future of PPC

[LINCOLN RUTLEDGE]

I run a G3 as well, but let's face it, they have 4GHz cpus now...  Our 66MHz bus machines are not keeping up as well as they used to.  Three or four years ago the browsers ran fine on it, but these days it is getting unusable.  And even though surfing isn't the only thing you can do with a machine, even writing scripts you need a browser to find examples of function calls etcetera.

Hehehe, as far as "even Apple having abandoned" us, I have news for you, they abandoned us as soon as they stopped shipping our model!  I was very surprised when 10.3 supported my iBook.  I think it's interesting, people seem to have the perception that Apple supports their machines for a long time, but I don't see it that way.  They are notorious for leaving customers with 3-month old outdated machines.  They sell models for top dollar even when they are going to be superceded and dropped like a hot potato next week.  Remember the 68k->PPC transition?

Anyways I guess my point is that PPC is another platform that will fade into history, the 64-bit Intel platform is Now.

Having said that I still love my old sputtering Clamshell, even with it's dim display, lack of built-in keyboard (have to use USB), and flakey USB wireless dongles, it's a RISC laptop with a factory UNIX implementation, and free UNIXes too :) 

Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:37:57 -0700
From: "Larry Cafiero" <larry.cafiero at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: future of PPC
To: "Discussion List for New Yellow Dog Linux Users"
<yellowdog-newbie at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com>
Message-ID:
<7a0d56080704252337n31e73c8du6a48f2d017953a4c at mail.gmail.com>
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Throwing in two cents:

I am relatively new to GNU/Linux, but I have been running Yellow Dog 3.0 on
both a PowerMacintosh G3 minitower and on a PowerBook G3 (I am a
dyed-in-the-wool Mac user who believes Apple hardware -- especially the
legacy beige and black hardware -- is the best on the planet, bar none).

To its credit, Yellow Dog has been pretty faithful to the Mac over the
years. However, and understandably so, since this hardware that essentially
won't die is becoming obsolete -- even being abandoned by Apple itself -- it
would behoove someone or some company (TerraSoft?) to at least provide a
distro that will work on this legacy hardware and let those of us who
appreciate the legacy hardware -- "legacy" in the same way that the '57
Chevy or the '65 Mustang are legacy automobiles -- to continue using and
tinkering with it.

So to paraphrase Mark Twain, "Reports of the PPC's demise are somewhat
premature."

Larry Cafiero
Editor/Publisher
Open Source Reporter
http://www.opensourcereporter.net

On 4/25/07, Derick Centeno <aguilarojo at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Gee Dave, Thanks for that insight.
>
> Now I don't know if I'm really in the "groove" or inside of the hi-tech
> environment... or if I'm out.
> You are right though... the future is not what it used to be!
> :)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> David Seikel wrote:
> > On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:26:20 -0500 Paul Higgins <higg0008 at tc.umn.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Do you (or does anyone else) know what the future is for PPC at this
> >> point?  I know that the PPC has been a major player in the server
> >> world, but when it comes to consumer-level machines, I'm not seeing
> >> much else beyond the PS3 right now.
> >>
> >
> > Ironically enough, the X-Box 360 uses three PPC cores.  I may be wrong,
> > but I think the Wii is also PPC.  The Cell on the PS3 counts as PPC as
> > it has a PPC core, which is why YDL runs on it.  So PPC owns the games
> > console market now.
> >
> > Microsoft moved to PPC and Apple moved to Intel.  The world just got
> > stranger.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------