On Apr 17, 2012, at 11:18 AM, Bruce Johnson wrote:
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.
Yes, Motorola/Freescale & IBM did take way too long to come up with a
processor that could compete with the new Intel CPU's and I don't
blame Apple for making the switch to Intel processors. The Intel
CPU's are head and shoulders above anything else that is practical to
use in any personal computer desktop, or laptop. But I am one of the
crazy few that still believe in PPC and have gone so far as to
purchase the first and only personal computer that contains a PA Semi
PA6T 1682M dual core 1.8GHz PPC CPU in it. Yep, that is the company
that Apple purchased and then almost immediately shut down, but before
they did, PA Semi produced an unknown number of these PA6T 1682M
processors which were used in some military applications and which a
company called A-Eon and Varisys purchased to put into a brand new
motherboard design, which was created solely for the purpose of
running AmigaOS4.1.5. The computer is called an AmigaOne X1000. The
rumors that Amiga was dead are greatly exaggerated.
This PA6T could have been a very nice step up from the last 1.67GHz
G4's, for the next PowerBook, had Apple not made the switch to Intel
chips, but it was too little and too late, as the Intel Core2Duo at
the same clock speed was still (as far as I know) a more powerful CPU
than the PA6T, which is slower still than the newer i3, i5, & i7
CPU's, so Apple definitely made the right choice. That does not mean
that PPC computers are useless and it is a shame that Apple did not
support their PPC computers at least another 2 to 5 years or so, as
people should not have been forced to upgrade so quickly, when there
computers are working perfectly for most tasks still. I use my G4
PowerBook as my main computer for all email and Internet browsing, as
well as many other programs and games. I probably use it 4 to 6 hours
a day, every day (mostly because I am partially disabled and confined
to my bed). I know that Apple could have supported PPC models for a
lot longer than they did and I strongly dislike the way they dropped
support as soon as they did. In my mind it was disrespectful to their
customers and I understand why many Apple customers might be very
upset with Apple for their decisions. I am one of them, and it has
made me consider switching to Linux.
David W. Morris
aka AmigaDave
Dual booting MacOSX10.5.8 & MorphOS2.7 on my dual 1.42GHz G4 PowerMac
& MacOSX10.5.8 & MorphOS3.0 beta on 15" & 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook's,
plus MacOSX10.5.8 & Ubuntu10.10 PPC on my dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac
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