Where to Find PowerPC Community

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A loyal reader asked me a good question – where do you go to find a discussion forum for other PowerPC users?

The actual question included a subtle suggestion that I open up some kind of forum or give a way for more ongoing discussion here on the site. I love that idea, but my history with web forums, especially on small sites like mine, is that they get stale and stagnant. No need to create competition among our limited community, and I really don’t like the security issues that come with hosting forums. Spam is a major issue.

First, you are always welcome to hijack any post thread I have with a specific question or something to share, even if it is off-topic. Go for it. I appreciate that a number of people email me, and I do apologize if I don’t get back right away or miss your email. Feel free to send again. I won’t take offense. I have a full-time (plus) calling, and my schedule tends to be unpredictable.

Second, here are some suggestions if you want to discuss your machines, trade war stories, offer links, or whatever. Keep in mind that any forum is populated by people with different backgrounds, some with inaccurate information, and others with sizable egos. Just like life. Have some perspective. AND DON’T FORGET TO SEARCH TO SEE IF SOMEONE ALREADY ASKED YOUR QUESTION. (Haha.)

  • MacRumors PowerPC Forum is a really solid discussion forum (maybe the largest of the bunch) with a swathe of opinionated, experienced people. But it’s a good way to stay up on top of what is new.
  • Info-Mac is another resource. Dan, the System7Today guy, has transitioned the old System 7 conversations to the Vintage Mac channel. I didn’t see a specific PowerPC channel, but this might be a good place to start.
  • ThinkClassic seems like another potential resource, though the newer PowerPC forum doesn’t seem so heavily used. That could always change.
  • 68KMLA is a great resource for fans of older Mac tech, and their PowerPC forum, which I didn’t realize they had, looks to be well-maintained and has some excellent resources.

As you go looking for discussion sites or resources, feel free to share them with me. I am going to work on switching around my links and may add a few more that you find useful.

— Nathan

Those Finicky SSDs

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In more news along the solid state drive front, I got a fascinating conundrum from a loyal reader about issues with what we first wondered to be a failing motherboard or overheating.

After installing a new SSD and using it as the main drive, he reported beachballs and crashes after waking from sleep, forcing a shutdown. Sometimes, the G5 worked like a charm. Sometimes, everything ground to a halt. It didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason, kind of a random thing, which makes it difficult to track down.

I typed out my standard line of troubleshooting, starting with what changed. Did you install RAM recently? Put in a new hard drive? Install a new video card? Fiddle with something that you shouldn’t have? Then, go down the checklist of cleaning out the case, testing temperatures, double checking cables, switching RAM in and out, and so on until you figure it out. And if all of that fails, then flailing your arms in frustration because it might or might not be your motherboard.

But good news – the reader reinstalled the system on to a main hybrid drive, and things seem to be back to normal. It might be a faulty SATA cable, but it could be the G5’s implementation of the SATA standard which causes weird things with solid state drives. I’ve had an experience or two with such weird behavior. I would love to get hold of an engineer who helped make these G5s and could tell us more about the quirks and challenges of their hardware and where limitations lie. Maybe someday?

The moral of the story is to be cautious and careful with those SSDs. Your best bet is to go the OWC route, since they care about vintage computing. Or use the small list of suggested compatible drives on this website under “Hardware”.

— Nathan

SimpleMarkPCC updated to Version 1.2

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SimpleMarkPPC

Introducing SimpleMarkPPC Version 1.2

After some delay, I am tickled to release the newest version of SimpleMarkPPC. While the basic functionality remains the same, the app is greatly improved and a bit more configurable. Your preferences with font size, font type, and autosave features are now saved and restored. Autosave is indeed optional – if you like it, turn it on and adjust a little slider to control how quickly it kicks in. Or save manually, which might work better if you are conserving battery or prefer to get a preview of your work at your own pace.

I cleaned up a few other little bugs, though I’m sure something is going to crop up. I’d appreciate your feedback in the comments below.

You can grab it here.

— Nathan

eLinks

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While G5Center has slowed down a bit, my offline life continues to keep me overwhelmed. Have no fear though – more posts and updates are coming, including a long awaited next release for SimpleMarkPPC.

I’ve been having fun with tigerbrew lately. It was really helpful to begin messing around with multimarkdown, which is the core of SimpleMarkPPC, but I’m continuing to have fun with some of the other command line utilities that work great on our Macs. Check it out for yourself.

Tigerbrew even gives us a simple option to web browse from within Terminal.app. The downside is that browsers like elinks are text only, but if TenFourFox runs slow on your ancient PowerPC machine, you might find it a quicker way to get to certain websites. See the screenshot below. Once you install tigerbrew, all you need to do is type ‘brew install elinks’ to test it out for yourself.

— Nathan

Interview with Cameron Kaiser

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I happened to be in the Bay area just as Cameron (of TenFour Firefox fame) announced his presence at the Vintage Computer Festival West. Why not stop by and get a few minutes with a guy that is a hero to us PowerPC users?

Check the video below, which should be low enough in quality (360p) to be viewable on most of our machines. If you can’t view it, let me know and I will generate a downloadable version too.

If you can’t get Youtube to work, download a MP4 version by clicking here.

Thanks to Cameron for his work and taking a couple of minutes to chat. Cool stuff!

— Nathan