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

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#61

Post by toadi » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

because I didn't have a lot of money I was working on a 486 when pentiums were the normal. I used a pentium when most where on pentium 3.

thank god for linux to make my computers workable. Mail: mutt, Editor: vim, actually most like newsgroups, irc, .. all had cli clients. Only netscape was run in a very lightweight window manager like blackbox.

good thing about that in my teens is that I learned a shit load about computers and now 25 years later having a nice carreer thanks to tinkering with that.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#62

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #35

JohnTHaller wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's got an ethernet jack, so there's always that.

A more modern Mac with an Ethernet jack could share its internet connection from WiFi to Ethernet with a couple of clicks on System Preferences.

And you can also buy little ethernet to (client, not access point) wi-fi bridges. They're meant for connecting devices that don't have wi-fi, like printers or game consoles.

From some quick research, one model is the IOGEAR GWU637. I've never used it, so that's not a recommendation or anything, just an example.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#63

Post by dddddaviddddd » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

Trying to get a new battery is one of the worst parts of trying to use an old notebook.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#64

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 3:38 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #31

jeffbee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on what kind of sacrifices your willing to make, but if you really focus on low power you can build a laptop with multi day battery life. The upside of this is you end up with fewer charge cycles which increases battery lifespan in year 3+.

I appreciate the idea of such a machine. I am imagining a monochrome OLED display with as many dots as an old terminal. Could be a real experience.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#65

Post by wenc » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:01 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.

Also, I'm like why a laptop? Why not an old desktop?

I personally don't enjoy writing with a laptop-sized monitor for long periods of time (ergonomically speaking). It's much more comfortable writing on a 24" LCD.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#66

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #26

One of these days I’m going to dig up my PowerMac 6100/60 with the DOS Compatibility Card and my LCII with the //e card and 5-1/4 inch drive from my mom’s house. All of my disks are in a bedroom so they might still be usable. Any way I can get old Ambrosia games?

> Any way I can get old Ambrosia games?

https://macintoshgarden.org/ has most of them. (Sadly, Ambrosia appears to have shut down entirely. End of an era...)

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#67

Post by war1025 » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #58

war1025 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a job interview a year and a half ago where part of the interview was to give a walkthrough of my solution to short "homework" problem. Got there and tried to connect my laptop to their wifi network. No dice. My laptop (2014-15 era) doesn't do 5ghz and they had no 2.4ghz access points. Ended up having to use a cellular wifi hotspot they had lying around to get anything to work.

> Got there and tried to connect my laptop to their wifi network. No dice. My laptop (2014-15 era) doesn't do 5ghz Wow, that’s surprising…most laptops from like 2010 onwards have done 5 GHz. Did yours have a particularly old Wi-Fi card in it?

> Did yours have a particularly old Wi-Fi card in it?

From lspci:

03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

I don't know whether that is an old card or not. I think the laptop was in the $300-$400 range when we got it. Inspiron 15-3551, came with Ubuntu pre-installed, which has since been swapped out for Debian.

This Dell support link [1] seems to confirm that it is 2.4Ghz only.

[1] https://www.dell.com/community/Networking-Internet-Bluetooth...

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#68

Post by menybuvico » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #15

icedchai wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I still use an old Acer laptop from 2008 as my private laptop. It's more than enough for my needs, but apart from it being good enough for my needs, there's not really any particular reason for using that specific machine (apart from the keyboard being amazing). It simply works fine, and I see no reason to replace it.

I don't know why there would be any specific word for it. I just use it.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#69

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #39

mmphosis wrote: post #8

new web browser for PowerPC Mac: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/ new OS for PowerPC Mac: https://voidlinux-ppc.org/ or, a new PowerPC computer: https://www.talospace.com/

Tigerbrew is also worth mentioning https://github.com/mistydemeo/tigerbrew

And MacPorts should still support a bunch of things too.

Re: Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac

#70

Post by menybuvico » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #54

yelling_cat wrote: post #43

I used to have an old Windows 2000 laptop without onboard WiFi that I called "Deadline" and used for the same purpose. If you have work you can do without connectivity for extended stretches I recommend it.

why not set a timer and disable wifi/network for the duration of the time you are setting aside to work without distraction. Or, maybe just close the tab/app with the distracting alerts? lots of way to achieve the same result without limiting yourself to such ancient hardware. Modern Macs have Do Not Disturb mode. I use this frequently

Why would using older hardware be limiting yourself any more than you just described? It just happens to do it by it's nature of being old instead of you deliberately limiting modern equipment.

As long as it works, why not use the hardware if you have it and it's still operational? Older desktop PC's have a certain power usage issue compared to modern ones, but laptops usually tend to keep power consumption down.