Hi Britt et al: I agree, I just last week acquired a G5 PowerMac and it is my MAIN machine. I use TenFourFox as the browser and I had a handful of Mac Apps I purchased over a few years and some actually are still developed as "Universal" apps which means they still run under my 10.5 system. Examples would be Graphic Converter and Fetch (FTP) though the 5.7 is no longer supported on PPC, but the 5.6 version (and OS9 versions) are still available for download and the 5.x license I have does not care whether it is version 5.7 or 5.6 :-) I also found that you can be completely up to date with the world using open source software for the platform as well. It was a shame that Firefox proper dropped support for PPC, but that is why we have TenFourFox :-D I use Libre Office, VIM for text editing VLC for some multimedia (strangely iTunes is fairly up to date -- guess that Apple sees some advantages to keeping that one app updated)... Eclipse for Java Development and as mentioned, Graphic Converter 7 for graphics work that I need to do (normally resize, crop, etc).
So I think the PPC is quite viable at this time. I hope to get at least a couple of years out of my G5! On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Britt Dodd <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:32 AM, Gregg Eshelman <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The newest OS X that runs on it is 10.5.x "Leopard". Snow Leopard, Lion >> and currently Mountain Lion have been released since. >> >> Check out what's going on in Linux for PPC. I dunno if that's stagnated >> since the biggest producer of computers with PowerPC CPUs switched to Intel. >> >> <snip> >> > > Leopard is two or three versions old --- but this isn't the same kind of > "old" that previous versions of OS X, it's the end of the line of PowerPC. > People like myself collect PowerPC (and 603/G3s) and run OS X and OS9 on > them. IN fact my main machine is a TiBook 500 running OS9. You've got > TenFourFox, GIMP, the iWork/iLife series of apps....tons of apps still work > in 10.4 and 10.5. In fact, at the end of the day, these machines allow you > to do pretty much everything from websurfing, to Java development (once you > upgrade to Java 1.5). OS9 is a different story, but Classilla is at least a > new-ish and actively developed browser for OS9. > > Yes -- these computers are old. Yes -- the software is old. But if you > used Pages to type docuemnts three years ago, you shouldn't have an issue > still doing that today. > > PowerPC forever! > > -- > ----- > You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs > group. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our > netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To leave this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs > > Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
