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will a sonnet upgrade be worth it?
- Thread starter Nifty950
- Start date
No, a G4 is not a reasonable machine to try to use day to day, even with a Sonnet upgrade.
Agreed, @Nifty950 we are all pretty much collectors at this point and there aren't really practical uses for these classic machines without jumping through hoops. And even then it's hard if not impossible to justify, when you can buy a 2014 mac mini for less than $200 that will run the latest OS and do all then normal things modern computing users want to do with ease that puts a bit of perspective on things. Most users here are collectors and so the price we pay is because of that aspect, then on top of that we often try to push them to do as much as possible spending stupid amounts of time or money to make them run at the bleeding edge, not because it's a logical choice but I'd say mostly because we already have them and so then want to tinker. But the buck kinda stops there, I'd say most if not all of us also have modern machines that we use daily as our main boxes...
I would highly discourage anyone from spending much money on a vintage machine if the intent is to use it as your only primary machine, money would be much better spent elsewhere.
If you can find a way to use it daily, it may be worth it, but anything web related is pretty much impossible now. Graphic design, yes. Word processing, yes. Games, yes. Internet, no.
Just wanted to add a little further to this post, with the change from Intel to Apple Silicon this is more true than ever, you can now pickup a used M1 mini for as little as $500 bucks easily.... https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=M1+mini&_sacat=0
In my personal circles as a resident tech person for most of my family and extended family if you are considering a used mac for daily use and are planning to spend 300 or more in price. Just save your money and go for an M1 based machine when you can afford it at this point you are just throwing your money away on an older machine to save a couple hundred bucks that can't run the latest OS and is far far slower. I get there are professional use cases where this is not true like those squeezing every ounce of performance out of your cheesegrater pro etc, but in general for the normal folks my advice I think is pretty solid.
In my personal circles as a resident tech person for most of my family and extended family if you are considering a used mac for daily use and are planning to spend 300 or more in price. Just save your money and go for an M1 based machine when you can afford it at this point you are just throwing your money away on an older machine to save a couple hundred bucks that can't run the latest OS and is far far slower. I get there are professional use cases where this is not true like those squeezing every ounce of performance out of your cheesegrater pro etc, but in general for the normal folks my advice I think is pretty solid.
The modern Internet simply is just too resource heavy for PowerPC Macs. I commend people like Cameron Kaiser for having spent a lot of time and effort to keep it accessible through efforts like TFF, but I feel for general use, the boat has truly sailed well over half a decade ago usability wise.
And that's mostly because the modern web is a bit of a pig, but then it has also gotten far more advanced than it ever was in 2005 and before. If you want to browse the 'net on a vintage machine, there's still a few great retro sites to go to. Wiby is a search engine for suitably retro sites, Cornica is a video site for Macs as old as the faster 68040 machines, etc. The modern 'net just needs modern hardware, and it's only going to get heavier.
And that's mostly because the modern web is a bit of a pig, but then it has also gotten far more advanced than it ever was in 2005 and before. If you want to browse the 'net on a vintage machine, there's still a few great retro sites to go to. Wiby is a search engine for suitably retro sites, Cornica is a video site for Macs as old as the faster 68040 machines, etc. The modern 'net just needs modern hardware, and it's only going to get heavier.
This. It does depend on what you need for daily computing purposes but there are probably better options out there.
By the time you've paid for a G4, Sonnet upgrade, RAM upgrades, installed an SSD card/SATA PCI card, the cost of all that would be approaching what you could get a very decent used Mac mini for.
Definitely not. The modern web is far beyond what a G4 is capable of, and that's before we even get to the security implications of using old hardware/software for that purpose.
All it takes is for someone to make some sort of web rendering program that runs on a Pi, that outputs its web "video"/control to an older Mac... That would bypass all these issues.
G3/G4-era machines should be sprightly in OS 9 and decent in many versions of OS X without a CPU upgrade. For OS 9, stock config will be fine. For OS X, RAM and storage are likely more impactful changes, especially since hard disks are a consumable.
So, there's a couple different strategies for this Mac OS X includes (or you can add) an X11 client. The trouble is -- is firefox as good at X11 as it was 15-20 years ago and will a Mac be the weak point if you do it? I genuinely don't know, it would be neat to see someone try. A/V probably won't work but everything else basically should, althoug it won't integrate directly with the local system, but you may be able to export your Mac's disk as an NFS share so the Firefox-running machine can access it. (Though the other way may make more sense, logistically.)
X11 is just a normal part of most UNIX OSes and any Linux install that's still using it and has graphics enabled. You wouldn't need to involve a pi, but pis are common cheap linux computers. Long ago I accessed IE5 for UNIX on a work Mac using X11 forwarding from a Solaris 11/SPARC machine to a 10.6/Intel Mac, so it really is just a matter of how good Firefox looks in old X11.
The other option is VNC and at that point my genuine recommendation is to just hook the keyboard/monitor/mouse directly to your newer computer. The typical use case and mode of VNC is to direct an entire desktop. Apple used it a lot for observation/control/support and management.
So, there's a couple different strategies for this Mac OS X includes (or you can add) an X11 client. The trouble is -- is firefox as good at X11 as it was 15-20 years ago and will a Mac be the weak point if you do it? I genuinely don't know, it would be neat to see someone try. A/V probably won't work but everything else basically should, althoug it won't integrate directly with the local system, but you may be able to export your Mac's disk as an NFS share so the Firefox-running machine can access it. (Though the other way may make more sense, logistically.)
X11 is just a normal part of most UNIX OSes and any Linux install that's still using it and has graphics enabled. You wouldn't need to involve a pi, but pis are common cheap linux computers. Long ago I accessed IE5 for UNIX on a work Mac using X11 forwarding from a Solaris 11/SPARC machine to a 10.6/Intel Mac, so it really is just a matter of how good Firefox looks in old X11.
The other option is VNC and at that point my genuine recommendation is to just hook the keyboard/monitor/mouse directly to your newer computer. The typical use case and mode of VNC is to direct an entire desktop. Apple used it a lot for observation/control/support and management.
They are still selling for high prices, so clearly they are worth it to some people. Some people collect CPU upgrades and some people use them. I saw a sonnet single 1.8GHz G4 sold last month for $700. This seems high to me personally, which is one of the main reasons I started sticking newer chips on used apple CPU boards. Do you want a purple heatsink and aftermarket logo, or do you want a faster G4 to use with all the software you have?
68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/fs-g4-upgrade-cpus-for-agp-quicksilver-mdd-etc-also-complete-computers-usa-shipping.38413/
I dont care nearly as much about a purple heatsink as I do about the functionality. I'd hack up a 128K and stick an '040 in it if that were possible. Keeping things original is not a priority. These are my toys, not museum pieces. that being said, do you sell these CPUs you make? I have no soldering skills and do not care to learn.
