RIP G4 PowerMac

squiggleslash writes "An a not entirely surprising move, Apple has taken the PowerMac G4 out of production (see the last few paragraphs of this interesting article in Mac Central about the new G5s.) The PowerMac G4 had continued to be in production largely for users of Mac OS 9, and it had been speculated it might be kept as a lower-end headless entry-level Mac. You can still buy them from the Apple Store, while stocks last. On a seperate note, it looks like the 3GHz G5 is a while away, and G5 PowerBooks are no nearer production."

Comments

Grammar Nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

An a not entirely surprising move

That this post is on Apple doesn't mean that 'I' should be kicked out and replaced with an 'A'.

Re:Grammar Nazi

[wibs]

To be a true Apple post it should look like this:

iN a not entirely surprising move

Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Anonvmous Coward]

"RIP G4 PowerMac"

Apple is taking an obsolete machine out of the market, that means they're dying!!!!

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Have Blue]

It's just as much the fault of the makers of QPS, for failing to port their product to OS X for the entire 5 years that Apple has been saying that OS 9 is a dead end.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What happens when the mobo fries on one of the old PowerMacs?

You call Apple and have them replace it. (I'm assuming. I have no idea what "mobo fries" means. Is that anything like chili fries? 'Cause I like chili fries.)

Apple's got the same basic support policy as every other vendor: five years after end-of-production to end-of-life.

What happens when you need to buy more computers?

If you're still stuck on five-year-old software and have no intention of upgrading, I'm pretty sure you're not anticipating a monster corporate growth spurt.

Can you dual-boot into Mac OS 9 for that legacy application that Classic won't run?

Can you name one such application? And QPS obviously doesn't count; we've already covered how (1) it's poop, (2) Quark in general has become poop, and (3) the industry is migrating away from Quark products. Let's talk about applications that people still actually use.

Gotta run. I'm desperately craving chili fries for some reason.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[TheRaven64]

It could also mean that Tiger will have an improved Classic layer, which will be able to run QPS without problems (yes, I know it's unlikely...)

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Snowspinner]

Will there necessarily be driver support for anything in your new Dell configuration under Windows 98?

Very possibly not.

Hell, I remember when I tried to take a Gateway laptop back from Windows Me to Windows 98 - total disaster. There was no display driver in existence for it under 98.

So this argument overstates the case rather dramatically.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Twirlip of the Mists]

ID has a very small user base, and none of it is in major newspapers.

Does the Washington Post count as "major?" How about the Wall Street Journal?

Thou shalt know what thou art talking about before thou postesth.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Twirlip of the Mists]

And I could counter with the New York Times, the New York Post and every Time-Life and Condé Nast magazine.

Your information is out of date. Time Warner made the decision to migrate nearly a year ago. Conde Nast did it earlier this year.

I've got fifteen years in the industry. How about choo?

Twenty-one, if you broadly define "the industry." You want to compare resumes, or should we just drop our pants and get a ruler?

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[b1t r0t]

Apple has always said that they would continue to produce these machines in response to demand for them. That they've stopped producing them means that demand has dropped sufficiently for them to rely on existing stocks. So clearly, the "lifeline" isn't so important any more.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[quecojones]

Not in my experience. ID has a very small user base, and none of it is in major newspapers.

So, what you're saying is that in major newspapers, Carmack's FPS aren't all that popular... figures. ;)

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[Moofie]

Get the ruler.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[metamatic]

What happens when you need to buy more computers?

I've got a G4 I'll swap for a G5, runs OS 9 beautifully.

I've also got an OS 9 capable iBook I'll gladly swap for a new PowerBook.

Let me know if you're serious and not just blowing hot air.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[gabebear]

wow, that's a bit of a Troll, but ...

HP, for example, can deliver hardware that's tested, warranteed, supported, and, most important, homogenous. When a school system buys 2000 new PCs to run Windows 2000 (which predates OS X), they know that every PC will be the same, every PC will be working out of the box (or will be replaced quickly), and that every PC will be supported in two years.

I'd love for someone to point to ANY company still selling new computers with waranties still offering support for Windows 98. Even in the much larger world of PCs you have to EOL stuff. Companies who stay current, stay current. Companies that wait for something to break, massively upgrade. Every OEM supplier offers warranties(HP is not usually rated very highly). How are HPs any more homogenous than any other computer? Macs are a LOT more homogenous when it comes to drivers/system software.

They also know that any applications they buy will still work in five years.

Not all apps are happy to go between 2000 and XP, and a lot of apps broke between 98/ME and NT/2K.Windows XP SP2 is going to break a shitload of apps(many developers are getting ready for this). Hell, any update can break almost anything, a stupid video card update broke our terminal emulator(Reflections) on our Win2k boxes. P.S. Biege and AIO G3s were discontinued over 5 years ago*.

Most teachers won't even notice the change. XP is that compatible. OS X is not. OS X requires new training, new applications (unless you want to use Classic, which isn't exactly a great solution), new servers, and new machines.

Soooo, Windows hasn't ever changed and will never change their GUI? OSX was a huge change, but that was years ago. If you are still bitching about that, then I'll bitch about Windows 3.1 to 95! Wah! Wah! As far as new servers and machines, WTF? Any Mac produced in the last 5 years* is officialy supported by Apple with OSX and OSX will hook up to pretty much any server.

It would be impossible for a 100% OS 8/9 district to become a 100% OS X district. The all-in-one (and beige) G3s simply do not work correctly on OS X. The PII 233s work fine under Windows XP.

This is silly, OSX will install in a biege G3* as much as XP will work on a PII 233, both machines are on the fringe of being usable even with upgrades. People have to retire machines if they want to stay current.

*Apple officialy stopped supporting beige computers running OSX, but you can still install it, and it works well if you upgrade the video card and RAM. These machines were discontinued back in 1998.

Re:Message from the Extreme Conclusions Club

[lawnboy5-O]

QPS is OS X native as of this month. As with most of the Globe, it is the industry for workflow. Many contenders will try possibly take a little, but never achives what has been done by Quark. It great for a reason... and getting only better. You should have been at their summit this past first week of June. Other dont stand a chance; if you value the ROI on your workflow that is. They have re-invented workflow, again.

It still lives...

[ProfessionalCookie]

It still lives on Slashdot- actually it's the Quicksilver G4 that still exists as the Apple Desktops topic icon.

Now that we're into the second generation of G5's I think an icon update is in order.

Not surprising, and not bad.

[ezraekman]

When I first got my 17" Powerbook, I was dreading my inability to boot into OS 9. After the first couple of months, I stopped missing my OS 9 apps, having found better OS X replacements. Every once in a while, I'd accidentally launch a Classic app, but that was rarely an issue. The only problems I see with OS X now is that it's slightly less secure (though much more stable and powerful), and power users such as myself may run into a lack of available applications for specific tasks. (Rasterizing NOAA vector maps, for example.)

I imagine we'll hear a few people here and there complain about needing to migrate to OS X, but I think the pros for dropping G4s from the line outweigh the cons. Besides, I have a feeling that, unless they require very specific compatibiliy with a legacy app that's no longer available, they're going to be fine. Now we're going to see price drops increase on these suckers dramatically, and suddenly a bunch of students and other low-income folks be able to afford a machine that they didn't think possible for their budget. I'll bet DealMac will be listing some price slashing within a couple of days.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[Teancom]

The biggest problem I have (and why I'm staying on OS9, at least on one machine) is the gigantic stack of kids games, all written in the mid to late '90s, that my kids love. Things like Putt Putt, Dora, Legos, Farmhouse, Math Rabbit, etc. On the other hand, even the 450Mhz G3 iMac that they're using is grossly over-powered for their needs. If it ever dies I'll just get a $100 used POS and be right back up again...

But this is the same problem that MS faces, trying to get people off of Win98 (and 95!). You can talk about making a break with backwards compatability all you want, but in reality, stuff sticks around for *decades* after you thought it would...

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[ezraekman]

You're kind of talking apples and oranges. You're right that security is not limited to the front door, but it's not necessary to put a portcullis inside the door if you know the door is secure. If you're particularly worried about your files in OS 9, download PGP. But my point is that, unless you screw something up on your own or let others access your machine, you just didn't need that kind of support.

OS 9 didn't have a built-in firewall because OS 9 didn't have a bunch of services running that needed one. Even the built-in mini web server only served files out of a specific directory that most people never touched. Regardless, the firewall in OS X isn't on by default, and therein lies the problem. OS 9 didn't have any security issues (that I know of), that were a part of the operating system. As far as the I.E. security issue goes, that's a problem with an application, not with the operating system. In addition, it's a 3rd-party app, though it ships with the system.

Sure, Appleshare is INSTALLED by default, but it is not ENABLED by default. When you first install your OS, you are asked if you wish to have a Shared Folder, and you then have to go through the steps of creating it. Think of it this way: your house has a lock on the door, and is locked as a default. When you want to get into your house, you need to unlock the door. Now, you're able to unlock it and leave it unlocked, but that's a problem with the user, not with the door.

The point that I'm trying to make is that is was damn hard to get into an OS 9 box unless the user did something really dumb, like leave their password blank. If memory serves, you'd even get a warning if you did so. OS X has had a not insignificant number of security vulnerabilities that existed BY DEFAULT. That is, the box (assuming it was on and had a network connection) was insecure just sitting unused unless the user downloaded a patch. OS 9 did not have these vulnerabilities. It's that simple.

I'm not complaining about OS X; I'll never go back to OS 9 unless I need to run a classic app. I'm just pointing out a relevant fact: that OS 9 was inherently more secure by default than OS X, given recent security issues that have been brought to light. I'm also not advocating less security over more... but in this case it wasn't necessary, and to tell users that they need to keep adding more and more levels of security to a box that's already plenty secure is a waste of your time and theirs.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Nevertheless if someone has found a way to get on your machine

You do know that there's never been a recorded instance in the wild of a remote compromise of a Classic Mac OS machine, right? You could cook one up in your basement, I'm sure, but it's never happened out there in real life, ever.

come on, Appleshare is installed by default on OS-9!

Installed... but off. It has to be manually turned on.

You'd better back the hell off OS 9, man. As far as network security goes, it's top of the list.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[b1t r0t]

Only because 1) there's no shell to take easy control of the system with, and 2) there's no memory protection, so buffer overflows have no way of knowing what address a given programs stack is located at.

The system will crash rather than be taken over. So while it's more "secure" from being taken over, it would be much easier to DoS into crashing.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[commodoresloat]

You do know that there's never been a recorded instance in the wild of a remote compromise of a Classic Mac OS machine, right?

This is not entirely true. Somebody broke into the Mac running WebStar that was hosting the "Crack-a-Mac" contest. But they did it by exploiting a vulnerability in a filemaker script that was running alongside the webserver. But a remote compromise is a remote compromise.

As someone else pointed out, an app like Timbuktu gives you remote back-office-style control over a Mac if you can install the program; I used to have an installer program that installed an invisible version of the Timbuktu on any Mac, making it easy to gain access if you could get physical access to the machine once (or get someone to run the file). More troubling was the application distributed at the time by securemac.com (I forget the name of the app) that opened an obscure port on the mac for a user to telnet into and the user could issue commands via a simple command language. The commands allowed a user to open programs, files, delete files, etc; most things that you could do sitting in front of the machine.

Of course the latter two aren't really exploits as they require a user to actually install them (once). But the lack of a firewall means that if they are installed once they do damage; whereas a firewall would head off the damage they might do (assuming the apps are installed by trickery rather than by a malicious user sitting at the machine, who could also turn off the firewall of course.

But all this is academic -- os9 was more secure "out of the box" because it didn't do anything. Like someone else wrote, you can't telnet into a rock either. Once you make the os do things, like run webservers, or cgi scripts (like the filemaker one that got exploited), or remote access apps, or ftpd (I believe there was a vulnerable ftpd program under os9, actually more like os7.1 or 7.5), etc., you open up the potential for exploits. The same with any services you open up under UNIX. If you run OSX without any network services turned on and with all ports closed, it is just as secure as OS 9 "out of the box" -- and just as useful.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[commodoresloat]

All the webmasters at the DoD will be shocked to learn that their web servers don't do anything.

Their web servers weren't "in the box" when they bought OS9. The very first sentence of the article you linked points out that the Army was running WebStar, which certainly wasn't part of OS9, and isn't running "out of the box."

No, NOT the same. Because nothing runs on a Mac under OS 9 unless you explicity enable it. Unlike UNIX, where services run by default out of the box.

Right - including webservers. That was exactly my point. An OS9 (or 8 or 7) out-of-the-box install didn't "do anything," as far as the internet is concerned, so it didn't introduce any vulnerabilities, whereas most UNIX out-of-the-box installations do have network services running. When the Mac is running the same or similar services it is much more vulnerable. It is this -- and not some mysterious design feature of the OS itself -- that makes the Mac more secure -- and less useful -- "out of the box."

Look, I'm a huge MacOS fan, even OS 9,8,7 (actually 8.5.1 was my favorite; it was downhill from there in my opinion until X), but there is no sense in pretending things that aren't true. Mac OS9 was not inherently any more secure than any other OS; it was more secure in practice because all network services were disabled and not too many people used them (and not too many used Macs anyway), so the hunt for Mac security holes was never as vigorous and popular as the hunt for UNIX and Windows exploits. There was a Mac hacking community, and it came up with some pretty clever things (including that remote control program that I wish I could remember the name of), but the few Macs running WebStar were never an attractive enough target for hackers with acres of apache & IIS servers in front of them to play with.

I guess my point is that the OS is only as secure as the services it is running, and that's true of UNIX as well. There is nothing inherently more secure about OS9; UNIX can certainly be installed without turning on vulnerable services but nobody bothers because these machines are meant to be used on the internet.

There were versions of apache for Mac, for example, vulnerable to whatever exploits were around for the version of apache they were based on. And WebStar was a damn fine server, but its big selling point was that it was a freakin' workhorse, not that it was any more secure than apache, except perhaps through obscurity. And either way it says nothing about the inherent security of OS 9. Arguably OS9 is less secure as an OS than UNIX because it treats every user as root.

Don't compare Mac and UNIX "out of the box" because they're in very different boxes. Compare Mac + network services to UNIX "out of the box" or Mac "out of the box" to UNIX with all network services turned off if you actually want to compare them for this purpose.

Re:Not surprising, and not bad.

[commodoresloat]

I guess you just don't understand my point. Saying there was no example of a compromised system that we know about is irrelevant. You can just as easily make the same claim about BeOS. The point is the OS itself is in no way more secure than UNIX as an OS. You seem to be confusing the OS and the webserver (in the case of old Mac OS you're talking about WebStar, which was not made by Apple, and says nothing about MacOS security, just like apache says nothing about UNIX security). And, as I said, some people did run apache on the Mac, there were at least two versions I remember, probably more, so comparing WebStar vs. apache doesn't say anything about MacOS security at all.

You keep repeating the claim there has been no successful exploit "in the wild" (that you know of) -- which may be true if you ignore the crack-a-mac contest, but it is irrelevant. A mac running insecure services is no more secure than a UNIX box running insecure services, and a Mac that is not connected to a network at all is as secure as a UNIX box not connected to a network. And, again, it is probably less secure, since once the service has been compromised, the attacker now has root access to the Mac. At the OS-level the Mac is probably less secure.

I realize that you think your claim that there has been no successful compromise of os9 is some kind of self-evidently significant argument, but it is basically just interesting data until you suggest some actual hypothesis (other than obscurity) as to what might make OS9 more secure.

My hypothesis is that OS9 was more secure simply because out of the box it didn't do anything (as far as the network is concerned). And the majority of users left it that way. It's a simple hypothesis, and all you can say is "Bogus."

Speculation

[Goo.cc]

"The PowerMac G4 had continued to be in production largely for users of Mac OS 9"

I believe that statement is mostly speculation. There are people, like myself, who need a low cost Mac that doesn't saddle them with a built in monitor. I have a single processor 1.25ghz G4 with 2 gigabytes of RAM and I am totally happy with it.

Hopefully, Apple will one day offer something like the eMac without a built in monitor.

Re:Speculation

[javax]

I believe there are plenty of Artists and other non-techfreaking users out there who are afraid of OS-X. They stay with what they know and what supports the application they use for years now.
Nerds like us get the most recent OS version of whatever gets thrown at us. We even buy stuff like the BeBox or the new Amiga, that dont have any real apps.

Re:Speculation

[squiggleslash]

Nope, not speculation. Oh sure, people may have bought the PM G4 for other reasons, but Apple's primary reason for continuing to sell it was that they'd promised to continue to support (and sell hardware capable of running) Mac OS 9 until this year.

The PowerMac G4 is/was the last product in their line that ran Mac OS 9. Everything else they currently sell is incapable of running any of Apple's operating systems pre-OS X.

INCORRECT! Dual G4s still to be made

[sribe]

Apple's actual quote is:

The single 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4, with suggested retail price of $1,299 (US), will no longer be in production and is available for purchase while supplies last through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

This is only the low-end of 3 configurations, leaving both dual-processor G4s still in production.

Dualies!

[funkdid]

Every now and again Apple offers it's Power Mac line in Dual only configs. (Usually when they haven't had a speed boost to offer in awhile). I always thought that, THAT was the way to go. Maybe it's cause I'm a Mac zealot, but there's something hardcore about seeing a model that is only offered in a Dual Processor config.

I know a lot of people that were hoping dual G4s would come down in price when the G5s came out. I think it would be nice to have a low-end *upgradeable* (not iMac or eMac) tower offering from Apple. Perhaps the G4 could have filled that niche. Dual G4s in a mini tower maybe, plus the G5 powermac. Kind of like the iBook Vs. Powerbook. (Oh yeah there isn't much difference between them now.)

I know, I know. Apple needs to sell G5s in order for IBM to make faster ones, cheaper ones etc. Still an only dual processor offering from Apple would be neat.

Re:Dualies!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

For most people, a dual CPU offers no real advantage.

Boy, is that ever not true.

Remember, we're talking about Mac OS X here. Mac OS X uses a task model that's very similar to the UNIX model you're probably familiar with. (It's Mach, not UNIX, but the gist is the same.) That means there's support for dual processors at the thread level, sure, but there's also support at the process level.

Right now, on the G4 I'm using to type this, I have 69 processes running. Not much: just the base OS, Safari, Mail, iChat, and iTunes. But on my machine, whatever task is next in the run queue gets run on whichever processor is free. (Yes, there's processor affinity. That's not important right now.)

The net result is that the amount of time a given process is runnable but not running is reduced, because I've got two, two, two Macs in one.

Bottom line? My Mac is faster and more responsive than an equivalent single-processor Mac. Not just sometimes, but always.

Two processors are better than one, period.

remember, the new machines are 4 months late because the CPU has hard to get

First, WTF? Please don't pull things like "4 months late" out of your butt and expect to be taken seriously. You haven't seen Apple's product release roadmaps. You don't know what you're talking about.

And secondly, the 2.5 GHz G5 isn't hard to get; it's hard to MAKE. IBM had lots of problems with their 90 nm fab process. It's not like supplies were constrained. The suckers just weren't coming out of the plant.

Re:Dualies!

[harlows_monkeys]

First, WTF? Please don't pull things like "4 months late" out of your butt and expect to be taken seriously. You haven't seen Apple's product release roadmaps. You don't know what you're talking about.

I didn't pull it out of my butt. I pulled it out of what Apple said in their conference call explaining their first quarter results. Apple says that these machines were supposed to be out at the end of February, but were delayed because of CPU availability.

Re:Dualies!

[daviddennis]

When Final Cut Pro 3 came out, I was running a 450mhz dual processor G4. I visited the Apple Store to check it out, and I found that rendering on a single processor 867 killed the machine.

I was disappointed since I waas hoping to at least surf the web while rendering as a major benefit of MacOS X. (Previous versions of Final Cut Pro were MacOS 9 only). So it was with a heavy heart that I bought back my shiny new upgrade and installed it on my dual 450.

Worked like a charm. No problem multi-tasking at all during rendering. So in some cases, a dual 450 outperforms a single 867. I would never buy a single-processor PowerMac.

D

Re:Good riddance!

[Smurf]

Still no 90nm process chips in the powermacs.

No, no. The new PowerMacs are using 90 nm process G5s.

And to the people that responded saying that the system is not liquid cooled, well, you are wrong. (Although you are right in that the liquid isn't water). Apple didn't use a heat pipe. In heat pipes the liquid is evaporated (taking the heat away) and the resulting vapor is condensed by releasing the heat to the outside. The fluid motion is produced passively. In Apple's design apparently the fluid is always in liquid state and is actively pumped (controlled by the processor).

(Credit goes to TamMan2000 for the finding the last link and providing some info.)

Re:Good riddance!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

This is, far and away, the stupidest subject of rumor I've ever heard.

This isn't a case in which Apple could build them (faster G5's, and a laptop with a G5 in it) if they wanted and they're just holding out for a business case. And this isn't a case where they're making incremental improvements to the design to get it just right.

Both a 3 GHz G5 and a laptop with a G5 in it are TECHNICAL IMPOSSIBILITIES at this time.

When they cease to be impossible, Apple will make them.

This whole "they'll be announced in January" thing is crap. Utter, utter crap. It's not a rumor. It's just a guess.

Whither the iMac?

[Zhe Mappel]

To summarize the main points of the Mac Central piece (from which /.'s factoid is taken):

The G5 heatsink is too big to put in a laptop

The G5 heatsink is too big to put in an iMac

Putting the big G5 heatsink anwhere but inside a Power Mac is a "heck of a challenge," according to an Apple marketing director

But we have also heard, in the past week, that the G4 iMac is no longer being shipped to Apple stores. So, is Apple just being coy here? Or is the iMac line going into hibernation?

Re:Whither the iMac?

[lethe1001]

What are you talking about? When did anyone say that they were no longer shipping the G4 iMac?

They stopped production of the G4 powermac, but the G4 iMac is still around

Re:Whither the iMac?

[Analog Penguin]

I haven't heard anything about the G4 iMac EOL (link?), but even if it's true, that doesn't necessarily mean G5. They could just be updating the thing with faster G4s, more memory and disk space, etc. Dualie G4 iMacs would be cool, especially given their current slow speed (1.25 Ghz? yuck), but I wouldn't count on G5 iMacs just yet. My brother has a G5, and that thing runs damn hot. I can't imagine putting it into an iMac case without a major redesign, and considering how much trouble they're having keeping up with tower production, it just seems unlikely that we're there yet.

Consider also that for a while, Apple had "pro" processors and "consumer" processors--G3 iMacs and iBooks, G4 towers and Powerbooks. I doubt we'll be seeing G5s in the iMac before the Powerbook, at the very least.

Re:Good riddance!

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Your guessing.

No, he's quoting. "Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature." How can you adjust the flow in a system that lacks any mechanism to regulate the flow?

The Apple diagram you linked to shows no pump.

LOL. The "diagram" is an illustration from a marketing brochure. You might as well say, "The diagram shows no floor. Therefore, the G5 floats unsupported above your desk."

This is hardly innovation.

So?

Perhaps instead . . .

[erikharrison]

we should say OS 9 is dead. The death of an entire OS is more notable than the change from 32 to 64 bit.

Re:Good riddance!

[falcon5768]

hmmm I wonder.... does this liquidcooled system have anything in common with THIS

if so acourding to this it is a pump, thus proving you wrong.... something tells me based on how old the article is it most likely is this watercooling setup.

Re:Good riddance!

[TheRaven64]

Not entirely. All Apple (should) need to build a G5 powerbook is for IBM to sort out the yields on PPC970FXs. Presumably they've kept a couple of dozen of them back from the XServe G5s to go to their R&D division. I wouldn't be surprised if they already have a working G5 powerbook design (the 970FX is electrically compatible with the 970, so they could have been working on one for over a year), but without sufficient quantities of 970FXs they can't launch them. January is roughly when IBM are expected to get their act together, so this seems entirely feasible.

Oh, and the exact same problem exists for 3GHz G5s. The current ones still use the 130nm 970, which was expected to be phased out in favour of the lower power and higher speed 90nm 970FX by now.

Classicurity

[thatguywhoiam]

You'd better back the hell off OS 9, man. As far as network security goes, it's top of the list.

Best quote I've ever heard about the state of Classic Mac OS security, from a friend who really knows his shit:

"Sure, you're right, I can't break into OS 9. But I can't telnet into a fucking rock now, either, can I?"

True story.

Re:Good riddance!

[MoneyT]

Heat.

The G5 puts out a decent amount of it. And it's great that they could cram it into an XServe. But the Xserve is about an inch and a half thicker, and can have 3 very loud very fast fans running to cool it off (sorry, Xserves just aren't quiet). By contrast, people bitch and moan about the low hum that comes from their powerbooks when the fan kicks in. So while it may be possible to cram a g5 into a powerbook, it isn't possible to release a G5 powerbook until stylisticaly and operationaly it runs better than the current powerbooks.