You Can/Can't Still Use PowerPC Macs in 2020!

[1042686]

Your expectations are way too high. Unless you have browsed the web on a 100 MHz Pentium with 16 MB RAM, you haven't browsed the web. That blog is, for lack of a better word, fascinating.

lol my first windows box was a 486 w/ 8 or 16mb ram running win95 over 28.8 dialup & Netscape lol. This was in 1994 ... maybe 93? I don’t exactly recall. Commander keen, Wing Commander, and Ultima something er other is what I burned most of my time with. I do wish I still had that little beige box tho. If for no other feature than the lil green led turbo button & lock feature & a legit model M keyboard my Dad gave me. I hadn’t really caught the Inet gaming bug yet, so didn’t focus much on that (especially since our phone lines sucked, so connectivity was horrendously wait-for-pictures-to-resolve slow & broadband didn’t arrive until 1999-2000 in my parents neighborhood). Everything about that experience was slow, even by mid 90’s standards.

Loved it.

 

[TheShortTimer]

lol my first windows box was a 486 w/ 8 or 16mb ram running win95 over 28.8 dialup & Netscape lol. This was in 1994 ... maybe 93? I don’t exactly recall. Commander keen, Wing Commander, and Ultima something er other is what I burned most of my time with. I do wish I still had that little beige box tho. If for no other feature than the lil green led turbo button & lock feature & a legit model M keyboard my Dad gave me. I hadn’t really caught the Inet gaming bug yet, so didn’t focus much on that (especially since our phone lines sucked, so connectivity was horrendously wait-for-pictures-to-resolve slow).

16 meg, 8 meg - you were all living it up! 😮

During that period I had a computer with 1 meg of RAM and a 7Mhz CPU. 😂

 

[eyoungren]

16 meg, 8 meg - you were all living it up! 😮

During that period I had a computer with 1 meg of RAM and a 7Mhz CPU. 😂

I had a 486 during the mid-90s, with 1mb ram. My wife (girlfriend at the time) bought me a game for Christmas and when the guys at work found out about it they took up a collection to buy me 4mb of ram so I could run the game.

That was back during my DOS days when I firmly believed that both Windows and Mac OS were crutches for people who refused to learn DOS.

I got my first 1GB hard drive for that 486. Cost me $300.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I had a 486 during the mid-90s, with 1mb ram. My wife (girlfriend at the time) bought me a game for Christmas and when the guys at work found out about it they took up a collection to buy me 4mb of ram so I could run the game.

That's amazing! You had some wonderful colleagues. What was the game?

That was back during my DOS days when I firmly believed that both Windows and Mac OS were crutches for people who refused to learn DOS.

I got my first 1GB hard drive for that 486. Cost me $300.

It was only in 2000 that I waded into Win 9x - and with great reluctance. Prior to that, I ran Win 3.11 with DOS on a 486 and for a few years, DOS alone on a PII and I ensured right up till 2008 that I had a PC which could run real-mode DOS for gaming.

 

[1042686]

DOS Smosh - you guys needed to get with the times, man!

Most of my games ran in DOS & not in Windows. WinXX didn’t really hold much relevance for me until I discovered online FPS team game play, Internet porn & sub100 latency broadband in the late 90s.

 

[eyoungren]

That's amazing! You had some wonderful colleagues. What was the game?

Daggerfall.

It wasn't so much amazing as it was exasperation on their part. I was constantly being asked what games I played and my answer was always several years out of date. So my wife got me a modern (at the time) game and I couldn't play it but wasn't really concerned about that as I'd never done anything in that world. So, it was more of a "Here, take this, install it in your computer and play the DAMN game!"

That was back when WOW was getting big and they were also exasperated that I wasn't involved in that.

More like that.

It was only in 2000 that I waded into Win 9x - and with great reluctance. Prior to that, I ran Win 3.11 with DOS on a 486 and for a few years, DOS alone on a PII and I ensured right up till 2008 that I had a PC which could run real-mode DOS for gaming.

I had a Pentium something by '98. Wasn't really paying attention to internals (other than hard drives). But it got more and more difficult to avoid using Windows because more games required it. I hated finally having to break down and use it.

 

[Amethyst1]

During that period I had a computer with 1 meg of RAM and a 7Mhz CPU. 😂

I'm there with you - I had a 16 MHz 386 with 2 MB RAM until 1998 or so. "Internet - what's that?" That box provided me with hours of enjoyment playing early-90s games.
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I was constantly being asked what games I played and my answer was always several years out of date.

Same here - that 386 just wasn't up to more modern games so when all my friends talked about the latest games on their PC, N64, Sega, PS1 etc. I remained suspiciously quiet to avoid being called out for playing "old junk" none of them had even heard of.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Most of my games ran in DOS & not in Windows.

I deliberately sought out games, other types of software and controllers that did not require Windows. A work colleague thought I was insane. 😂

Daggerfall.

It wasn't so much amazing as it was exasperation on their part. I was constantly being asked what games I played and my answer was always several years out of date. So my wife got me a modern (at the time) game and I couldn't play it but wasn't really concerned about that as I'd never done anything in that world. So, it was more of a "Here, take this, install it in your computer and play the DAMN game!"

That was back when WOW was getting big and they were also exasperated that I wasn't involved in that.

More like that.

Ah, yes - I've had those moments. Especially when I resisted succumbing to Win 9x - even when people offered to just burn a copy for me.

I had a Pentium something by '98. Wasn't really paying attention to internals (other than hard drives). But it got more and more difficult to avoid using Windows because more games required it. I hated finally having to break down and use it.

I too hated the increasingly unavoidable realisation that I'd have to give in and use Win 9x. At one point I tried OS/2 but by that stage IBM had thrown in the towel and didn't even offer telephone support: iirc you were expected to contact them by email, this was at a time when even dial up wasn't that widespread in the UK. Similar to you and @RhianB Windows became a necessity for running an increasing amount of games and also to get online if you owned a PC.

On the bright side I'm now a Mac convert and those days are thankfully behind me.

I'm there with you - I had a 16 MHz 386 with 2 MB RAM until 1998 or so. "Internet - what's that?" That box provided me with hours of enjoyment playing early-90s games.

My dad bought a couple of 386s and they remained in use right up till the millennium. I've got one of them and I imagine it still works. I should try it.

Same here - that 386 just wasn't up to more modern games so when all my friends talked about the latest games on their PC, N64, Sega, PS1 etc. I remained suspiciously quiet to avoid being called out for playing "old junk" none of them had even heard of.

That happened to me with my Commodore Amiga. I still have that, boxed too. 🤗

 

[eyoungren]

On the bright side I'm now a Mac convert and those days are thankfully behind me.

This happened to me some time in 2003. I'd had a TiBook 400 for two years, given to me by my mom for Christmas. But I didn't use it much as my PC tower at the time was my main machine.

Then I had issues. Back then with PC there was a drive limit (much like early Macs) and I had a drive overlay to allow me to access the drive. The PC started to fail, the drive overlay broke and I lost all my data.

A while later I was attempting to access files on a 250mb USB Zip drive from my TiBook. The drive decided to fail and I lost all those files. That was the last sraw.

At work I had seen that even when crippled OS9 continued to function. We were able to get our newspapers out. Had we been PC/Windows everything would have ground to a halt. So, right after that Zip drive failure I converted.

I got OS X installed on it, found apps and have not gone back to PC since (although I do own PCs).

All of that said, I believe that Windows 7 is one of MS's best OS's that they have ever created.

 

[Amethyst1]

All of that said, I believe that Windows 7 is one of MS's best OS's that they have ever created.

Agreed - is it just a coincidence that '7' and Snowy were released in the same year?
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I too hated the increasingly unavoidable realisation that I'd have to give in and use Win 9x. At one point I tried OS/2

I used NT for work and DOS (later 9x) for gaming. And behold the awesomeness of OS/2 - I'm still running the current version (ArcaOS) for kicks. It's hilarious to fire up a Win3.1 session in a window, just like it's 1993 all over again.

 

[defjam]

For him to declare that "There is no reasonable way to use a PowerPC Mac in 2020" is patently false and simply does not stand up to the most basic of scrutiny and evidence. I can't take his statement seriously because it involves a suspension of critical thinking.

Again it goes back to how one defines reasonable. As I previously stated it is, IMO, an unreasonable system to recommend to an average user. Can it be used? Certainly. Should it be used? Unlikely for the average user.
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I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it all depends on what you want to use the machine for. I bought a Mac mini G4 to run OS 9. It does that with flying colours. I have no intentions of ever browsing the web or doing transcoding on it.

Then you are not what I would consider the average user the YouTuber in the first video of the OP was referring to. Those people want to browse the Internet.

 

[defjam]

Because none of us browse the same way, even if we use the same browser. Let's take me and @Dronecatcher for instance. Both of us use T4FX, but he is a very big advocate for NoScript while I am a very big advocate for uMatrix. Both addons do much of the same thing but it's preference and choice. Now @z970mp advocates for foxPEP because he's invested a lot of time in optimizing both T4Fx and and other engines to make performance optimal.

How does one install NoScript or uMatrix with TenFourFox? I attempted to do so from Mozilla and there is no option given to install them. The only option is to get FireFox (which doesn't work with Leopard).

 

[Hughmac]

One installs the Classic Add-Ons Archive from https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive/releases, which holds older and TFF compatible versions of extensions

Cheers

Hugh

 

[Dronecatcher]

How does one install NoScript or uMatrix with TenFourFox? I attempted to do so from Mozilla and there is no option given to install them. The only option is to get FireFox (which doesn't work with Leopard).

They're also available individually here:

Release 1.1.4 · gorhill/uMatrix

Much translation work has been imported from https://crowdin.com/project/umatrix. Closed as fixed: Cloud storage merge button broken The pull-and-merge button does not visually render completely ...

github.com

TenFourFox - Browse /addons/archive at SourceForge.net

Mozilla for Power Macintosh

sourceforge.net

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I would venture that anything you do will be a disappointment as you are coming from a perspective of using multi-core Intel machines (to get the job done) - one has to come with a mindset of actively enjoying moving at a slower pace borne of using "redundant" hardware for the sake of it.

 

[defjam]

They're also available individually here:

Release 1.1.4 · gorhill/uMatrix

Much translation work has been imported from https://crowdin.com/project/umatrix. Closed as fixed: Cloud storage merge button broken The pull-and-merge button does not visually render completely ...

github.com

TenFourFox - Browse /addons/archive at SourceForge.net

Mozilla for Power Macintosh

sourceforge.net

I thank you and Hughmac for the links.

I would venture that anything you do will be a disappointment as you are coming from a perspective of using multi-core Intel machines (to get the job done) - one has to come with a mindset of actively enjoying moving at a slower pace borne of using "redundant" hardware for the sake of it.

It's not a matter of moving at a slower pace which is the issue. The issue is moving at a glacial pace. When scrolling down a page takes 10-15 seconds (or more) browsing become intolerable. It would be the equivalent of "watching" a video at 2-3 fps.

All that said I am happily typing this on my PowerMac G5 system now that I have uMatrix installed. It has helped considerably, at least when it comes to MacRumors. If other sites I visit retain this level of performance I would be very happy. It's not fast but it is usable. I can actually scroll up and down a page without the spinning cursor. Now off to browse other sites to see how they perform.

 

[eyoungren]

How does one install NoScript or uMatrix with TenFourFox? I attempted to do so from Mozilla and there is no option given to install them. The only option is to get FireFox (which doesn't work with Leopard).

@Hughmac abd @Dronecatcher have the solution. Mozilla changed the structure of plugins a while back and the old plugins are no longer available through them.
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I thank you and Hughmac for the links.

It's not a matter of moving at a slower pace which is the issue. The issue is moving at a glacial pace. When scrolling down a page takes 10-15 seconds (or more) browsing become intolerable. It would be the equivalent of "watching" a video at 2-3 fps.

All that said I am happily typing this on my PowerMac G5 system now that I have uMatrix installed. It has helped considerably, at least when it comes to MacRumors. If other sites I visit retain this level of performance I would be very happy. It's not fast but it is usable. I can actually scroll up and down a page without the spinning cursor. Now off to browse other sites to see how they perform.

The cool thing about uMatrix is that you can either come at a site using a shotgun or a scalpel approach. Typically, I tend to visit news sites that I have zero intention of ever revisiting. So, I will approach those sites using the 'All' category in uMatrix which allows all site content and some thirdparty content to load. I don't click the lock though so that if I do ever return these permissions are not retained.

On sites like MacRumors and Reddit and other places I tend to visit frequently I take the time to permit or block depending on what uMatrix tells me is loading. This gives me granular control of what I allow to load.

As you are already experiencing, it's this ability to block out the garbage while still allowing sites to retain functionality that is the benefit to this addon.

 

[Dronecatcher]

It's not a matter of moving at a slower pace which is the issue. The issue is moving at a glacial pace. When scrolling down a page takes 10-15 seconds (or more) browsing become intolerable.

That's it though, that pace is the norm when you haven't been spoilt by faster hardware. I almost exclusively browse now on my Intel Macs but when I switch to my Powerbook, the pace initially seems ridiculous but I soon adjust to the slower tempo. What is problematic is freezing or lack of functionality...but that's even coming to my Intel machines now.

 

[defjam]

As you are already experiencing, it's this ability to block out the garbage while still allowing sites to retain functionality that is the benefit to this addon.

I am definitely having a positive experience, at least with the couple of sites that I have visited so far (MR being one of them). No longer is it an exercise in frustration to merely scroll down a page. I have Activity Monitor running as the CPU history is much better with UMatrix. This does not come as a surprise to me as I had previously disabled Javascript and had a similar browsing experience. The problem with that was the all or nothing approach. I've always been of the mindset advertising is the devil when it comes to a browsing experience. Without it browsing, IMO, wouldn't require nearly the computing resources that are required to browse the modern Internet. Ironically I see no value add with all this performance sapping code. IMO there's no reason a single 1.8GHz PowerMac G5 should not be able to browse the web without having to resort to tweaking.
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That's it though, that pace is the norm when you haven't been spoilt by faster hardware. I almost exclusively browse now on my Intel Macs but when I switch to my Powerbook, the pace initially seems ridiculous but I soon adjust to the slower tempo. What is problematic is freezing or lack of functionality...but that's even coming to my Intel machines now.

For me it's never been about slower but more about unusable. I can unequivocally say the ability to browse the Internet, at least the coupe of sites I've been able to test thus far, with uMatrix is big improvement. It's not lightning quick but it make the experience possible. A big win.

 

[Lastic]

Wow, this was a long interesting read.

Having just recently bought another Atari 1040STe next to another 1040STfm, 2 x 130XE's and an 800XE , I guess I'm just happy with older systems.

I've spent the last 2 days trying to get STinG TCP/IP installed on a 4MB expanded 16bit Atari 1040STe just to be able to FTP to it.

I personally like to (be able to) tinker with computers, having multiple cheaper PPC's gives me the option to break/reinstall one system and use another one in the meantime.

I find it fun trying to get an older machine to run newer things , usually it works albeit slower.

I learned a lot from compiling from source, and still want to dabble further into Assembler,C,C++ which I never continued with once I started working , whereas work has me turning into a Python network-dev-engineer-ops something.

My work laptop that I bought beginning of this year after I got fed up of Windows10 on my Thinkpad X220 , is a MBp 13 non retina 2012 i7 , 16GB RAM . Sometimes it gets stuck , have to wait a sec and work continues.

In a world where everything flashes by , well not in this exact moment with all stuff happening right now, I enjoy taking a step back and enjoy the older,slower technology.

Would I recommend an PPC to a non-tinkerer ? No
Would I advise to buy an older Intel ? Yes but in my environment most opt for a future-proof machine

Since my current interest is leaning towards music and technology (but am completely tone-deaf) the G5 will get some use again soon , next to the Atari ST ...

Enjoy yourselves, have fun, and be safe

 

[Dronecatcher]

Since my current interest is leaning towards music and technology (but am completely tone-deaf) the G5 will get some use again soon , next to the Atari ST

Are you using the Ataris in a MIDI setup?

 

[z970]

It's not a matter of moving at a slower pace which is the issue. The issue is moving at a glacial pace. When scrolling down a page takes 10-15 seconds (or more) browsing become intolerable. It would be the equivalent of "watching" a video at 2-3 fps.

That's it though, that pace is the norm when you haven't been spoilt by faster hardware. I almost exclusively browse now on my Intel Macs but when I switch to my Powerbook, the pace initially seems ridiculous but I soon adjust to the slower tempo.

I am beginning to be of the opinion that there is something amiss with either your OS or G5. Even with the 1.25 GHz G4 w/o Core Image, on stock TenFourFox, running on vanilla Leopard system I'm sending from, there's never been any scrolling wait of 10 seconds. Hell, even 5.

Sure, there's currently a couple second delay scrolling through a page from top to bottom, and words entered do not instantaneously appear, but even in the current state, browsing is most certainly not glacial. Moreso "delayed" ...which is a far cry from what your 1.8 G5 should be able to pump out.

Otherwise, I agree with @Lastic's point about making use of old machines to take a slower, calmer look at the modern landscape. My question is, at what point does the constant immediate response times, flashy images, background audio / video, never ending advertising, and ultimate, absolute freedom to go wherever the Web could possibly offer, no matter how badly or lazily coded, become... tiring?

Because for me at least, that is indeed the case...

 

[Lastic]

Are you using the Ataris in a MIDI setup?

Just toying around, I got an 1MB upgraded 8 bit Atari 130XE which has MIDI IN and OUT ports like it's bigger brothers
1040STfm and 1040STE.

Also got an X3MB Buran (serdashop.be) synthesizer module so will probably hook it up via MIDI to toy around.
In my younger years I had a lot of bed/livingroom beat-making friends so it kinda rubbed off on me.

Going to try Cubase, Octalyser (OctadMED for Atari) and MaxYMiser .

So I was thinking of using the G5 (got an Macpro 1.1 also but where is the challenge in that) as a mixing desk ? sampler ? Master controller ?

 

[TheShortTimer]

Just toying around, I got an 1MB upgraded 8 bit Atari 130XE which has MIDI IN and OUT ports like it's bigger brothers
1040STfm and 1040STE.

The 130XE has built in MIDI?

 

[Lastic]

The 130XE has built in MIDI?

No but it does now

This PCB

MIDI

Music and MultiPlayer Gaming on your Atari MIDI on the 8-bits began in early 1983 because of a small company in Los Angeles called Hybrid Arts. They created the first SIO to MIDI bridge...

ataribits.weebly.com

was installed in place of the RF Modulator

I basically added 1MB , an internal 3 1/2" floppy, MIDI ports to an 130XE which I now call the 1030XEfm

Some work in progress here

Crazy idea or not ?

atariage.com

 

[Dronecatcher]

So I was thinking of using the G5 (got an Macpro 1.1 also but where is the challenge in that) as a mixing desk ? sampler ? Master controller ?

Excellent idea! Go to macintoshgarden/OS9Lives and stock up on Sample banks etc to be accessed via MIDI.