Nearly a decade has has passed since the last run of PowerPC Macs hit Apple’s store shelves and provided us with one last hurrah on “thinking different” and being part of the trope of “crazy ones” who simply would not conform to the norm.
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The Think Different campaign meant a lot to those who hold Apple near and dear and balked changing things just to fit in. The fact that Macs had run PowerPC processors versus Intel or AMD CPUs for so long kept a true point of difference and made Macs unique and unable to run Windows natively (emulation only).
As fate would have it though, just as unthinkable as it was for Steve Jobs to help bring improved versions of Microsoft Office to the Mac shortly after his return and accept an investment of $150 Million from the corporate giant out of Redmond (which many Mac die-hards despised for years), Macs would abandon PowerPC processors in favor of Intel.
Apple released the first version of Rosetta in 2006 when it changed the instruction set architecture of the Macintosh platform from the PowerPC to the Intel processor.It was initially included with Mac OS X v10.4.4 'Tiger', the version that was released with the first Intel-based Macs, and allows many PowerPC applications to run on certain Intel-based Mac computers without modification. By the time Apple announced the transition to Intel processors, Apple had been using PowerPC processors in its product line for 11 years. During 2003's WWDC keynote address, Jobs unveiled a Power Mac that features a processor from IBM's PowerPC G5 product line. At the time, the Power Mac G5 was the first personal computer to feature a 64-bit processor. It is also the last Mac OS X version that supports PowerPC-based applications, as Mac OS X v10.7 'Lion' dropped support for Rosetta. In 2020, 15 years following the announcement to transition to Intel processors, Apple announced a transition of the Macintosh to ARM -based processors developed in-house. But you’re free to virtualize Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, macOS 10.12 Sierra, and macOS 10.13. So, I have to do all my drum tracks is Snow Leo & PT 9, then if I want, reboot into newer OS and open session in PT 10. But I also still have a dual 2GHz G5 which runs lightning fast with the versions of apps that were designed for it. In short, don't emulate and keep your PPC Mac or buy one used is the best option.
No longer did it seem that Macs were “thinking different”. At the time it really felt as if Apple had conceded to be more or less like Windows machines, allowing Windows to run natively on the Mac due to the change in architecture.
PowerPC Goes Out with a Bang
The last gasp of notable Macs maintaining the PowerPC chips came around this time or were just discontinued at this time ten years ago, but are still among the favorites for Mac collectors (see key feature below each Mac that sets it apart).
1.42 GHz eMac G4 – discontinued 10/12/2005
Key Feature: Had a 64 MB Radeon 9600 (instead of the Radeon 9200 from the 2004 model), making it the only eMac with Core Image capabilities
17″ and 20″ iMac G5 iSight – introduced 10/12/2005
Key Feature: integrated iSight camera and Iinfrared (IR) receiver, making this the only PowerPC Mac with built-in iSight, hence the “iSight” moniker for this iMac
Power Mac G5 Quad – announced 10/19/2005 and shipped November 2005
Key Feature: Fastest PowerPC Mac ever made and the only PowerPC Mac made (aside from the Daystar Genesis clone) to ship with 4 cores.
Additionally, Apple made 2.0 GHz and 2.3 GHz Power Mac G5 Dual models for those who didn’t need quad-core power.
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Hi-Res PowerBook G4 – shipped 10/19/2005
Oddly, but perhaps most importantly, the 1.67 GHz Hi-Res PowerBook G4 that shipped out 10/19/2005 – a mere three months before it would be discontinued in favor of the original 1.83 GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro: 15″ model – A1138 or M9969LL/A and its “big brother” counterpart 17″ model – A1139 or M9970LL/A
Key Feature: Only 15″ PowerBook G4 with combined 3.5mm Optical/Analog audio input/output jack (17″ had this feature on the 1.5 GHz in addition to 1.67 GHz).
Note: The 12″ PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz endured much longer than all the rest of the PowerPC line. It hung around until May 2006, stepping aside with the arrival of the polycarbonate white MacBook) due to the fact that no small form factor MacBook or MacBook Pro was released initially alongside the 15″ MacBook Pro in January 2006.
These Macs were the pinnacle of their lines and still can command a premium on eBay and other secondhand markets. I personally had the pleasure of owning a 15″ Hi-Res PowerBook G4 and still have a 12″ 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 and 1.42 GHz eMac G4 in my collection. All of these Macs are still somewhat viable today as web browsers with TenFourFox, video editing stations with iMovie HD ’06, and could even be decent candidates for MorphOS (a third party operating system that is still currently developed for PowerPC Macs).
The Power Mac G5 Quad was more powerful than most “consumer” Intel Macs (Mac Minis, iMac, MacBooks) from 2006 through 2008, with an average Geekbench 2 score in the 3300 to 3600 range. During this time, only the Mac Pro was technically more powerful on paper, but even then (at least early on), many Mac OS X applications were optimized for PowerPC (and not Intel), giving the G5 Quad a significant advantage.
Tiger or Leopard?
Every single one of these aforementioned Macs that shipped in 2005 came with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger installation media and could utilize the 10.4.6 retail installation DVD. Tiger is generally considered the very best version of Mac OS X produced for the PowerPC. It was truly optimized for the PowerPC G4 and G5 in all aspects (even runs great on G3s) and is significantly smoother than Mac OS X 10.3 Panther on systems that support Tiger when provided with ample RAM.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard arrived in 2007, and by that time Intel Macs had displaced all PowerPCs in retail and online outlets (save for clearance and refurbished), but a time of “crossover” existed and allowed both developers and Apple themselves a chance to ween us off of PowerPC gear and PowerPC applications. Apple shipped Leopard on a dual-layer DVD (a first); it was the first and last true “Universal Binary” operating system for PowerPC and Intel Macs.
Note: Although Tiger was also developed for Intel, only Leopard had installation assets for both Intel and PowerPC Macs on the same disc.
At this point, which OS should you run on these late model PowerPC Macs? The short and simple answer: both!
Why?
I could get into a multitude of reasons, but I will keep it down to the two biggest key features that don’t exist on both versions: Classic Mode exists in Tiger only, and Time Machine exists in Leopard only. You can partition your Mac to run both versions of Mac OS X or have multiple boot disks and then boot into Tiger when you want to take advantage of old OS 9 applications that run quite well in Classic Mode and then switch over to Leopard when you want to run a full Time Machine backup (including Tiger partitions/disks).
The key is RAM though – all of these Macs are more than capable of running Leopard and support at least 2 GB of RAM. Make sure you have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM to comfortably run Leopard, but anything more than that is better to allow you more breathing room for multitasking.
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Collectible Today
These Macs are becoming sought after for the very reason that they were the pinnacle of their lines and still have limited viability due to the ability to run Leopard rather smoothly.
- Hi-Res PowerBooks in excellent condition still command $200 to $500 eBay prices.
- G5 Quads sell for as much (if not more) than a Mac Pro 1,1, even though a Mac Pro 1,1 can be heavily upgraded with 8 CPU cores and modern GPUs (blowing away a Quad) and can be tricked to run a modern build of OS X.
- Even the eMac G4 1.42 GHz iMac G5 iSight can grab $100.
- The 12″ PowerBook G4 is probably the biggest sleeper of them all. It’s still my favorite sub-compact Mac in the past decade and has more connectivity options than all subsequent subcompacts to this day.
If you can find one of these machines with original box, manuals, and accessories in excellent to mint condition, hang on tight. They will continue to appreciate and be more and more sought after by collectors. They are true low-end Macs!
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Getting an old (2002) 700 MHz iMac G4 with just 512 MB of memory up and running reminded me of what a nice – and still useful – operating system Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is, especially on that old Apple PowerPC hardware.
I wouldn’t normally run Tiger with just 512 MB of memory, but that’s what came with the computer, and I’m not going to throw money at it. Likewise, it has a very pokey hard drive with just 40 GB capacity, but it’s not like this is going to be a production computer. (If it were, I’d transplant one of my higher capacity 7200 RPM hard drives.)
I used Tiger daily until about three years ago, when Low End Mac moved from using Claris Home Page 3.0 in Classic Mode, which requires Tiger or earlier versions of OS X, to WordPress, which is a browser-based content management system (CMS). I used Home Page when I began Low End Mac in April 1997, and it was early 2013 that I finally found and moved to a better solution.
Classic Mode is at its best on a dual-processor Power Mac, because it can dedicate one CPU full time to Classic Mode while the other handles all the OS X details. But once I retired Home Page, I no longer needed to use Tiger on a regular basis – I moved to OS X 10.5 Leopard on my Power Macs and 10.6 Snow Leopard on my 2007 Mac mini.
There was only one reason I ever switched from Tiger to Leopard – NetNewsWire had switched to using Google’s RSS feed manager (since discontinued), and that version of the app required Leopard. If not for that, I would have stuck with Tiger. It was perfectly adequate for my needs, and it’s still good enough for a lot of people to continue using it, especially on PowerPC Macs. (I’ve never used Tiger on an Intel Mac, but unless it has less than 1 GB of system memory, you’re better off with Snow Leopard on Intel Macs.)
Browsers
Any Mac running OS X Tiger can run TenFourFox 38, a port of Firefox optimized in separate versions for G3 and G5 CPUs, along with two G4 versions depending on which chip variant you have. Sure, Firefox for supported platforms is at version 47 now, but TenFourFox 45.3 is in its second. (Rather than port every version to PowerPC, TenFourFox only works on the ESR, Extended Support Release, a sequence that includes 38 and 45 but nothing in between.)
As we’ve said time and again, if you have a PowerPC Mac running Tiger, TenFourFox is the best browser going. You even get full screen mode, something most Mac apps didn’t get until OS X 10.7 Lion or later. And Simon Royal has shared some tips on tweaking TenFourFox to be even more responsive.
Google’s Chrome browser was never ported to PowerPC, Firefox officially dropped Tiger support before Firefox 4 was released, and Safari is hopelessly old and outdated at version 4.1.3 from 2010. I’d go with Camino as my alternate Tiger browser. It’s a Mac-specific port of an earlier version of Mozilla, very lightweight, and pretty responsive, but without the flexibility and power of TenFourFox.
Probably the biggest problem with older browsers is that some websites, especially banking and the like, may not support your old Mac. Then again, there are parts of the company website for my current employer that I can’t access on my MacBook running OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Some sites don’t like Macs. Some sites don’t like any browser not made by Microsoft.
Office Apps and Suites
As long as you’re using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or earlier, you can’t go wrong with AppleWorks 6. AppleWorks used to come free with every iMac, and it’s the best integrated office suite ever. Working with Microsoft Office and Apple’s iWork apps has convinced me of that. With AppleWorks, a single app handles word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, vector art, and more. (The database is probably its weakest component.)
Microsoft Office is powerful, but its also bloated and composed of several separate apps, unlike AppleWorks which is fully integrated. LibreOffice 4.0.2 (the last PowerPC version) is powerful but slow.
For word processing, TextEdit is free and decent, but the freeware Bean word processor is even nicer. Version 2.4.5 is the last to support OS X Tiger.
Unleash the Tiger
The best thing you can do for Tiger is run it on a dual-processor Power Mac G4 or G5 – or the truly awesomely powerful 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 Quad – with plenty of memory. Tiger can run with less than 512 MB, but that’s a realistic minimum for decent performance. 1 GB is nice, 2 GB is great, and more than that, even better, although you need a G5-based Mac if you want to access more than 2 GB of memory.
Regardless of how many processors your Mac has or what speed it runs at, more memory will always help OS X run better. That’s as true for the original version as it is for macOS Sierra.
The next best thing you can do, after installing all the memory you can, is to use a fast hard drive or SSD. I’ve been installing 7200 RPM drives in my Macs for about 15 years now, and it really makes a difference. An SSD would be even faster, but make sure you get one that works well with PowerPC Macs – and the Classic Mac OS, if you ever plan on booting directly into Mac OS 9. Note that Tiger does not support drives over 2 TB.
Or Just Playing with Tiger
If you’re just going to use the old Mac for AppleWorks, browsing the Web lightly, and some vintage Mac games (I love Sim City 2000), an old G3 or G4 Mac with Tiger works well. It’s less demanding of hardware resources than Leopard, and it would make for a very nice homework machine. After all, you probably can’t out-type a 16 MHz Mac II, let alone a 300 MHz G3.
I would look to slot-loading iMacs, G4 iMacs, a Lombard or Pismo PowerBook, any G4 PowerBook, or any Power Mac from the Blue and White model forward as good Tiger candidates.
Conclusion
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Sure, there are theoretical insecurities in Tiger and Leopard and Snow Leopard that are never going to be fixed, and there is only one close-to-up-to-date browser for Tiger, but even the latest operating systems – including macOS Sierra, Windows 10, Chrome OS, and every flavor of Linux – has some undiscovered security issues. It’s the nature of a modern operating system. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
When I set up an old G4 or G5 Mac, I partition the hard drive with one-quarter to one-third of the space for OS X 10.4 Tiger, the other partition with OS X 10.5 Leopard, which has some slightly more modern browsers, some alternative browsers (Stainless and Roccat, for instance) not available on Tiger, and can be used to run a Time Machine backup drive for your network (2 GB maximum drive size!).
But overall, I could be happily working with Tiger today. It will squeeze the most out of that old PowerPC G3, G4, and G5 hardware, and it will let you blast into the past with Classic Mode (see Low End Mac’s Compleat Guide to Mac OS 9). In fact, Classic Mode gives you a browser option not available to those running OS X Leopard and later: Classilla runs very nicely under Mac OS 9.x and is set up to access websites as though it were a mobile browser, which should really speed things up.
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If you’ve got old Macs, give Tiger a try.
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