On Mar 21, 2010, at 2:09 AM, PETER WARNER wrote:
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.
Excellent!
I too am from the school that "new" is not always "better."
Fact is that I generally followed that five year rule regarding
computer upgrades but here I am sitting in front of my ancient G4
Gigabit writing this.
Certainly, Apple could have done a better job of increasing the
transition period and MOST certainly, IBM could have done a better
job of bringing Power technology to mobile applications. IBM's
failure to do this was the motivation of Apple switching to Intel as
G4 PowerBooks were getting long in tooth technology-wise.
Yes, industry looks at the bottom line in many ways and it is not at
all unusual to see "old" systems still performing well.
Thanks for a great post.
JT
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