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Beige G3 Resurrection Project
jgardner asks: "I have been a Mac user since '84, and lust for the latest hardware with the best of them. However, my bank account is less than accommodating. My current machine is a Beige G3 266. I use it for Quark & Photoshop work, and would like to move to Jaguar if the performance hit isn't too great. Does anyone have advice and/or experience that will help me save a few bucks and avoid any potential pitfalls?"
Does anyone have advice and/or experience that will help me save a few bucks and avoid any potential pitfalls?"
Don't upgrade Quark.
This is probably one of the worst questions I've ever seen posted. Shouldn't this be an Ask Slashdot? Even so, it's a fucking 266, it's going to be slow no matter what you do.
I'm going to submit a story and put it under the Apple section, apparently they'll publish anything if you classify it as Apple:
Dear Slashdot, I've been an avid Apple IIe user since first grade. My old Apple IIe is aging, but I'd like to run Photoshop on it because my employer requires me to have it at home. Could anyone offer me any advice to help me in my quest to make Photoshop run in 32k of ram on a 2mhz processor? I'm guessing I will need to upgrade to the color card and buy an RF converter so I can use it on my JC Penny 13" color TV/VCR combo. Unless of course someone has some tips on running photoshop under monochrome. In addition, I would like to get into doing seismic analysis on my Apple IIe. I know this has typically been the job of large Cray supercomputers in the past, but my budget won't allow for that, so does anyone out there work for an oil company that does this on IIe's?
true story
powerbook g4 12"
default 256megs of ram.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Try running quark and photoshop at the same time.
Oh really?
The best option is to run a flavor of Linux
There is nothing OSX can do on a beige G3 that Linux can't, and Linux will be ten times more responsive. When it comes to RAM use, Linux leads the way there too.
You could pack the Beige up with RAM and a larger HD along with a top PCI graphics card, and OSX would run to a limited level. You still wouldn't be happy with its performance.
I suggest YDL and a USB/Firewire card to allow use of newer peripherals. If you have enough RAM for Photoshop then you have enough RAM for Linux and just about any other App. Try it, you won't be disappointed.
RST
This is not true, there are drivers for the older machines, you can get them from the Darwin site. Plus both X.1 and X.2 run faster than the public beta and X.0 because most of the debugging code has been removed. Also Panther, X.3, has better support for the older Macs.
Read: I REALY don't know much about Apple, but everything I need to know I learned from Microsoft.
This is also not true. The simple fact is that Macintosh hardware lasts for many years. Apple also bends over backwards to support old hardware and software. The switch from 68k chips to the PPC chips, Apple provided an OS that ran on both chips and the APIs to develop software that could also run on both chips (this was known as "fat") In some cases it simply cannot be avoided, the switch from single CPU to a dual CPU system. This was because Apple wanted faster CPUs but Motorola had their heads up their asses and couldn't do it, so Apple dropped two chips in and started to innovate.
NarratorDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
you'll see dramatic improvements that may make it useable.
oh - and load up on some ram.
you'll also do well to pick up a decent 7200 rpm IDE drive.
oh for the love of gawd DON'T BE SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS, LUCILLE!
by the time you drop $120 on the new OS, $350 on those fscked up "short" (you can't use normal PC 100/133 DIMMS because they don't FIT physically unless you leave the top off and if you're going to do that, Susan, just go and buy a PC for $150 and stop being such a girl) can't-be-found-anywhere memory except at some obscure "We have memory for the Mac IIvx" company for that hunk of ancient computing you have there to max it out to, what, 512 megs? - and the $100 for a decent sized hard drive, you prat, you've got yourself only a few pesos away from a refurbished eMac with 5 times the speed and a video card fruu uu UUUM THIS century.
you know.. i had this fight with someone who decided it was time to ditch all the Macs because the B&W G3/300's were to slow to run PowerPoint or Keynote compared to a new Dell 2.4 machine... and just throw out all that hardware and software investment (those B&w's are righteous OpenBSD file and email servers) because he thought "hey, why don't i just shove a pencil up my ass and say it hurts, so i sould go buy some PC instead".
I swear, Sally, if i hear about one more person ask "how can i get a 5 year old mac to run the lastest software from Apple that has system requirements for G4 and a video card with some memory and i wear this gigantic "i'm a cheap asshole" hat al the time, why?" - i'm gonna go off on a rant.
Look - there are no 6 year old PC's (Pentium II 200 with ISA slots and 8 meg AGP 1x ATI Rage Pros) running windows XP playing DiVX files, ripping DVDs, and running gawddamned Photoshop 7, okay? So while it may be novel and interesting to see you try this - why not pony up the money for that Commodore 64 web server while you're at it?
Look - i'm not saying you have to go sell your mother's body parts for cash - but you did say.. and let me get this right.
i want to run Photoshop & and Quark 6 on Mac OS X 10.2...
two of the most CPU and video card intensive apps out there on a computer from 1997?
well hell, Gertrude, i want to shit in my hand and sell it for $5 a handfull but i guess we're both in for big steaming bowl of toofsckingbad, aren't we?
And i hate to break this to you - but while you may actually succeed in this little game of Chinese "red-hot-fire-poker-in-the-crotch" torture you've concoted for yourself and actually.... physically.... get Photoshop to launch on that newfangled steam-powered machine running Mac OS X - you first must realize that when you are trying to run software worth 5 TIMES the value of your computer... ON that computer, that's as useless as picking up Beth Ostrosky on a Pee Wee's Playhouse moped.
Its quite a bitch, sometimes, that software ISN'T like hardware.. because if you're really so cash strapped that you can't scrounge up enough wampum by playing "pound the clown" at the corner sperm bank to buy a Mac from THIS millennium - but miraculously have on hand, and want to run the latest and greatest $700 photo editing software that would have made spy satellite guys from 1970 cream their pants at the site of the opening spalsh screen of Photoshop on a computer that really is as washed up as Gary Coleman (wait, he may be my next governor... hmm...) - then i can only assume that either there is some knucle dragging asshat boss out there that thinks "here, Christine, slap this shiny metal disk into your abacus at home" and figured you'd just work out the tiny new cunundrum by asking slashdot a question as improbable as "how can i make a device that will get Carmen Electra to fsck my brains out even tho i have automatic Karma bonus on slashdot?"
ORRRR
you ripped of your copy of Photoshop.
Because if you're plunking down the bling-bling for Photoshop and quark for Mac OS X 10.2 - yet you want to run those 20" s
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
A sad day...
Otoh, I'm typing this from my yard on a 17" powerbook to a soekris box with 2 ethernets and wireless via IPSec that's the size of the Apple's 80 column card and draws about 20 watts.