Deutsch: Apple G4 400 Mhz (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We PowerPC Mac users can take glee at a lot of things in this day and age of mobile, on-the-go, modern computing. We all have need for desktop computers. I don’t know anyone who can type a story or blog post of substance on their tablet or phone. Sure, you can hook up a keyboard to your iPad or your iPhone but if you’re going to go to that length you might as well save your notes to the cloud and pull down that kind of work for completion on your trusty desktop Mac.
Leopard WebKit developer Tobias Netzel has done it again with the recent release of yet another version of this wonderful web browser for PowerPC Mac users running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Having the ability to update system security certificates to OS X 10.9 Mavericks levels and enable advanced features such as full screen HTML 5 video playback support on places like YouTube keeps me smiling as a PowerPC Mac user.
The computer I’m typing this on isn’t even supposed to run Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but it does via the old XPostFacto hack. It was so many years ago that I made the move from 10.4 Tiger to 10.5 Leopard, I’ve taken for granted what great work it was to have been done in the first place.
The Leopard install on the G4 Sawtooth with an original 400 MHz team of horses under its hood has seen a couple of processor upgrades. First up was a brand spanking new 1 GHz Sonnet processor upgrade that accommodated the original Leopard install. That did the job for me for quite some time. Almost a couple of years ago I purchased a 1.8 GHz Sonnet refurb and continued running Leopard (with nary a hiccup) with speeds comparable to my 1.86 GHz HP Intel Core2Duo running Windows 8.1. How can it be that PowerPC Mac hardware has been created so sublimely it has scalability that even its original designers could not have foreseen? It’s truly one of the longest running Apple accomplishments.
I read on Facebook today how someone’s Macbook Pro was about to give up the ghost at the ripe old age of seven–that’s right, 7! The Mac I’m writing this on, the indomitable Sawtooth of yore and legend is now 15 years old. You were once again reading correctly–15 years old. Talk about Return On Investment (ROI). I bought this computer for a song on eBay and upgraded it over the years as my budget and garage sale-ing permitted.
When I hear people exclaim that seven years is ancient for a computer, albeit a laptop, I cringe. Why should a laptop be considered vintage at this point? If it works, it works. But we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that three years is more typical of the life for either a laptop or a desktop computer. This has always been something that even the average consumer (with perhaps the help of a techy friend when needed) has known as untrue. I fully understand what it means to lower one’s expectations, but I have never adhered to this school of thought when it comes to technology.
The rule of thumb for me and my ilk is that if it serves our purposes then by all means continue using “outdated” technology.
English: 1000 MHz Motorola PowerPC 4755 on the CPU riser card of an Apple Power Mac G4. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m able to utilize WordPress’ posting machinations. That is, I’m able to create posts while in WordPress on Leopard WebKit. How is it that someone with unsupported, 15-year-old hardware can avail themselves of all possible WordPress widgets in addition to content rich plugins like Zemanta when creating blog posts?
The answer to this and everything else regarding why I still utilize a computer older than most of your children for my livelihood is that it just works–and with minimal effort and maintenance to keep it going.
Between Leopard WebKit and TenFourFox we PowerPC Mac users can always do what the modern web calls for. That is all anyone can ask of their computers.
Sure, mobile is the present and the future. But as long as we have ten fingers and eyesight that fails increasingly as we age, larger monitors and desktop computers with preferred keyboards and mice won’t go out of style. We also have beloved developers like Tobias Netzel to thank for helping us keep the OS X Leopard embers burning indefinitely.
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