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.

FoxBox: Box Your Favorite Websites on Your PowerPC Mac

If you’re a loyal Low End Mac user, chances are you’ve heard of TenFourFox, the popular Firefox fork for PowerPC Macs. Few, however, have heard of TenFourFoxBox, a program for your OS X 10.4 or 10.5 PowerPC Macintosh that turns ordinary websites into web apps. While it does not require you to run TenFourFox alongside it, […]

Remembering the Final PowerPC Macs

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.

A Different First Mac Story

Many people describe their first experience of using an Apple computer as “uplifting”, “simple”, and “straightforward”, but despite being a die-hard Mac user now, I found it very different. 

Good-bye, PowerPC

Six years after Apple switched to Intel, I am finally back owning one, but sadly leaving the PowerPC Mac world behind. In 2006, I became one the first to jump to Intel with a 1.83 GHz iMac. It replaced my 1 GHz G4 eMac, and the difference was amazing. The sheer processing speed of the new […]

Snow Leopard Macs: The New Low End

I spent all day arguing with my fellow local Mac group members about Apple’s decision to release another version of OS X less than twelve months after Lion – and the rapid pace at which Apple is making Macs outdated. Then it suddenly struck me: Why am I bothered? I’m not going to be in the […]

No YouTube for OS 8 and 9, but We Have Cornica

2012 – Remember the early 1990s, when we found out about QuickTime and were all so excited about viewing five-second low-resolution clips on our Macs? We could finally play video on our computers! I remember it like it was yesterday. A new project for Mac OS 8-9 brought back those sweet memories: Cornica.org. What Is Cornica? […]

When Is Your PowerPC Mac Too Old?

Charles W Moore raises a good point in Thoughts on Using Older Macs as Work Machines: As much as we may love our old Macs, some of them just don’t have what it takes to be productive in the wired and wireless world of the Internet today.

Back with Linux Again

It has been a roller coaster of computing in my life recently. About 18 months ago, after 10 years of being a hard-core dedicated Mac user, I decided that I wanted to try something else. Linux.

Snow Leopard Doesn’t Mean the End of the Road for PowerPC Macs

2009 – Low End Mac colleague Simon Royal says he didn’t believe the rumors last year that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be Intel only. I have to say that at the early point when it was reported that alpha builds of Snow Leopard were being seeded to developers as Intel-only software, the proverbial […]

Snow Leopard and the End of PowerPC Macs

In late 2008, I wrote an article about the future of PowerPC Macs, The Future of PowerPC Macs and Software as Snow Leopard Approaches. Well, all the rumours have been put to bed: Apple have announced the next version of Mac OS X, and it isn’t looking good for PowerPC users.

PowerPC Architecture Was Not a Failure

2009 – Brooke Crothers of CNET News states that the “PowerPC platform never lived up to the hype” and “the PowerPC platform had really failed long before 2005.” The evidence: the fact that Apple switched to Intel in 2006 and that some of the first-generation dual-processor G4 Power Macs ran hot. I beg to differ.

Leopard Runs Very Nicely on PowerPC Macs

2008 – There has been lots of talk on various Apple discussion websites and Mac mailing lists that I subscribe to about how Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is not geared towards PowerPC Macs and was developed with Intel Macs in mind. I disagree with this.