Obsolescence Is Relative
From Felix:
Dear Charles,
I was thrilled to see our
correspondence published on the Low End Mac website. Thank you for
all the good advice. I think I will go the book way, since the online
information is a little too sketchy for my taste.
Some people see as useless and weird that I'm taking the time to
learn old software, and even compare it to learning a dead language.
(Which is, in itself, an interesting simile, since learning a dead
language is anything but useless.) The truth is that, although I
basically started using Macs under the rule of Panther, and although I
have kept up with the successive transmigrations of OS X, I have
also tried to go back and learn to use OS 9 and OS 9
software.
As an experiment, I have gone entire weeks in OS 9.2.2 and found
that my productivity has not suffered one iota - plus there are lots of
fun apps and games, and even my Internet experience has been
satisfactory beyond expectations. I also have several friends, mostly
designers, who have held back from going Intel because they are
perfectly productive with the older Macs and the Classic software they
already have and use - not to mention the thousands of dollars they are
saving!
But I'm starting to ramble. My point is, obsolescence is a word that
does not necessarily mean the same to everyone. As long as something is
useful and fun, it is never obsolete. And I'm very happy to have read
several recent letters and columns on the subject at LEM.
So, heck, of course I'll learn to use Eudora. Anything that expands
my horizon, even by an inch, I'll learn. And, as long as something
still serves a purpose, and does it well, it's never really
obsolete.
Thanks again, and keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Felix
Hi Felix,
I expect other my find our exchange interesting and
perhaps helpful.
Good on you for your interest in learning Eudora. If
it will support your hardware, it's the best (IMHO) POP3 email client
software ever written for the Mac (probably Windows as well, although I
don't have the same frame of reference).
Mac OS 9 also remains a delightful environment to work
in, in some respects such as flexibility and snappy Finder response
better than OS X, and on older hardware it's like turbo-boost
compared with OS X. It also can be more stable than it's often
given credit for. I once went more than three months with daily use on
my old WallStreet
PowerBook running OS 9.2.2 without restarting, and only then when I
needed to install something.
I have to admit, however, that it's been a while since
I booted directly into the Classic OS, although my old Pismos can do
so. I'm thoroughly addicted to OS X features like Spotlight (and
its third-party derivatives, such as Spotinside),
Spaces, and built-in spellchecking. However, I do keep Classic Mode
running pretty well all the time on the Pismo, so I still have my hand
in with the old OS.
Charles
Is Leopard Viable on a Blue & White G3?
From Lee:
Hi Charles,
Thanks
When I tried to locate 10.4 Tiger on YourMacStore's website, I was
unable to locate. I have 9.2.2. They seem not to have 10.4.x, not at
$75 or any price.
London Drugs has OS X 10.5.x for $129. Why on earth would I spend
$200 or $300 on what is an out of date OS.
If I were to upgrade my Blue and White with a
processor, memory, and video card, would it run 10.5?
Again thanks
Lee
Hi Lee,
Discontinued copies of OS X installer disks are where
you find them and while supplies last. I've seen out-of-date installer
disks selling for more than whatever the current shipping version is.
Supply and demand.
The official cutoff for Leopard support is an 867 MHz
G4, so theoretically if you install a 1 GHz G4 upgrade and
sufficient RAM (at least 1 GB), it should be possible to install
Leopard, although you would probably have to avail yourself of the
XPostFacto installer hack for unsupported Macs.
Personally, I would go with Tiger on that machine. I
haven't even seriously considered trying to run Leopard on my
G4-upgraded Pismo
PowerBooks. Leopard is a marginal enough performer on my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4
with 1.5 GB of RAM.
If you want to try Leopard on the B&W, check out
the info on this forum:
http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-pro-and-power-mac/371357/leopard-blue-white-g3-success-coreimage/
Charles
Dial-up Internet Is Growing
From Abraham:
Dear Charles,
I recently came across your article on Getting Settled in with the
Unibody MacBook, which I found interesting. As a provider of
dial-up Internet access, I thought you might be interested in knowing
our dial-up subscriber base grew by over 13% in 2008 and has shown no
signs of slowing down. I was wondering if you would consider linking to
our website
as an example of a successful dial-up provider that is proof of the
trends you have presented.
Thanks again for the time you spend writing articles like this, and
feel free to contact me if you ever need an insiders take on the
dial-up industry.
Thank you,
Abraham Williams
copper.net
Hi Abraham,
I'm delighted to hear that you enjoyed the article and
that your dial-up ISP is thriving. I'm posting your letter with link in
Miscellaneous Ramblings Mailbag.
Tell your customers about Opera Turbo. It
really speeds things up.
Charles
Sub-56k Dial-up Internet
From Bryan:
Hi Charles,
I can certainly empathise with your belief that the USB modem isn't
performing as well as the built-in modems of the past PowerBooks. I'm
using a MacBook Pro with a USB modem in a rural location in New
Zealand, and although I leave it set to v92, in fact I'm struggling to
see the performance improvement over v34 (which I believe is 33.6k).
It's all down to retries as I understand it - and neighbours with
electric fences in close proximity (especially parallel to) the copper
phone lines. It's something we have to grin and bear, since 95% of
Apple's customers are on broadband. We can have that too via satellite,
but at an eye-watering cost...
regards
Bryan
Hi Bryan,
Glad (sort of) to hear it's not just my rig,
It's always a conundrum to pinpoint where speed
bottlenecks are, but since throughput with the USB modem on the MacBook
is significantly slower than I'm getting with either the PowerBook G4
or Pismo on the same phone lines using the same browsers, and I'm
doubtful that the laggard is the MacBook - the modem seems the likely
culprit.
With a max 26,400 bps connection speed here, I've
never found it made any tangible difference playing with modem
v-settings.
Satellite Internet is available here too, with the
same caveats about the absurd cost.
Sigh.
Charles
I'm Amazed That You Still Need to Use Dial-up
From Brian:
Hi Charles...
As a fellow Canadian, I'm amazed that you still need to use dial-up.
Have you tried the Bell Mobility/Rogers
Inukshuk-based Unplugged/Portable Internet service? The price is
okay, and the performance reasonable.
Alternatively, you could plug a 3G cellular USB modem into a
wireless router and use the device for mobility too.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this,
Best
Brian
Hi Brian,
As of late 2007 (latest figures I have), 22%
of Nova Scotians still didn't have access to broadband. That was
200,000 people (or 93,500 households) and 5,600 businesses in a
province with a population under 1 million.
It's improved significantly over the past year, but
there's still a long way to go to get us all on broadband. I figure my
neck of the (literal) woods, with a very low population density, will
be among the last to get broadband service.
I hadn't heard of the Bell Mobility/Rogers
Inukshuk-based Unplugged/Portable Internet service, but I looked it up.
The price is reasonable, as you say, but it looks like Rogers' Portable
Internet Basic service is being phased
out, and the Bell coverage map says the only area in Nova Scotia
with coverage is greater Halifax, which is 150 miles from here.
As for 3G cellular, the nearest coverage is about 35
miles distant as the proverbial crow flies. We just got digital
cellular phone service here two years ago.
Thanks for the info.
Charles
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