#PowerPC G4

[dr-iphone]

工程師挑戰老筆電極限！讓 20 年前上市的 PowerBook G4 也能成功跑 Meta AI 模型

軟體工程師 Andrew Rossignol 最近在他的部落格分享了一項令人驚艷的實驗「成功讓上市 20 年的老筆電也能跑生成式 AI 模型」！ Andrew Rossignol 使用 2005 年推出的 Apple PowerBook G4 ，硬體規格是已經有 20 年歷史的 1.5GHz PowerPC G4 處理器與 1GB 記憶體，雖然老筆電與現代的新筆電規格根本天差地遠，但是這款老筆電居然能執行 Meta 的 Llama 2 大型語言模型（LLM），展現令人意想不到的潛力。 Continue reading 工程師挑戰老筆電極限！讓 20 年前上市的 PowerBook G4 也能成功跑 Meta AI 模型

[i2-xmf]

[morerogue]

[thisisrealy2kok]

Apple Macintosh G4 Cube (PowerPC) with 17" Studio Display, and OS X 10.3 (Panther)

[tamara-kama]

Now that I setup my old Mac Mini PowerPC G4 here I went ahead and rearranged the decor on this side of the room! 💜🕹️😁👍🏻

Star Ceiling

[krjpalmer]

Macworld March 2003

A big PowerBook and a little PowerBook joined Apple's hardware lineup on either side of the existing professional portable (although they used aluminum cases). A number of years later, I did buy a later iteration of the "12-inch PowerBook G4" used (just as it was sliding from "the absolute perfect form factor; Apple is foolish to no longer use it" to "honestly, there are difficulties running recent software with PowerPC") to take on a long vacation; it was my first portable computer since my family's TRS-80 Model 100. This issue also looked at new software from Apple including a web browser and a presentation program Steve Jobs had already been using.

[buzzleaktv]

Software Engineer Runs Generative AI on 20-Year-Old PowerBook G4

In a blog post this week, software engineer Andrew Rossignol (my brother!) detailed how he managed to run generative AI on an old PowerBook G4. While hardware requirements for large language models (LLMs) are typically high, this particular PowerBook G4 model from 2005 is equipped with a mere 1.5GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 1GB of RAM. Despite this 20-year-old hardware, my brother was able to…

[powerrcp-g3]

Greetings, Mac enjoyers and welcome to the 2nd ever weekend of Three Weeks of PowerPC! I didn't do much other than work on a script for a single-page comic commission as a surprise gift for one of my friends, finish up on the Gran Turismo 2 Daihatsu challenge run and, watch The LEGO Ninjago Movie on the iMac G4. So yeah, I wasn't able to do much. But hey, at least I got the 2nd batch of clips ready for Final Cut Express!

[tknblog]

Here’s a rather fascinating (and detailed) breakdown of installing a 1TB mSATA SSD into a PowerBook G4 1.67GHz hi-res display model, the last of the mobile PowerPC PowerBooks. I put a similar rig in my G4 Mini 1.4GHz “Silent Upgrade”, though my SSD is a mere 120GBs. Then again, I run Mac OS 9.22 on it, with a 10.4 partition. #apple #Mac #retrocomputing #hardware lowendmac.com/2024/fanx…

[gadgetrevive]

I bought every MacBook Ever.The Ultimate Journey Through Apple's MacBook EvolutionApple’s journey with the MacBook is a fascinating tale of technological evolution and innovation. From its inception in 1989 to the present day, the MacBook has undergone numerous transformations, each representing a significant leap in design, functionality, and consumer appeal. Let’s take a deep dive into the history of every MacBook ever made, exploring how Apple managed to turn the Mac from a novelty item into one of the most desirable computers on the planet.The Beginning: Macintosh Portable (1989)The story of the MacBook starts in 1989 with the Macintosh Portable. This was a time when the concept of a laptop was still new, and what Apple introduced was more of a portable computer than a laptop by today's standards. The Macintosh Portable was powered by Motorola’s 68000 processor, a desktop-class chip that operated at 16 megahertz. While impressive for its time, the Macintosh Portable was cumbersome and heavy, akin to carrying a small suitcase. Despite its bulk, it had a remarkable keyboard and a trackball for pointer control, which was the precursor to the trackpads we use today.The Leap: PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 (1991)In 1991, Apple launched the PowerBook 100, 140, and 170, marking a significant improvement over the Macintosh Portable. The PowerBook 100, in particular, looked like a modern laptop and introduced the idea of placing the trackball in the center of the chassis. These models were not only more compact but also more powerful, featuring the same processor as their predecessor but with better efficiency and at a reduced price. This made them more accessible, leading to hundreds of thousands of units being sold.The Professional Touch: PowerBook 500 (1994)Apple’s next big leap came with the PowerBook 500 series in 1994. These laptops were a significant upgrade in both design and functionality. They featured a trackpad instead of a trackball, a sturdier build, and better overall aesthetics. The PowerBook 500 series also introduced modular components, making them easier to repair and upgrade. This model was designed with professionals in mind, emphasizing power and functionality.The Game Changer: PowerBook G3 (1997)In 1997, Apple released the PowerBook G3, a game-changer in many ways. This laptop was powered by the PowerPC chip, a result of Apple’s collaboration with Motorola and IBM. The G3 was the fastest laptop in the world at the time, with processor speeds ranging from 250 to 500 megahertz. This period also saw the return of Steve Jobs to Apple, who began making swift changes, culminating in the PowerBook G3’s sleek design and powerful performance. The G3 was not just a laptop; it was a statement of Apple’s renewed commitment to innovation and excellence.The Colorful Era: iBook (1999)The iBook, launched in 1999, marked Apple’s foray into more affordable and colorful laptops. Designed by Jony Ive, the iBook was aimed at students and educators, offering Wi-Fi connectivity branded as AirPort. The iBook’s design was playful and distinct, with a transparent keyboard and unique color options. It was not only functional but also fashionable, capturing the attention of a younger audience.The Titanium Revolution: PowerBook G4 (2001)In 2001, Apple introduced the PowerBook G4, the first laptop to feature a titanium body. This model was sleek, durable, and significantly more professional-looking. It integrated the mouse buttons into the trackpad and offered improved performance with the PowerPC G4 chip. The PowerBook G4 was designed to cater to high-end users, solidifying Apple’s reputation for building premium, high-performance laptops.A New Beginning: MacBook Pro and MacBook (2006)2006 was a pivotal year for Apple’s laptop lineup. Steve Jobs announced a shift from the PowerBook to the MacBook brand, emphasizing not just power but the overall user experience. The MacBook Pro and the base MacBook were introduced, featuring Intel Core Duo processors.

The MacBook Pro, with its aluminum body and HD display, was a direct successor to the PowerBook G4, while the base MacBook offered a more affordable option without compromising on quality.The Thin Revolution: MacBook Air (2008)In 2008, Apple redefined thinness with the introduction of the MacBook Air. Steve Jobs unveiled the Air by pulling it out of a paper envelope, a dramatic demonstration of its slim profile. Despite its thinness, the MacBook Air did not compromise on functionality, featuring a full-sized keyboard, a multi-touch trackpad, and a powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The MacBook Air was a hit, setting a new standard for ultra-portable laptops.Unibody Design: MacBook (2008)The same year, Apple also introduced the unibody MacBook, constructed from a single piece of aluminum. This design made the laptop more durable and environmentally friendly, as it was easier to recycle. The unibody MacBook was also the first to feature an LED-backlit display and a glass trackpad, enhancing the overall user experience.Retina Display: MacBook Pro (2012)In 2012, Apple took laptop displays to the next level with the MacBook Pro Retina. This laptop featured an incredibly high-resolution display, providing unparalleled sharpness and color accuracy. The MacBook Pro Retina also introduced a thinner and lighter design, making it a favorite among creative professionals.The Touch Bar Era: MacBook Pro (2016)The MacBook Pro lineup received another significant update in 2016 with the introduction of the Touch Bar, a touch-sensitive strip replacing the function keys. This model also featured a larger trackpad, a butterfly mechanism keyboard, and a shift to USB-C ports, reflecting Apple’s commitment to forward-thinking design.The M1 Revolution: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (2020)The most recent major update to the MacBook lineup came in 2020 with the introduction of Apple’s custom M1 chip. The M1-powered MacBook Air and MacBook Pro delivered significant performance and efficiency improvements, setting new standards for laptop capabilities. The M1 chip’s integration of CPU, GPU, and neural engine brought unprecedented speed and battery life, solidifying the MacBook’s position as a leader in the laptop market.ConclusionFrom the bulky Macintosh Portable to the sleek and powerful M1 MacBooks, Apple’s journey with its laptops is a testament to its relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence. Each iteration has built on the successes of its predecessors, continually pushing the boundaries of what a laptop can be. As we look to the future, it’s clear that Apple will continue to lead the way in laptop design and technology, creating devices that are not only powerful but also a joy to use.Visit Gadget Kings PRS for Your Tech NeedsFor all your phone repair needs, visit Gadget Kings PRS, the best phone repair shop in town. Conveniently located at [insert address], Gadget Kings PRS offers top-notch repair services for all your gadgets. Check out their website here for more information.

[koralatov]

Goodnight, G3

Last weekend, on my first Saturday off in too many weeks, two iMacs G3 disintegrated in my hands. There was nothing I could do; they were too old, too frail, too well-travelled to survive even this most delicate of handling.

Both had given good service to their original owners, countless hours of the peaceful, fanless computation that ultimately doomed them. In the end, more than twenty years after they were made, even my gentlest touch unleashed a snowstorm of beige flakes, painfully visible through cracking candy plastics.

When it became apparent that neither could be saved – as the fruit-colour shells themselves split apart along hairline cracks and precision-moulded stress points – I salvaged what I could. It wasn’t much: a couple of speaker housings, a 700 MHz motherboard, the small Apple logos from the top. The CRTs went to “e-cycling”; the rest, landfill.

As I swept up grains of plastic from the laminate, I realised that this didn’t so much mark the end of an era as mark my acceptance that the era had long ended. It had happened already, some years ago, and I was just slow to acknowledge it.

As sad as it is, I realise it’s past time to concede that these computers are long past their usefulness as anything other than objets d’art or retro-computing curiosities. The internet has long left them behind, even despite the Herculean efforts of one dedicated fan.

Any task that can be accomplished on them is either one done using abandoned software, done to use abandoned software,1 or done on the nerd-equivalent of a masochism. Once a common trope, I haven’t seen a blog-post about using a PowerPC Mac exclusively for a month2 in probably ten years.

Even as I consign them to memory and retirement as attractive curios, it feels important to mount one last defence of the iMac G3 and its contemporaries. It was, on a public note, the Computer That Saved Apple. (Others – many, many others – have written about this so I won’t go into detail; Six Colors does a good job.)

But I can write about these personally, from my own perspective. These were machines of startling longevity. They remained useful, productive computers, with current software, for over half a decade in an era when an 18 month lifespan wasn’t unusual. A writer and academic I knew wrote on his original iMac (no G3; they were just “iMac” when he got his) for nearly 20 years before it died and was retired.

A close contemporary of these machines, my own 466 MHz iBook G3, in its original graphite livery at that point, was my primary computer until mid 2008 when I eventually switch to an Intel MacBook Pro. The MacBook was a much better computer but a far worse object.

That iBook, now in Lime thanks to a friend’s dexterous transplant, existed alongside an iMac G4. The G4 was my first Mac, and one about which I’ve written about before, but it was on a TV stand in the living room, relegated mostly to media-watching and disc-burning.

The iBook, in contrast, was everywhere that I was: my first ever laptop, and the computer that transformed computing from a desk-and-chair activity to an everywhere activity. That old G3, at times pokey and with an increasingly whiny hard-disk, prefigured the current era of ubiquitous, totally connected computing that the iPhone took to its logical conclusion less than a decade later.

These G3 machines, for those of us who had the enterprise to find them late, and lacked the budget to abandon them early, spanned the era from intermittently connected to always connected. They carried me and others from the past into the present, and did so reliably, elegantly, and mostly silently.

And now that we’re delivered into the present, and they are no longer fit to carry us, it’s time to treasure the few that remain intact, functional, and beautiful. There’s no shame in retirement when so much has been achieved.

Even I’m not immune to this. I would like, one day, to replay the first two Fallout games again on my beautiful Blue Dalmatian iMac. It seems appropriate to re-play them on a computer that could almost have existed in-game and resembles the one on which they were first played: projected at me as slightly ionised light from a deadly, high-voltage tube of glass and phosphor. ↩︎

Demonstrating how far these beautiful, useless machine have fallen from the cultural memory, googling “using a g3 for one month” returns videos about some LG OLED TV. ↩︎

[never-obsolete]

[computationltd]

Another one from #Apple Computers, this time we have the 15” #PowerBook G4 1.67. Released in 2005 at a price of $1,999 USD the PowerBook G4 featured a 1.67 GHz #PowerPC 7447a processor, 512 MB of DDR SDRAM and a 80GB HDD. The PowerBook’s striking aluminum case not only looked good but helped keep the weight of the machine down to a very manageable (for the time) 5.6 pounds, a little over twice the weight of a MacBook Air. The G4 was the last of the line of PowerBooks, soon to be replaced in 2006 by the wildly successful #MacBook series of laptops. To find out more about our services please visit www.computation.ca, contact us at service@computation.ca or give us a call at 416-913-3443. #computation #toronto #computationrecycling #electronicsrecycling #computerrecycling #ewasterecycling #computerrepair #laptoprepair #powerbookG4 #G4 #applelaptop #classicapple #classicmac #retroapple #retromac #retrocomputer #retrotech #vintagecomputer #vintagemac #vintageapple #dontdespairwerepair (at Computation Ltd.) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIls2e9BWrR/?igshid=1lxgunbt2qqce

[aleclikesmacintosh]

iMac

Insta

[techniktagebuch]

25.10.2017

Mittelmäßig alte Computer im Gebrauch

Ich habe für einige Monate die Chance, einen richtigen Schreibtisch in einem richtigen Büro an der Uni zu benutzen, obwohl ich nur studentische Hilfskraft bin. Weil ich in diesem Semester viel schreiben muss, finde ich das toll. Mein Haupt-Notebook ist ein 11,6″ MacBook Air – an einem Schreibtisch möchte ich aber einen größeren Bildschirm haben. Ich könnte einfach einen Bildschirm hinstellen, habe aber sowieso noch ein 15″ PowerBook G4 von 2004, das eine Freundin vor langer Zeit defekt ausrangiert hatte und das ich reparierte. Es ist trotz der 13 Jahre alles intakt – das Slot-in-DVD-Laufwerk liest und schreibt ohne Probleme, der Bildschirm leuchtet gleichmäßig hell und ist angenehm matt, der Lüfter macht kaum Geräusche und der Akku ist egal, weil es sowieso einen Stand-PC ersetzt.

Apple hat 2006 von PowerPC-Prozessoren auf Intel-Prozessoren umgestellt, wodurch Software von diesem Zeitpunkt an explizit für beide Architekturen entwickelt werden musste, um auf beiden Systemen aktuell zu bleiben. Spätestens seit Einführung des App-Stores wurde allerdings kaum mehr Software für die PowerPC-Plattform entwickelt, auch weil mit dem 2009 erschienen Mac OS 10.6 auf Betriebssystemebene die Unterstützung für die alte Architektur weggefallen ist. 

Aber weil ich das Notebook so wahnsinnig schön finde, die Tastatur die beste ist, die ich je benutzt habe und weil ich alte Technik sowieso gut finde, versuche ich, den Computer als Arbeitsgerät herzurichten.

Im Bild geöffnet: TextWrangler beim Schreiben dieses Beitrags

Das erste und wichtigste Problem ist das Internet: Die installierte Version von Safari wird von Google und anderen Seiten als veraltet gebrandmarkt, kann viele Dinge nicht, deren genaue technische Hintergründe mir nicht klar sind, und ist insgesamt nicht gut nutzbar. Zu meiner großen Freude gibt es aber das TenFourFox-Projekt, das ungefähr aktuelle Versionen von Firefox nicht nur portiert (das hat Aurora auch getan), sondern auch auf genau den PowerPC-Prozessor hin optimiert, den man benutzt (das hat Aurora anscheinend nicht getan). Das Ergebnis ist, dass ich die Google-Mail-Weboberfläche und den Google-Kalender (wenn auch mit ein klein wenig Rücksicht auf das Alter des Geräts) nutzen kann. Alle Seiten laden korrekt, das Internet steht mir offen.

Die letzte unterstützte Version des «Words» von Apple – Pages '09 – ist meiner Meinung nach weiterhin stabiler, praktischer und von reicherem Funktionsumfang als die aktuell erhältliche, also ist auch Schreiben kein Problem. Für Markdown nutze ich TextWrangler in einer alten Version. Auch Adobe InDesign CS3 läuft schön und schnell. 

Ich muss aber nicht nur Techniktagebuch-Artikel verfassen, sondern auch arbeiten – dazu gehört insbesondere das Scannen von Dingen und das Drucken anderer Dinge. Sowohl für den Epson-Scanner als auch den Brother-Laserdrucker – beide circa 4 Jahre alt – gibt es funktionierende Treiber, die mich die Geräte über das Netzwerk nutzen lassen.

Die größte Überraschung ist Spotify. Nach einigem Suchen habe ich einen alten PowerPC-Client (Version 0.6.6) aufgetrieben, der ohne Anpassung einfach funktioniert, obwohl die serverseitige Software viele Jahre älter sein muss (leider finde ich keine Release Notes). Das sieht bei Dropbox und GoogleDrive und allen anderen Cloud-Diensten, die ich kenne, anders aus: Hier wurde der PowerPC-Support eingestellt, die Client-Software verbindet sich nicht mehr mit dem Server. Weil ich aber seit längerem eine eigene Lösung mit Unison nutze, ist das egal.

(Franz Scherer)

[krjpalmer]

Macworld August 2005

After years of insisting the PowerPC outperformed Intel's "x86" architecture regardless of clock speeds and endless hopes that the G4 or the G5 would perk things up at last, Apple had announced Intel CPUs would start going into Macs. This issue pushed a feature article on digital photos into a text bar at the top of the cover to emphasise its special coverage of the announcement.