G4 Power Club!

[Melooon]

G4 POWER CLUB

HELLO this is a special club for people who own G4 computers! (If you own a G3 or a G5 you can join too but you have to stand at the back in group photos). G4 Computers are a particular line of pre-Intel computers that used Apples own brand of PowerPC processors made between 2000 and 2005 - the era is marked by having the coolest and most futuristic designs almost in the whole history of computing; before everything got boring in the late 00!

FUN FACT: NASAs Mars rovers still use G4 CPUs (made of solid gold) as their main brains! They are some of the most reliable processors ever made!

If you have a G4; please report here!   

Useful G4 related links:

• Mac OS X 10.4.12 Shuriken unofficial patch! (released 2022)
• Tiger Help Thread on MacRumors (with a huge list of links and old software)
• Mac OS 9.2.2 Installer for G4s (Updated with community patches in 2014)
• Mac OS 9.2.2 for unsupported newer G4s (You can still intslll it!)
• Serial Seeker / Serial Box 2015 archive (contains unlock codes for basically all old G4 software)
• iLife 04 Installer disk for getting iMove and other basics.
• Tigerbrew - for doing modern software development on old macs!

[Salty]

  Finally, I get to show off my OG iMac G4! I swiped this bad boy on the Facebook marketplace from the local electronics recycling center for $30 USD. It's in really good condition and works like a charm:



I figure I'd share the links I used to get mine all set up as well:
Mac PowerPC - An oldhead's blog where he shares tips and software archives about the PowerPC, which is still his daily driver!!! I got a lot of cool stuff and knowledge from here.
Mac Driver Museum - A well-organized archive of pre-Intel Mac drivers.
Mac68k Software Collection - This is an Internet Archive software collection and it's HUGE! All sorts of fun games that are PowerPC compatible here. Have fun :)
PowerPC Software - This is an archive of the latest releases of software for PowerPCs. Very useful!
Vintage Mac Museum - This is where I spent a ton of time. This is a giant list of (mostly alive) links related to pre-Intel Macs.

Hope this helps!! I spent a ton of time this summer fixing up the iMac and using it for fun. Also, I would highly recommend just using CDs or DVDs to install drivers/software on these things. Using USB is a nightmare unless you have an old flash drive running on an ancient USB standard.

Melon, you should totally make a cute little G4 badge for the awards section on here...

[starbreaker]

I've got a G4 iMac (2003) and I had recently brought it into a shop to have its hard drive replaced with a SSD and its RAM maxed out at 1GB. I don't use it much, though.

There's a port of Firefox to G4 hardware called TenFourFox but the developer stopped working on it in 2021.

[Melooon]

SSD and its RAM maxed out at 1GB

I just did an SSD install on mine yesterday and it makes a big difference


For those curious; any mSATA to IDE adapter from eBay or Amazon should work; they cost about 15 euro. For the SSD itself I used an Integral 128GB SSD (128 is the limit for older G4s unless you wanna get hacky), it was about 23 euro; they had cheaper ones, but I'd recommend paying a bit extra to get a more reliable one - all in it was about 38 euro to do the upgrade and its well worth it for the extra space and speeeed! (U also need the right screwdrivers)

Also extra fun fact for anyone with a Titanium PowerBook; they keyboard actually pops off if you pull two tabs on it; you can use an airpods case to prop it up for extra cooling when it gets too hot opining StuffIt archives


ALSO ALSO the 10.4.12 patch includes a theme called Pinstripe that makes the OS look more like 10.2; its really nice; and it really makes me realise how pleasent that era of OS design was.. it makes going back to a modern mac a bit disappointing (at least in terms of UI design)

I get to show off my OG iMac G4! I swiped this bad boy on the Facebook marketplace from the local electronics recycling center for $30 USD

OMG this is such a great deal Its so rare to get anything like that where I live! Thank you for the links!


Also Questions:
What OS versions do you like to run and way? And what are your favourite programs to use?

EDIT:

here's a port of Firefox to G4 hardware

I gave this a good go; but I found it really was unpleasantly slow on my system; Safari 4 is so much nicer to use; but it cant handle modern sites or HTTPS at all; TheOldNet.com works well, but not much else. That said; RSS feeds still work great on these systems, NetNewsWire is a good RSS reader.

[Salty]

I've got a G4 iMac (2003) and I had recently brought it into a shop to have its hard drive replaced with a SSD and its RAM maxed out at 1GB. I don't use it much, though.

There's a port of Firefox to G4 hardware called TenFourFox but the developer stopped working on it in 2021.

I tried that one out as well! I didn't really notice any performance difference over Safari, though. I think it's really cool that the dev kept it alive for so long, though.

Also Questions:
What OS versions do you like to run and way? And what are your favourite programs to use?

I'm running Leopard on mine! I believe that it can run Snow Leopard, but that's as far as it goes. I haven't had performance issues with 10.5, so I just left it like that. That's sick by the way that you put an SSD in yours! The HDD in mine has really good drive health, so I just think this wasn't used very much and just sat in someone's shop for 20 years.

[Melooon]

Leopard on mine! I believe that it can run Snow Leopard, b

Snow Leopard was the first to remove support for PowerPC's But I think ere are unofficial builds out there that might work! (Sorbet Leopard)

The key difference between Tiger and Leopard is that Tiger can run Mac OS 9 applications using classic mode; that was removed in Leopard, but Leopard can run some significaly newer Mac OSX software as a result. So it really comes down to what you like to run; and/or if you prefer just using MacOS 9 as a standalone OS.

The main thing I enjoy about OS 9 is its suppper wild selection of art programs - most of them work much better in standalone mode.

The SSD is great; although I do miss the clicking noise!

[Frost Sheridan]

yooo finally a club just for me! this beautiful Quicksilver Power Mac G4 setup (with matching studio display, harmon-kardon soundsticks, and keyboard + mouse) is by far my favorite computer that i own. this guy is running OS X 10.4 Tiger and has a 733MHz G4, 256MB RAM, and a 128GB SSD (installed with a SATA to IDE adapter). unfortunately the power mac itself isn't really shown in this photo, but it's on the floor to the right of the desk - you can just barely see it in the corner. (with a cute little dragon sitting on top!)



i've been having a lot of fun running iLife software on this computer. as a synthesizer nerd, garageband is a treat to tinker around with, and iWeb seems like a pretty fun little website creator as well. someday i need to give iMovie a try with my miniDV handycam!

[Salty]

yooo finally a club just for me! this beautiful Quicksilver Power Mac G4 setup (with matching studio display, harmon-kardon soundsticks, and keyboard + mouse) is by far my favorite computer that i own. this guy is running OS X 10.4 Tiger and has a 733MHz G4, 256MB RAM, and a 128GB SSD (installed with a SATA to IDE adapter). unfortunately the power mac itself isn't really shown in this photo, but it's on the floor to the right of the desk - you can just barely see it in the corner. (with a cute little dragon sitting on top!)



i've been having a lot of fun running iLife software on this computer. as a synthesizer nerd, garageband is a treat to tinker around with, and iWeb seems like a pretty fun little website creator as well. someday i need to give iMovie a try with my miniDV handycam!

Wow this is sick!!! I've never messed with iLife on mine; I'll have to check it out.

[Melooon]

with matching studio display, harmon-kardon soundsticks, and keyboard + mouse

My mum has almost exactly this setup but with a G5 tower instead! The soundsticks are actually mine, but I couldn't let that monitor go without soundsticks! She used it as her main computer up to last year when it was replaced with a new iMac (but don't worry the old setup is still preserved!)

I'm glad to see yours is still working; those ADB screens are getting increasingly hard to run!

ALSO I got some lightly used Firewire G-Drives today! One will be used for my PC backup, but the one with the light on is currently setup as a backup for me G4 using CarbonCopyClone! (2TB is WAY overkill for a G4 backup; but I just love how these drives look)



ALSO ALSO; what version of Life do you like to use??