OS X 10.4 Tiger Is Still Very Useful

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.

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Is Still Good Enough for Me

Honestly, if they didn’t keep dropping support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in new versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Flash, I’d have almost no reason to have OS X 10.9 Mavericks on my Late 2008 13″ Aluminum MacBook (that’s a 2013 OS on a 2008 computer). But my Mid 2007 Mac mini is limited […]

Using Skype on your PPC Macintosh in 2016

The way we talk on the Internet fundamentally changed over the past 20 years. When I came online through AOL in the mid 1990s there were chat rooms and instant messaging clients. I still remember the *beep* of my ICQ client when receiving a message all those years after.

The Rise and Fall of Mac OS X Versions, 2009 to 2015

Over time, the distribution of Mac OS versions among Mac users changes as new versions of the OS are released, old Macs are retired, and new models arrive that only support the most recent version. Today we’re looking at six years worth of data.

Mavericks Already Dominates Among OS X Users

Apple certainly knew what it was doing when it made OS X 10.9 Mavericks a free update available to anyone running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, or 10.8 Mountain Lion. Released on Tuesday, Low End Mac site stats show that it passed Mountain Lion on Wednesday.

TenFourFox Is the Hands Down Winner for OS X 10.4 Tiger

Safari held its own for years, and Camino remains a very nice, speedy browser, but for OS X 10.4 Tiger users, Firefox had them both beat – and then the Firefox team stopped supporting Tiger and PowerPC Macs.

The Case Against PPC Linux, OS X Tiger on Facebook, ResExcellence Rebirth, and More

Vintage Mac News is a roundup of news related to vintage Macs* and other older Apple products. For other Mac and Apple news, see Mac News Review. For iBook, PowerBook, and other portable news, see The ‘Book Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iNews Review. Purchases made through links to […]

* Although Apple defines vintage as models discontinued over five years ago but less than seven years ago (at which point Apple calls them obsolete), we prefer a
definition that has more to do with a lack of functionality and the end of active support by Apple than with how long Apple makes service parts available.

Dictionary definitions of the word vintage start out with wine, but it is also applied to a group of items that share
certain characteristics, originated in a specific time period, and/or
is characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal – a
classic.

As we use the term here, vintage refers to Macs and related software, operating systems, and peripherals that
Apple has left behind over the years, whether that’s an original
Macintosh or a Power Mac G5 running OS X 10.5 Leopard. At present, we
consider all pre-Intel Macs and all versions of OS X that run on them
vintage (and at some point we’ll extend that definition to include
Intel Macs that can’t run OS X 10.7 Lion, and so on).

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SeaMonkey PPC: Another Browser Option for PowerPC Macs

Following up on from some articles I wrote about TenFourFox, a port of Firefox 10 for PowerPC Macs, it would appear that Cameron Kaiser and his team are not the only ones still developing browsers for PowerPC (PPC) Macs. A reader pointed out another: SeaMonkey.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Perhaps the Best Version Ever

Prior to OS X, Apple had a rock solid operating system that was fast and stable, but by the time Mac OS 9 was released in 1999, it was looking very dull and dated, especially compared to what Microsoft was offering in the shape of Windows NT 4 (released July 1996), Windows 98 (released June 1998), and […]

Power Mac G5: The Economical Alternative to a Mac Pro

2012 – Last week I went to a local Mac store so I could have a look at the latest models. Even though I am pretty much stuck on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (and happy with it), I closely watch recent developments in the Mac market. Being a fan of desktop computers, I’m especially interested in […]

YouTube on G4 Macs: The Battle Is Not Lost

2011 – We old time G4 users have grown used to the neglect by Apple and Adobe, which want to lure us into buying their newfangled stuff by constantly locking out older hardware. But, my fellow G4 users, the battle is not yet lost!

Hacking the Tiger Installer for Unsupported G3 Macs

It is very simple to install Tiger on a G3 Mac that doesnt officially support it. I did this trick a few years ago to get Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger installed on an unsupported Lombard PowerBook G3, and it seems very few people know about it or can get it to work, so I thought […]

Is Tiger or Leopard Better for Sub-867 MHz G4 Macs?

I’ve been using Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on an unsupported Mac for a few months now. It is a 500 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 with 1 GB of RAM. It runs a lot better than you might think, and I am happy using it for my daily machine. But how does Leopard compare to […]