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Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

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Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#221

Post by boring_twenties »

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…

I'm using a T60 somewhat regularly and you'd be surprised how useful it still is.

Of course, a shitty "modern" website will perform exactly as you'd expect, but I try to avoid those even on my workstation so no big loss there.

Aside from that, it's perfectly usable for things like writing code, reading/writing emails, chatting on IRC, browsing lightweight websites like HN, reading documentation... you know, 99% of the stuff I use a computer for.

I have more powerful laptops as well, but I often reach for the T60 anyway, because it makes little difference for these kinds of tasks, and I love the 1600x1200 screen.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#222

Post by monkpit »

ricksharp wrote: post #184
RalfWausE wrote: post #122

Why not use old(er) Systems when they fulfill your needs? A computer is a tool, such as a typewriter, printing press, paintbrush or hammer. Would anyone argue about the age of a typewriter or hammer if its in good working condition? In fact, i am using an Atari 520ST as my main computer since my laptop died a while ago. It started as an experiment, but now "it just works". I got network connectivity, email and (limit…

Nice - whatever maximizes your productivity is the right tool. I went the opposite route: I basically built a gaming rig so I could get really good auto-complete in vscode. Couldn't be happier... and I have a 'free' light show. :-)

VS code works great on my 2012 Mac mini. Maybe you just wanted a gaming pc ;)

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#223

Post by fit2rule »

RalfWausE wrote: post #122

Why not use old(er) Systems when they fulfill your needs? A computer is a tool, such as a typewriter, printing press, paintbrush or hammer. Would anyone argue about the age of a typewriter or hammer if its in good working condition? In fact, i am using an Atari 520ST as my main computer since my laptop died a while ago. It started as an experiment, but now "it just works". I got network connectivity, email and (limit…

I am a huge retro fan. I go by the motto "Old computers never die, their users do."

Every computer that was ever made, is still just as useful as it was the day it was put into operation, for some reason. Okay, its not absolute: but as a first principle, computers are as useful as the user decides they are. Its just a decision.

I love my old machines. Its so fun, as a hacker and grey-beard developer who has seem some shit, to go back to the great ol' days of .. say .. CP/M .. and sit down and noodle on some code or other.

Or, hack around with tools like "8-bit Unity", which is an attempt to build a high-performance engine for as many 8-bit machines (6502-based) as possible, with modern toolsets. Actually, this is bonkers enough I just have to make sure you know about it, in case you don't already:

http://8bit-unity.com

One set of tools, tons of machine targets, and .. who knows what these systems will get up to, when this gets into there right hands ..

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#224

Post by fit2rule »

verytrivial wrote: post #126

Old games, old productivity software. If they were good when they were new, I've never understood how they become "bad" just because time passes. It's a weird marketing and social undermining of comfort and control. Sure there is the 'security' argument, and an accretion of various quirks, but people were often happy dealing with these quirks in the day, and as OP says, making interoperability frictionful has an defi…

Old computers never die. Their users do.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#225

Post by stu2b50 »

tantalor wrote: post #207

> it goes without saying that my ancient iBook can’t run Slack What? That's a very surprising statement! Of course Slack has a web client. Does it not support any browser that runs on the old hardware?

Well, yeah? I'd be shocked if any supported browser can run a modern SPA. That's not even necessarily because of resource limitations, it's just very, very different from the techniques of the era.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#226

Post by sentientforest »

I have a lot of vintage Apple tech. Much of it still works...

I have a 2001 PowerPC G4 Quicksilver tower. Haven't booted it in a while, but it worked fine last time I did. If you can find these local to you, you can often get them very cheap. Shipping is expensive though, so buying them on a place like eBay is kind of a non-starter. I recently found a sealed old copy of Cubase VST available online for about $10. Bought an old M-Audio PCI card a long time ago for this machine too. At some point I may set it up as a Digital Audio Workstation.

I found a pair of old (2001) PowerPC iBooks on eBay a while back. They're good for running kids games and software - useful if you want an inexpensive, air-gapped machine for a young child you don't want on the open internet. Or typing / writing. These can be had very cheaply, I think because many schools bought them and eventually liquidated their inventory to replace with newer equipment. I had no problem finding inexpensive new batteries for these on eBay, and bought a couple extras.

More regularly, I use my old mid-2007 black macbook to run the original Starcraft. I'm running it via the OS X Installer (it's originally a PowerPC OS 9 game). I'm not much of a gamer these days, but Starcraft can be fun once in a while... like when PG&E in California shuts off the power for days and you want to conserve your main laptop's battery for work... And it's cool to have games that actually support local lan multiplayer, which Blizzard moved away from over time.

For anyone looking to delve deeper into this topic, here's some recommendations (off the top of my head) on what version of OS X to settle on for a given machine:

For older Intel Machines, I recommend 10.6 Snow Leopard. This is the last OS to support Rosetta, which allows you to run PowerPC OS X software. Note: PowerPC OS X software, not PowerPC OS 9 / Classic software.

For older PPC machines, I recommend 10.4 Tiger. This is the last OS to support running OS 9 applications via the Classic environment. Or of course, you can just install OS 9 and forego OS X altogether.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#227

Post by gattilorenz »

cyberdrunk wrote: post #178
nhlx2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am generally confounded by the flatness of Window 10. The ability to see which window is on top is gone!

> I am generally confounded by the flatness of Window 10. The ability to see which window is on top is gone! It's the window which is not partially/fully obscured by the windows underneath it?

The problem is when they are side by side... Which one is the active window, then?

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#228

Post by postalrat »

ricksharp wrote: post #184
RalfWausE wrote: post #122

Why not use old(er) Systems when they fulfill your needs? A computer is a tool, such as a typewriter, printing press, paintbrush or hammer. Would anyone argue about the age of a typewriter or hammer if its in good working condition? In fact, i am using an Atari 520ST as my main computer since my laptop died a while ago. It started as an experiment, but now "it just works". I got network connectivity, email and (limit…

Nice - whatever maximizes your productivity is the right tool. I went the opposite route: I basically built a gaming rig so I could get really good auto-complete in vscode. Couldn't be happier... and I have a 'free' light show. :-)

For a lot of people productivity is determined by inspiration.

So in an odd way limitations that would normally reduce productivity can actually increase it.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#229

Post by nhlx2 »

cyberdrunk wrote: post #178
nhlx2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am generally confounded by the flatness of Window 10. The ability to see which window is on top is gone!

> I am generally confounded by the flatness of Window 10. The ability to see which window is on top is gone! It's the window which is not partially/fully obscured by the windows underneath it?

It's hard to see which is the obscured window when they are very similar, like the bottom of WSL terminal windows for instance.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#230

Post by tomjen3 »

verytrivial wrote: post #126

Old games, old productivity software. If they were good when they were new, I've never understood how they become "bad" just because time passes. It's a weird marketing and social undermining of comfort and control. Sure there is the 'security' argument, and an accretion of various quirks, but people were often happy dealing with these quirks in the day, and as OP says, making interoperability frictionful has an defi…

90% of the additions are bloat, but modern versions of Word are far more stable than the ones we used in the past, it has a built in thesaurus and you can mouse over the different designs, fonts, etc and see them update the document in real time, which makes it far more straightforward to find something suitable.

Its grammar and spellchecker are also much better.

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