Macintosh Power Users -- how do you afford to keep up?
October 24, 2014 7:11 AM Subscribe
I was recently given a heavy Mac G5 Tower by my uncle. It has Mac OS 10.4 "TIGER" on it...
In using it, I have discovered that
+ Mac OS 10.5 LEOPARD
+ Mac OS 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD
+ Mac OS 10.7 LION
+ Mac OS 10.8 MOUNTAIN LION
+ Mac OS 10.9 MAVERICKS
have been released in the meantime. I learn that none of the browsers I could download for free (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome) will work in Mac OS 10.4, and Safari is barely hanging in there, so I will have to upgrade the operating system.
And I also get the feeling that as I spend money purchasing all the upgrades, I will reach a point where the operating system will tell my that my OLD HARDWARE is no longer supported by the OS, and that I will then need to go out and buy newer hardware.
My main question is, how do you MAC owners afford to keep up??? I been using Windows XP with no problems for 12 years and haven't given Microsoft another cent since. But this MAC stuff seems like a money vortex.
Also, when I put in a music CD, I was forced to read and agree to the Apple iTunes TERMS AND CONDITIONS, jeebus cripes, I just wanted to listen to a song, not to read what a hundred Apple lawyers are trying to force me to read. How do I deactivate or uninstall iTunes, so I can just listen to a song, the way that an ordinary CD player would let me?
In using it, I have discovered that
+ Mac OS 10.5 LEOPARD
+ Mac OS 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD
+ Mac OS 10.7 LION
+ Mac OS 10.8 MOUNTAIN LION
+ Mac OS 10.9 MAVERICKS
have been released in the meantime. I learn that none of the browsers I could download for free (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome) will work in Mac OS 10.4, and Safari is barely hanging in there, so I will have to upgrade the operating system.
And I also get the feeling that as I spend money purchasing all the upgrades, I will reach a point where the operating system will tell my that my OLD HARDWARE is no longer supported by the OS, and that I will then need to go out and buy newer hardware.
My main question is, how do you MAC owners afford to keep up??? I been using Windows XP with no problems for 12 years and haven't given Microsoft another cent since. But this MAC stuff seems like a money vortex.
Also, when I put in a music CD, I was forced to read and agree to the Apple iTunes TERMS AND CONDITIONS, jeebus cripes, I just wanted to listen to a song, not to read what a hundred Apple lawyers are trying to force me to read. How do I deactivate or uninstall iTunes, so I can just listen to a song, the way that an ordinary CD player would let me?
A Mac G5 is an old computer and its hardware is not able to run modern operating systems. If you want to run OS X buy a new or refurbished Mac made within the last five to seven years.
posted by dfriedman at 7:17 AM on October 24, 2014
posted by dfriedman at 7:17 AM on October 24, 2014
Yep, according to Apple, you can only run OS X 10.5 as the highest version. You can still use a mac for years and years after OS upgrades have stopped, I have seen 20+ year old macs still used as cash registers for certain local businesses.
I'd say the practical life for any new mac is about 5 years, similar to most Windows PCs, after which you'd want to get a newer computer to continue using it with speed.
posted by mathowie at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'd say the practical life for any new mac is about 5 years, similar to most Windows PCs, after which you'd want to get a newer computer to continue using it with speed.
posted by mathowie at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Your G5 is effectively an antique in software terms. Unfortunately, it was one of the last computers Apple built before they switched to Intel processors and, in the process, changed their entire software architecture. So no recent programs will really work for you, including modern browsers. If you are going to rely on this computer for anything other than personal use, I would ditch it completely.
In general, Macs hold their value very well and are usable for many, many years (the MacBook I'm currently using is going on 5+ years). But unfortunately this G4/G5 --> Intel transition was kind of a brick wall.
On your music CD question, iTunes, like many programs, will make you agree to its software license the first time you open it. It should not prompt you to read terms and conditions in the future, and you can set it to automatically play CDs when you insert them into the machine.
posted by AndrewInDC at 7:19 AM on October 24, 2014 [7 favorites]
In general, Macs hold their value very well and are usable for many, many years (the MacBook I'm currently using is going on 5+ years). But unfortunately this G4/G5 --> Intel transition was kind of a brick wall.
On your music CD question, iTunes, like many programs, will make you agree to its software license the first time you open it. It should not prompt you to read terms and conditions in the future, and you can set it to automatically play CDs when you insert them into the machine.
posted by AndrewInDC at 7:19 AM on October 24, 2014 [7 favorites]
A Mac G5 tower running OS X 10.4 has a PowerPc processor installed. That is an older processor that can't be upgraded past Leopard, 10.5.8.
You can see the processor type in the Finder, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. The processor line will tell you kind of processor, and it should say PowerPC.
posted by qi at 7:20 AM on October 24, 2014
You can see the processor type in the Finder, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. The processor line will tell you kind of processor, and it should say PowerPC.
posted by qi at 7:20 AM on October 24, 2014
You may have been using Windows XP with no problems for 12 years, but if so, you are astoundingly lucky, since there are numerous security problems with it that have not been patched in years.
The last two versions of Mac OS have been released free. I think the version before that cost $29. Not exactly a money vortex. However, you won't be able to use them on your vintage Mac; as TheAdamist pointed out, Apple drops support for old hardware with new OS releases.
In the meantime, TenFourFox is a version of Firefox that will run on your computer and is currently maintained.
posted by adamrice at 7:21 AM on October 24, 2014 [9 favorites]
The last two versions of Mac OS have been released free. I think the version before that cost $29. Not exactly a money vortex. However, you won't be able to use them on your vintage Mac; as TheAdamist pointed out, Apple drops support for old hardware with new OS releases.
In the meantime, TenFourFox is a version of Firefox that will run on your computer and is currently maintained.
posted by adamrice at 7:21 AM on October 24, 2014 [9 favorites]
It's not as onerous to keep up when you start with a new Mac and just go forward; I have only had to do two (free) upgrades in my entire mac-owning career (~8ish years).
OS upgrades are generally free or extremely cheap when they are done upon/very near release. You're just in a bum situation where you have a really very old computer. Honestly I doubt you will even be able to purchase the upgrades you would need, and like someone said above, your computer will only be able to run probably one of those upgrades.
Sorry this has turned out to be a moderately frustrating gift! But it isn't really Mac's fault, per se.
posted by like_a_friend at 7:23 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
OS upgrades are generally free or extremely cheap when they are done upon/very near release. You're just in a bum situation where you have a really very old computer. Honestly I doubt you will even be able to purchase the upgrades you would need, and like someone said above, your computer will only be able to run probably one of those upgrades.
Sorry this has turned out to be a moderately frustrating gift! But it isn't really Mac's fault, per se.
posted by like_a_friend at 7:23 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Safari is barely hanging in there, so I will have to upgrade the operating system.
The performance of your browser has nothing to do with the capabilities of the operating system. Upgrading from Tiger to Leopard, frankly, won't make any difference.
You're just using a 12 year-old CPU and it can't keep up with the demands of modern websites. I'm sure it's browsing Metafilter just fine, though. =)
If you really need to try and eke out a bit more performance, perhaps stuff as much RAM into the box as you can find. It certainly will not be any cheaper than, say, just dumping the G5 on eBay for $50 and getting a Chromebook.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:23 AM on October 24, 2014 [4 favorites]
The performance of your browser has nothing to do with the capabilities of the operating system. Upgrading from Tiger to Leopard, frankly, won't make any difference.
You're just using a 12 year-old CPU and it can't keep up with the demands of modern websites. I'm sure it's browsing Metafilter just fine, though. =)
If you really need to try and eke out a bit more performance, perhaps stuff as much RAM into the box as you can find. It certainly will not be any cheaper than, say, just dumping the G5 on eBay for $50 and getting a Chromebook.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:23 AM on October 24, 2014 [4 favorites]
To answer your question about how it is affordable to continue upgrading, yeah, adamrice has it: the upgrades are usually pretty cheap. Windows has recently moved to a sub-$100 OS upgrade, too, but Mavericks (10.9), for example, is free, and can be installed on top of Snow Leopard ($19.99). It can even be installed over Leopard with some wrangling.
posted by papayaninja at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2014
posted by papayaninja at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2014
It's not that your computer is especially old, it's just that unfortunately it comes from right before there was a major architecture change for the Mac platform. The processors used to be IBM PowerPC, but switched to more common Intel chips. This was a good thing: it's more standard hardware and allows people to, for example, run Windows on their computer.
Unfortunately, it also means people now had to do twice the development work, or write their programs in such a way that ran on both types of hardware (but ran slowly). For a while people were good about making stuff work on both types of computer, but that takes effort, and now that most Mac users are on the new side of things, new development hardly ever thinks the old platform.
Also, unlike Windows, upgrading your OS is FREE now. Mountain Lion and Mavericks were both free upgrades, and the two before that were something like $30.
posted by losvedir at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
Unfortunately, it also means people now had to do twice the development work, or write their programs in such a way that ran on both types of hardware (but ran slowly). For a while people were good about making stuff work on both types of computer, but that takes effort, and now that most Mac users are on the new side of things, new development hardly ever thinks the old platform.
Also, unlike Windows, upgrading your OS is FREE now. Mountain Lion and Mavericks were both free upgrades, and the two before that were something like $30.
posted by losvedir at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
To add a bit more context to what people are saying about why Lion (10.5) is the newest version supported by your Mac Pro: Circa 2004 or 2005 (I forget the exact date), Apple decided to switch to x86/Intel processors across its' desktop and laptop product lines. Prior to this time, Apple had been using IBM Power processors for many years. Your G5 Mac Pro is from the last generation of IBM Power-based machines.
Apps compiled for Power won't run on Intel, and vice-versa. The two architectures use different instruction sets are not binary-compatible. It's possible to compile one app for both platforms, but adds complexity and there's very little motivation for developers to do so these days, considering the newest G5 is, well, yours.
This is different from, say, upgrading the CPU in an x86 Windows box -- almost all of your software will Just Work because a new CPU is mostly just a faster version of the old CPU (leaving aside new instructions like SSE, etc, which generally add new capabilities but don't break old capabilities).
For a while, most Mac apps were published with multi-architecture bundles -- one app bundle contained both power and x86 architecture -- and Apple shipped operating systems for the Intel macs with a package called Rosetta, which allowed power g4/g5 mac apps to run on Intel (but much more slowly, and not vice-versa -- you could never run intel apps on a power-based mac). These days, hardly anyone's building their apps for the power architecture.
So unfortunately there is a pretty hard compatibility line in the sand, and your G5 is on the far side of it. I gave a 2007 Macbook Pro to my dad back in 2010, and he's been using it and upgrading it ever since with no problems. It's probably getting close to the end of its life, but going-on-8-years is a pretty good lifespan for a laptop!
posted by Alterscape at 7:46 AM on October 24, 2014 [2 favorites]
Apps compiled for Power won't run on Intel, and vice-versa. The two architectures use different instruction sets are not binary-compatible. It's possible to compile one app for both platforms, but adds complexity and there's very little motivation for developers to do so these days, considering the newest G5 is, well, yours.
This is different from, say, upgrading the CPU in an x86 Windows box -- almost all of your software will Just Work because a new CPU is mostly just a faster version of the old CPU (leaving aside new instructions like SSE, etc, which generally add new capabilities but don't break old capabilities).
For a while, most Mac apps were published with multi-architecture bundles -- one app bundle contained both power and x86 architecture -- and Apple shipped operating systems for the Intel macs with a package called Rosetta, which allowed power g4/g5 mac apps to run on Intel (but much more slowly, and not vice-versa -- you could never run intel apps on a power-based mac). These days, hardly anyone's building their apps for the power architecture.
So unfortunately there is a pretty hard compatibility line in the sand, and your G5 is on the far side of it. I gave a 2007 Macbook Pro to my dad back in 2010, and he's been using it and upgrading it ever since with no problems. It's probably getting close to the end of its life, but going-on-8-years is a pretty good lifespan for a laptop!
posted by Alterscape at 7:46 AM on October 24, 2014 [2 favorites]
The amount of electricity you would save over two years of using a modern lightweight Chromebook vs an old G5 would almost pay for the Chromebook if you got a cheap one. And would provide a better web browsing experience.
posted by Candleman at 7:51 AM on October 24, 2014
posted by Candleman at 7:51 AM on October 24, 2014
My main question is, how do you MAC owners afford to keep up???
As others have noted, that machine is using an old processor and can't be significantly upgraded.
With Intel processor machines, what I usually do is buy a refurbished machine from Apple, then sell it in a few years at a decent price (Macs usually resell at a good price), and get a new machine. I can not imagine using the same computer of any type, for more than 3-4 years.
I never bother upgrading the old machine anymore. I did with older G4 machines and it was mostly a ridiculsous process. Better to just get a newer machine. But I work in graphics and video, so we're always needing fast processors.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:28 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
As others have noted, that machine is using an old processor and can't be significantly upgraded.
With Intel processor machines, what I usually do is buy a refurbished machine from Apple, then sell it in a few years at a decent price (Macs usually resell at a good price), and get a new machine. I can not imagine using the same computer of any type, for more than 3-4 years.
I never bother upgrading the old machine anymore. I did with older G4 machines and it was mostly a ridiculsous process. Better to just get a newer machine. But I work in graphics and video, so we're always needing fast processors.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:28 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
I never bother upgrading the old machine anymore. I did with older G4 machines and it was mostly a ridiculsous process. Better to just get a newer machine. But I work in graphics and video, so we're always needing fast processors.
OP, this doesn't apply to your powerpc tower, but for Macs built after 2006 with intel processors: if you don't work in graphics and video and your processor speed isn't a consideration, upgrading to larger hard drives and additional ram can extend the life of your Mac and keep it useful for years. If you have a mac tower your graphics card, ports and wifi can all be upgraded. You don't need the latest operating system or software. Macs are renowned for their stability and reliability. Discarding a working mac for a new one you don't need is a waste of money.
posted by qi at 9:12 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
OP, this doesn't apply to your powerpc tower, but for Macs built after 2006 with intel processors: if you don't work in graphics and video and your processor speed isn't a consideration, upgrading to larger hard drives and additional ram can extend the life of your Mac and keep it useful for years. If you have a mac tower your graphics card, ports and wifi can all be upgraded. You don't need the latest operating system or software. Macs are renowned for their stability and reliability. Discarding a working mac for a new one you don't need is a waste of money.
posted by qi at 9:12 AM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
A 12 year old mac when your G5 came out was this one.
Basically a 12 year old computer from any manufacturer at any point in computer history is a paperweight.
posted by empath at 9:53 AM on October 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
Basically a 12 year old computer from any manufacturer at any point in computer history is a paperweight.
posted by empath at 9:53 AM on October 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
If you want to actually upgrade your hardware, consider refurbished rather than new. Apple sells some (availability varies, of course) and some retailers occasionally have refurbished stock as well.
My 27" iMac was an Apple refurb and I've never had a problem with it. Saved big bucks, too.
posted by tommasz at 12:04 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
My 27" iMac was an Apple refurb and I've never had a problem with it. Saved big bucks, too.
posted by tommasz at 12:04 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
There’s actually just been another Mac OS X release, Yosemite…
The OS upgrades aren’t actually that expensive when you look at the actual prices (using US dollars here):
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard — $129
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard — $29
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion — $29.99
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion — $19.99
Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks — Free
Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite — Free
(In case it’s not clear here, Apple have basically made a strategic decision to stop charging for OS X upgrades. I expect they will continue with free annual releases for the foreseeable future.)
And, if you’re trying to catch up, you don’t actually need to buy all of them. You could, in theory, go from 10.4 Tiger to 10.10 Yosemite in just three steps: Tiger to Leopard, Leopard to Snow Leopard (officially, Apple only supports upgrading to Snow Leopard from Leopard: in reality, you can persuade it to install directly on Tiger), and Snow Leopard to Yosemite (yes, you can jump all the way from 10.6 to 10.10). This would cost $158 — or $29 if you’re willing to skirt around Apple’s rule that only Leopard can be upgraded to Snow Leopard — but you could only do this on a mid-2007 iMac (everything before that won’t support Yosemite; everything after would have shipped with a later OS than Tiger). However, Yosemite will install on some machines from 2007. That’s seven years ago.
You may have paid for Windows XP once twelve years ago but Microsoft has released several newer versions of Windows since then: Vista (2007), Windows 7 (2009) and Windows 8 (2012). Windows 10 (they’re skipping 9) will be out next year. The gap between Windows XP and Windows Vista (six years) was unusually long: Microsoft has historically released new OS upgrades every two to three years (Windows 95, 98, Me and XP all came out in under seven years), and seem to be settling on annual releases now (like Apple with OS X).
Also, Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft. It’s not safe to use online.
The reason why you can’t download recent Web browsers for Tiger is because software vendors generally don’t support older Mac OS X versions for as long as they support older Windows versions. There are two reasons for this. One is that Mac users tend to upgrade faster, so there are fewer users on older versions. The other reason is that Microsoft tries harder with backwards compatibility than Apple, so it’s technically easier to make a program run on all recent versions of Windows than it is to make a program run on all recent versions of Mac OS X. Basically, supporting older OS X versions is hard work and it’s just not worth it if the users aren’t there. Apple also tends to only support the most recent two or three OS X releases, which doesn’t encourage vendors.
Also note that your twelve-year-old copy of Windows XP will not let you install any version of Internet Explorer newer than IE8 (which came out in 2009). Windows Vista doesn’t support anything newer than IE9 (2011). If you want to use the latest IE11, you need Windows 7 or 8. As for Macs, Microsoft stopped releasing IE for them with IE5 in 2000 (fourteen years ago!).
As others have said, your Mac G5 is basically an antique. The first G5 came out in 2003 (eleven years ago); it was discontinued in 2006 (eight years ago). That’s ancient in computer terms. Sorry. It’s just not suitable for modern Internet use. Even if the software worked, the hardware probably couldn’t keep up. Since your OS (and probably the versions of any browsers you can install on it) aren’t supported any more, it wouldn’t be safe to use online.
However, if you recycle your old G5 and buy a new Mac, you will get several years’ use out of it (essentially, the more you spend, the longer it will last), including a few free OS X upgrades and countless free browser upgrades.
(This message was composed on a late 2011 MacBook Pro running Yosemite and the latest version of Firefox.)
posted by kyten at 12:55 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
The OS upgrades aren’t actually that expensive when you look at the actual prices (using US dollars here):
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard — $129
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard — $29
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion — $29.99
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion — $19.99
Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks — Free
Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite — Free
(In case it’s not clear here, Apple have basically made a strategic decision to stop charging for OS X upgrades. I expect they will continue with free annual releases for the foreseeable future.)
And, if you’re trying to catch up, you don’t actually need to buy all of them. You could, in theory, go from 10.4 Tiger to 10.10 Yosemite in just three steps: Tiger to Leopard, Leopard to Snow Leopard (officially, Apple only supports upgrading to Snow Leopard from Leopard: in reality, you can persuade it to install directly on Tiger), and Snow Leopard to Yosemite (yes, you can jump all the way from 10.6 to 10.10). This would cost $158 — or $29 if you’re willing to skirt around Apple’s rule that only Leopard can be upgraded to Snow Leopard — but you could only do this on a mid-2007 iMac (everything before that won’t support Yosemite; everything after would have shipped with a later OS than Tiger). However, Yosemite will install on some machines from 2007. That’s seven years ago.
You may have paid for Windows XP once twelve years ago but Microsoft has released several newer versions of Windows since then: Vista (2007), Windows 7 (2009) and Windows 8 (2012). Windows 10 (they’re skipping 9) will be out next year. The gap between Windows XP and Windows Vista (six years) was unusually long: Microsoft has historically released new OS upgrades every two to three years (Windows 95, 98, Me and XP all came out in under seven years), and seem to be settling on annual releases now (like Apple with OS X).
Also, Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft. It’s not safe to use online.
The reason why you can’t download recent Web browsers for Tiger is because software vendors generally don’t support older Mac OS X versions for as long as they support older Windows versions. There are two reasons for this. One is that Mac users tend to upgrade faster, so there are fewer users on older versions. The other reason is that Microsoft tries harder with backwards compatibility than Apple, so it’s technically easier to make a program run on all recent versions of Windows than it is to make a program run on all recent versions of Mac OS X. Basically, supporting older OS X versions is hard work and it’s just not worth it if the users aren’t there. Apple also tends to only support the most recent two or three OS X releases, which doesn’t encourage vendors.
Also note that your twelve-year-old copy of Windows XP will not let you install any version of Internet Explorer newer than IE8 (which came out in 2009). Windows Vista doesn’t support anything newer than IE9 (2011). If you want to use the latest IE11, you need Windows 7 or 8. As for Macs, Microsoft stopped releasing IE for them with IE5 in 2000 (fourteen years ago!).
As others have said, your Mac G5 is basically an antique. The first G5 came out in 2003 (eleven years ago); it was discontinued in 2006 (eight years ago). That’s ancient in computer terms. Sorry. It’s just not suitable for modern Internet use. Even if the software worked, the hardware probably couldn’t keep up. Since your OS (and probably the versions of any browsers you can install on it) aren’t supported any more, it wouldn’t be safe to use online.
However, if you recycle your old G5 and buy a new Mac, you will get several years’ use out of it (essentially, the more you spend, the longer it will last), including a few free OS X upgrades and countless free browser upgrades.
(This message was composed on a late 2011 MacBook Pro running Yosemite and the latest version of Firefox.)
posted by kyten at 12:55 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Since Windows XP came out, so did Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (with Windows 10 to follow soon, too.) If you're happy running a 13 year old operating, by switching to MacOS X 10.4, you've moved forward to a 9 year old operating system. You can run it and be more secure than you would be running XP. You don't have to upgrade.
That said, compared with any old computer, a late model Mac mini will be much faster, more energy efficient, and able to access modern software. No matter what platform, computing is still evolving quickly enough that it is foolish to try to use decade-old hardware to do anything approaching modern computing.
posted by andrewraff at 12:57 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
That said, compared with any old computer, a late model Mac mini will be much faster, more energy efficient, and able to access modern software. No matter what platform, computing is still evolving quickly enough that it is foolish to try to use decade-old hardware to do anything approaching modern computing.
posted by andrewraff at 12:57 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this is really just a matter of perception. You can be happy with a super old Mac, just like you can be happy with a super old PC, but you can't expect to do this without some familiarity.
This reads more like a bunch of complaints about attempting to use something really old on the internet for the first time, instead of a question, but to answer your main one: I work in technology and keeping up is part of my job, so I set aside money in my budget to get a new computer every two years (if possible, or a staggered 4 year cycle for multiple machines). When I didn't work in tech and it was just a 'hobby', I still considered six years the 'maximum useful lifetime of a machine', and that was really pushing it. I literally couldn't do the things I need to do on 12 year old hardware.
posted by destructive cactus at 1:12 PM on October 24, 2014
This reads more like a bunch of complaints about attempting to use something really old on the internet for the first time, instead of a question, but to answer your main one: I work in technology and keeping up is part of my job, so I set aside money in my budget to get a new computer every two years (if possible, or a staggered 4 year cycle for multiple machines). When I didn't work in tech and it was just a 'hobby', I still considered six years the 'maximum useful lifetime of a machine', and that was really pushing it. I literally couldn't do the things I need to do on 12 year old hardware.
posted by destructive cactus at 1:12 PM on October 24, 2014
Hey, a fellow G5 user! I have only just been getting ready to abandon my old G5 since I've had a MBP for a couple years now — the first computer I've ever bought new in my life (kind of scary, but I needed it for work).
If you trawl around eBay or even some torrent sites, you can still find software that works on them. I'm still running Photoshop on there — until fairly recently, it was my photo and music archive. The biggest bummer for me is that the architecture won't support hard drives over, uh, 800mb or so? I think that's how big they are (I haven't checked in a while), and though I monkeyed around with upgrading the SATA cable and controllers, it never worked right anyway.
Now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it since it also doesn't have (and doesn't support) modern wifi protocols. Probably nothing that requires a hookup to the internet, as I'd assume it's just asking to become a botnet host.
I will say that the other thing that you can look into is peripherals — I had a pretty fantastic scanner for a long time that would still be the equivalent of a $5000 purchase in today's money because it only had serial ports and no modern computer would support it. There are still a fair number of peripherals that were professional grade that more modern computers no longer support — it's a way to juice some extra utility out of your machine by getting cool stuff that people are ditching at firesale prices because it's useless for them.
Since I've got a laptop that's two years old now, I'm going to plan on getting a year or two more out of it and start setting aside money for that in the future. Oh, and don't bother upgrading your iTunes (it might be too late) because the last version that runs on a G5 is really fucking terrible, and upgrading to it destroyed much of the functionality that justified keeping that g5 around anyway.
posted by klangklangston at 2:38 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you trawl around eBay or even some torrent sites, you can still find software that works on them. I'm still running Photoshop on there — until fairly recently, it was my photo and music archive. The biggest bummer for me is that the architecture won't support hard drives over, uh, 800mb or so? I think that's how big they are (I haven't checked in a while), and though I monkeyed around with upgrading the SATA cable and controllers, it never worked right anyway.
Now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it since it also doesn't have (and doesn't support) modern wifi protocols. Probably nothing that requires a hookup to the internet, as I'd assume it's just asking to become a botnet host.
I will say that the other thing that you can look into is peripherals — I had a pretty fantastic scanner for a long time that would still be the equivalent of a $5000 purchase in today's money because it only had serial ports and no modern computer would support it. There are still a fair number of peripherals that were professional grade that more modern computers no longer support — it's a way to juice some extra utility out of your machine by getting cool stuff that people are ditching at firesale prices because it's useless for them.
Since I've got a laptop that's two years old now, I'm going to plan on getting a year or two more out of it and start setting aside money for that in the future. Oh, and don't bother upgrading your iTunes (it might be too late) because the last version that runs on a G5 is really fucking terrible, and upgrading to it destroyed much of the functionality that justified keeping that g5 around anyway.
posted by klangklangston at 2:38 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Mac OS X 10.5 no longer gets security updates from Apple. I know people do this all the time with OS X, but an operating system that doesn't get security updates is not safe to use on the Internet. I'd sell the machine and buy something newer.
Like @andrewraff advised, I'd buy the oldest Mac Mini you can find that will run OS X Yosemite. (Or buy a PC. Just don't run XP or Vista).
posted by cnc at 4:20 PM on October 24, 2014
Like @andrewraff advised, I'd buy the oldest Mac Mini you can find that will run OS X Yosemite. (Or buy a PC. Just don't run XP or Vista).
posted by cnc at 4:20 PM on October 24, 2014
As others said, it's probably not worth it.
Nevertheless, TenFourFox is probably your best bet. Make sure to uninstall any vulnerable software (specifically Flash, Acrobat Reader, Java, QuickTime, Microsoft Office, Bonjour etc.) and to activate the OS X firewall.
If you're adventurous and technical Lubuntu 14.04 for PowerPC might also be worth a try.
posted by Sharcho at 10:15 AM on October 25, 2014
Nevertheless, TenFourFox is probably your best bet. Make sure to uninstall any vulnerable software (specifically Flash, Acrobat Reader, Java, QuickTime, Microsoft Office, Bonjour etc.) and to activate the OS X firewall.
If you're adventurous and technical Lubuntu 14.04 for PowerPC might also be worth a try.
posted by Sharcho at 10:15 AM on October 25, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
Almost every piece of software will come with terms & conditions, iTunes may be more extensive than most.
posted by TheAdamist at 7:15 AM on October 24, 2014 [2 favorites]