube G4 that is bone stock except the prior owner had installed a new 80 GB hard drive. I have acquired everything to use it as my music server in my computer room. I found Harmon Kardon Soundsticks that sound excellent and I transferred all of my music CD's to the G4 and play my favorite music.

I have had Mac's since 1991 and they have all lasted longer then any of my 4 brothers and my 2 sisters computers. They have all ended up coming to me to teach them Apple and gone on to either get a Apple from me or bought their own.

I have had a G3 iMac that lasted from the day I bought new when they were introduced until last year when the power supply on it shorted out and took down the entire computer.

Yeah I have mainly intel Apples now but I love the old Power PC Mac's as they are durable, well engineered and all are attentively done.
 
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