On Apr 17, 2012, at 10:04 AM, Dan wrote: > > What's the big deal?
People want all the cool new toys on their nearly 7-year old Powerbooks with a processor that dates from four or five generations ago, which was obsoleted on the spot less than 6 months later by the advent of the 15" MacBook pro, which outperformed it in every aspect. Even if you could magically get the source code for OS X 10.7 and compile it for PPC and run it on the G4 powerbook, it would be akin to trying to run Windows 95 on a 386/25 with 4 megs of RAM. (officially Win95's low-end specs...one time we had one laying about and installed it for s&g. took 30-45 minutes to boot up, and we thought the hard drive would simply explode from overwork. We never did try to do anything more functional than starting Notepad and typing...slowly, oh so very slooowly "Hello World!") It would be like when I ran Pagemaker 4 or 5 on my Mac Plus (this was back in 92/93-ish), and I called it 'Tai Chi computing' Move slowly, deliberately and allow plenty of time for the computer to catch up. Yes, on the one hand those old G4 Powerbooks were (and still are, I have a 15" one) wonderful, useful machines. If they meet your needs, they're great tools. On the other hand, they were THE primary reason that Apple was forced to move to Intel; they needed a powerful, energy-efficient laptop platform for their software, they were getting killed in that market segment, and neither Motorola or IBM were able to deliver. Finally, on the gripping hand, Apple IS in the business of selling hardware; OS X and the software universe around it is WHY people buy Macs. My 15" G4 is a double hand-me-down system. And I haven't hardly used it in several months, since I got my 17" MacBook Pro, and when I do use it, boy howdy does it show it's age. Most of the time you can get a lot of years out of your purchase, but sometimes change bites you in the ass. Welcome to the ongoing wave of change, hang on to your surfboard. There's a reason that G4 and G5 systems are selling for pennies on the dollar. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
