Your PPC Story

[iTurbo]

I've been using Macs since my Mom brought home an LCII back in '92. Before that my family had a Commodore 64. My first own mac was a Power Macintosh 6500 that I got in '97. I used that machine daily until around '04.

Upgraded the hell out of that machine....

500 Mhz Sonnet G3/L2 cache upgrade (was 250 Mhz 603e)
128 MB RAM
Apple TV/Video/FM system
Apple comm-slot ethernet card
60 GB hard drive
internal CDRW drive
MOTU PCI audio card/2408 interface
MOTU Digital Performer 2.7
Opcode MIDI interface
MacOS 8.6

It still runs/works. I have a Sonnet Tempo SATA PCI card that I would like to install and try to get it running on an SATA SSD just to get it to it's fullest potential.



I then got a used Quicksilver G4 with dual 1Ghz. I upgraded that to 1.5GB RAM, OSX 10.5 (Leopard), and swapped my MOTU stuff over to it. I used that machine daily till I bought my current late 2012 iMac and 2013 11" MBA.

 

[SkyBell]

Had my first experience with Macs when I started elementary school, on PowerMac 5400 models and System 7. The next year, these were replaced with the original bondi blue iMac G3's. I'd only ever used PC's at home and these new, strange computers entranced me. By 4th grade the iMacs had been replaced with PC's, but I had the bug - bought an Apple IIc, a Macintosh Classic and finally one of these Bondi iMacs. I guess you could say the rest is history.

 

[eyoungren]

Found it.

I knew there was a thread on here about where we came from in regards to PowerPC - and that I had responded.

You all hear a lot about my A1013 and why I got that particular Mac.

Thought I'd add this: https://forums.quark.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=65&p=439

It's really where my PowerPC journey actually began. Before this, my old TiBook was mainly just a tool.

If you're interested of course. Sorry, it links to another site, but I've been on that site since 2001 and the thread there was about two years before I signed up here.

 

[gsahli]

A trip down my Mac memory lane...
I have been a Unix and then Linux user since 1983.
My first Mac was an Atari 1040ST. It had the David Small Spectre GCR add-on with Mac Plus ROMs, and booted System 6.0.2.
Next came a Centris 660AV in 1993. Used it and a LaserWriter 4/600 to create my resumé to get hired by Apple in 1994. Think I was using System 7.1.
Used my employee discount to get a PowerMac 7500/100 in 1995. Eventually added a G3/255 card and a SCSI Ultra-II card. Ran MacOS/OS X 7.6.1 to 10.2.
In a back-step, bought a PowerBook 190/66 in 1996 for some work while traveling. Ran MacOS 8.0.
Got a second-hand PowerMac 6100/66 in 2000. Ran MacOS 8.6. Used it as a DNASTAR server.
Made a big step up to PowerMac G4 MDD/867 in 2003. Have used Mac OS X 10.2-10.5. I still have this computer. It’s my hobby computer. Has a 1 GHz CPU upgrade, 1.75 GB RAM, 3 spinner drives and one SSD, and GPU is ATI Radeon 9600XT. Triple boots Tiger, Leopard and Ubuntu MATE 16.04.
My only “modern Mac” is a Mini, late 2012. Which I use for Filemaker Pro and taxes.

 

[AphoticD]

My first Mac was an Atari 1040ST. It had the David Small Spectre GCR add-on with Mac Plus ROMs, and booted System 6.0.2.

That is hardcore

A good friend had an Atari 520ST while growing up. I loved tinkering with it, but never knew it could be convinced to run as a Mac. That must have been fantastic at the time to have all that the ST / GEM offered, plus System 6!

It’s great that your G4 MDD is still powering along too.

 

[dbdjre0143]

Found it.

I knew there was a thread on here about where we came from in regards to PowerPC - and that I had responded.

You all hear a lot about my A1013 and why I got that particular Mac.

Thought I'd add this: https://forums.quark.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=65&p=439

It's really where my PowerPC journey actually began. Before this, my old TiBook was mainly just a tool.

If you're interested of course. Sorry, it links to another site, but I've been on that site since 2001 and the thread there was about two years before I signed up here.

Really cool to get to read about the epic journey you had with the ol' TiBook, and I could definitely see the point where you began to catch the collecting bug a bit as well.

 

[eyoungren]

Really cool to get to read about the epic journey you had with the ol' TiBook, and I could definitely see the point where you began to catch the collecting bug a bit as well.

Yeah I can trace it back to a specific night at design school. This is 2003 and I'm working away and some guy walks in with this brand new (and gigantic) laptop. It was beautiful, nothing like this beat up TiBook I was carrying around at the time.

So, when I had the opportunity to get one, even if I had to repair it, I took the opportunity. In the month in between I had jury duty and so took along an old iBook G3 my mom had allowed me to borrow. Only to realize that inside the jury room I had zero ability to connect to their WiFi. Later I found out that the damn thing had been running OS X 10.0.1, but the WiFi was bad on it anyway.

So, both of those events led me down the PowerBook/OS X path.

There has been more than one opportunity over time to purchae a 17" PowerBook that had a speedbump, but this SPECIFIC model is what caught my eye that day and it is THE model I wanted. So, I remain with the A1013 because of that.

It helps though, that of all the 17" PB models, my model has L3 cache and the rest don't.

 

[dbdjre0143]

It helps though, that of all the 17" PB models, my model has L3 cache and the rest don't.

I've always kinda wondered how much difference the L3 makes. As a point of comparison, what would you estimate the equivalent "real-world" speed to be in terms of one of the non-L3 Powerbooks?

 

[eyoungren]

I've always kinda wondered how much difference the L3 makes. As a point of comparison, what would you estimate the equivalent "real-world" speed to be in terms of one of the non-L3 Powerbooks?

I'm not sure how I can answer that, not ever owning any of the later models except for the last (A1039). But with the A1039 there's a 1.67Ghz processor and multi-threaded RAM so any need for a L3 cache isn't there.

I can slightly compare to my son's old TiBook DVI (1Ghz). My PB was at least as quick as that machine. However, a lot of my time is spent in T4Fx on this Mac so I have little to compare app wise.

But for what few (older) apps I use on the A1013 it performs well.

 

[timidpimpin]

I've always kinda wondered how much difference the L3 makes. As a point of comparison, what would you estimate the equivalent "real-world" speed to be in terms of one of the non-L3 Powerbooks?

I'm certainly no expert on the matter... but the bit I have read about L3 in the past is that it helps with heavier computation work a lot more than light stuff. So when the system is really under load with a longer task. Things like photoshop renderings and video editing and encoding. Things like web browsing and other common everyday tasks don't really benefit from L3.

So I would say L3 is important for professionals, and L2 is more important for everyday consumer use. G4's with L3 tend to have a smaller L2, which means a more standard user would benefit more from the G4's with a larger L2 and no L3. Like the 7447 and 7448.

 

[Macbookprodude]

So, is a 1.67 without L3 faster than the older titanium powerbooks with L3 ?

 

[timidpimpin]

So, is a 1.67 without L3 faster than the older titanium powerbooks with L3 ?

Of course... but not because it doesn't have L3. It would be because the 1.67 PB would be 670MHz faster than the fastest PB with L3.

The differences are negligible to the naked eye for the most part. Let's say you have two different G4 systems... one with a 1GHz 7455 with 256KB L2 and 2MB L3 verses one with a G4 1GHz with 512KB to 1MB L2 and no L3. Even though the one with L3 would be batter at professional work, it would still be totally fine for web browsing. You would literally have to have the systems bnext to each other to spot any minute difference.

The main thing that matters is the CPU clock speed. Regardless of how much L2 and if it has L3 or not. I used Macs in the 90s that didn't even have L2... only L1. I was still able to compute just fine.

 

[1042686]

Good read, Erik. Thanks for sharing.