Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#11

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:30 AM UTC

CPAhem wrote: post #5

Maybe it's just me, but the user interface on that old PowerPC Mac looks gorgeous - way better than modern "flat" UIs

The AppleWorks UI was kind of an incoherent mess, stuck halfway between the Platinum and Aqua UIs. You can actually see elements of this in the screenshot -- the ruler in the word processor window is a relic of Platinum, with gray controls and bitmapped text, whereas the window frame and menu bars are more of an Aqua thing. (Except for the AppleScript menu, which is a Platinum-era icon again.) Then there's the "Button Bar", which was an entirely idiosyncratic element added to the OS X version of AppleWorks...

Much of this is due to the history of AppleWorks -- it was a Carbon conversion of ClarisWorks, which dated back to 1991. Parts of the UI -- like that ruler -- are essentially unchanged from version 1.0.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#12

Post by icedchai » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:31 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #6

Uh, if all you need is to write documents on an air-gapped machine, it seems like practically anything would do the job. Any Mac of any age whatsoever, a typewriter ...

My uncle was using a 25+ year old PC running DOS and WordPerfect up until he passed away last year. I think he enjoyed the distraction free environment.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#13

Post by Causality1 » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:33 AM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #4

I'm not trying to be a downer, but there is absolutely no reason to do this. For $50 you can do so much better without really trying all that hard. Now I fully appreciate the draw of doing something like this as a hobby or something, but this article is talking about productivity. This is not an investment for productivity.

Yeah. I understand the desire for a new fondle-slab. I've personally made a hobby of rebuilding a collection of every computer I've ever owned. There's no need to justify it. They feel good. They look good. Industrial design was a whole different ballgame back when losing a percentage of display area didn't get you whipped by your manager.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#14

Post by Causality1 » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #9

major505 wrote: post #2

Las week I brougth an old G4 the poped up in the marked. A rare thing to occour here, since they where super expensive when new. I paid something like 20 bucks for it. It came with a busted ide hard drive, but no worries. I went online and brought an ide to sd card adapter, and will now install Tiger in it. I don't spect to take any serious workload, but It will problably be fine to run Starcraft and Diablo II in it.…

You'd be better off with a CF to IDE adapter. SD really isn't well suited to be a main OS volume. Or just get a SATA to IDE adapter.

Aside from being pin-compatible is there a reason CF is more suitable for an OS volume than SD?

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#15

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #12

jeffbee wrote: post #6

Uh, if all you need is to write documents on an air-gapped machine, it seems like practically anything would do the job. Any Mac of any age whatsoever, a typewriter ...

My uncle was using a 25+ year old PC running DOS and WordPerfect up until he passed away last year. I think he enjoyed the distraction free environment.

Is there a word for such long-lived computers that aren't hobbies? "Retrocomputing" is people goofing around. A person who drives a 1995 Honda is probably not a "retromobility enthusiast". Maybe at some point in our future it won't seem weird to use a 25-year-old computer.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#16

Post by foobiekr » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:42 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #7

For approximately 10x as much ($500 USD), you can get a pre-retina Air, which has a much improved keyboard, working wifi, flash storage, and a modern OS and browser. It also happens to be way lighter. To me that’s more than a 10x improvement over the setup the author describes. There’s relatively little you can’t do on such a $500 machine.

Except get security updates that are only ever packaged in newer OS releases, for one thing.

I get where you're coming from, but this is the fundamental problem with network-connected devices. I'm an Apple fan, of sorts, and my whole family is part of the Apple ecosystem, but the company has a nasty habit of strategic obsolescence and doubly so around transitions.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#17

Post by kitsunesoba » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

It's nice to see old laptops get a new lease on life this way, but it's hard to deny the compromises that come with such an approach. As nice as the old 12-inch Powerbooks/iBooks, T60s, etc were, they leave a lot to be desired by modern standards.

This brings me to wonder how difficult it would be to develop a notebook that is specifically designed to be a focused offline ultraportable, using the most power efficient and cost effective components available along with an extremely lightweight, nearly nonexistent OS (think classic Mac OS) with some modern affordances and high-end touches (USB-C charging, milled single piece enclosure, etc). The imagined result is a machine that costs less than a decent Chromebook while being more responsive, having dramatically better battery life, and being generally more pleasant to use.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#18

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #17

It's nice to see old laptops get a new lease on life this way, but it's hard to deny the compromises that come with such an approach. As nice as the old 12-inch Powerbooks/iBooks, T60s, etc were, they leave a lot to be desired by modern standards. This brings me to wonder how difficult it would be to develop a notebook that is specifically designed to be a focused offline ultraportable, using the most power efficient…

How would such a computer meaningfully differ from either a Pixelbook Go or an iPad with a keyboard? They both have stupefying battery life and there's not many ways to extend it because at this point virtually all of the power goes into the screen.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#19

Post by glouwbug » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

I run a T43 for doing serious single threaded programming. Not that anyone would want to, but its surprisingly productive for pumping out clean work. I mean, its SO slow that firefox can't even open reddit or facebook without having a heart attack.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#20

Post by jandrese » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

> In fact, for reasons I’m yet to discern, my iBook’s internal AirPort Wi-Fi card can’t connect to modern Wi-Fi networks—they simply confound it.

WPA2 was standardized a year after his laptop was built. The ancient 802.11b card in it wants to do WEP. Getting driver support for a modern USB WiFi on that prehistoric version of OSX is no picnic either. It's a good thing he doesn't want to get it working.