From: Mark Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I did predict as early as January (when Apple went all OS X) that the 'Old World' ROM would cease to be supported in 10.3.
Mark is right. Having checked with an Apple Developer rep about this, they confirmed that Panther will not support "old world" ROMs. For those who aren't sure of the difference, this basically means "if your Mac doesn't have built-in USB, it's unsupported."
In yet other words, beige G3s and early Powerbooks are out. iMacs (all models), iBooks (all models), Wallstreet and up Powerbooks (someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, I can't keep all the Powerbook code names straight anymore), Blue and White G3s and of course all G4-based products.
I'm sure the people who develop XPostFacto are already hard at work figuring out if they can make Panther run on "unsupported" machines, and I wish them luck -- but it's a hack at best. For best results (ie taking advantage of Quartz Extreme), the best machines for Panther are G4s and G3s with a good video card (32MB or better) -- and obviously the G5s when they emerge. But the Beige G3s, being now more than five years old, are no longer supported by the latest OS. Hardly surprising.
I fully expect a G4 iBook within the next 6-12 months and support for the G3 will cease within the next 3 major iterations of OS X. That is of course if they don't go down IBM's 'Super G3' route, but that's another story altogether.
I don't have any inside information on this except one remark from Greg Joswiak that amounted to "the G3 is not dead yet," which might imply new life for the G3 with IBM, but I guess the only way to know is to wait and see.
As for the iBook itself, it's future is hard to predict. There's no doubt in my mind that the 12" Powerbook is cannibalising a lot of potential iBook sales, but the model continues to be VERY popular in schools, so I doubt it'll be discontinued. Hopefully they can get a low-cost, low-power version of the G4 chip (something newer and better than the current G4 portable chips) and take the iBook into G4 territory, or maybe they'll go with IBM as you suggest.
The G3s really are very good chips, and for consumer-level apps they can still be very useful. One gigahertz plus G3s would be welcome, particularly at low cost.
_Chas_
The CPU speed wars are over. We won. http://www.apple.com/powermac/
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