Here we are, three and a half years after the last G5 shipped, and
Apple has all but dropped support for PPC. In my other world, I am a
building maintenance tech. I keep up on news about building
automation, and HVAC controls, etc. PPC (especially G3) has been very
popular in embedded systems across a wide range of controls, from
buildings, to medical equipment, to factory automation. Today, I was
reading about some new products from one of Emerson's subsidiaries,
and I came across this quote:
"This product firmly establishes our commitment to the CompactPCI
form factor and to continue expanding Emerson Network Power’s
PowerPC® roadmap to protect legacy technology and provide a clear
migration path for users of legacy PowerPC technologies."
I am thankful that, at least in that world, companies don't expect me
to buy all new hardware every five years. In fact, a couple of
months ago, I had a tech from Johnson controls on the phone, walking
me through a troubleshoot of a 40+ year old purely pneumatic control
system for an HVAC system. He helped me get it up and running before
ever mentioning the fact that they have products that I can use to
upgrade it (piece by piece if necessary) if it ever gets beyond
repair. One of my buildings is from the 1920's, and the other is
five years old. If they had Apple logos, on them, I would have to
rely on community support to keep either of them running.
I read this list every day, and I think that the reason I like it so
much, is that it IS like that other world I live in, where we find a
problem, and fix it. We don't gut a building to modernize it, we
upgrade when the old system absolutely won't do what we need it to
any more. Sometimes, we can't even upgrade, if we want to keep
things going. We just had to get a new computer built in a special
case for our fire system, it had to run Windows NT, the fire system
can't just be thrown windows 7, and hope to work.
Here (in the g-group) people are always looking to find a way to eek
that little bit more out of what they've got. Whether it's because
you have legacy files, or programs, or (like me) you feel like
there's no reason to get rid of things that still work. I haven't
even tapped into all of the things I can do with my G4 Gigabit, and I
hope that someday when I do get something newer, I still find ways to
use this great machine. Meanwhile, I am glad that I'm along for the
ride with all of you.
Warm regards,
Peter
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