[monkpea]

It's here!

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7594

Has anyone played around with this yet?

Any hints, pointers, experience greatly appreciated.

Does it work with large, partitioned disks?

Thanks

[monkpea]

radeon mac edition, 800mhz G3 zif, 120gb ibm, 6gig partion, 3.0a8, all good with cache off and radeon set as output. not a hitch.

[vasu]

how's perfromance on the beige/panther vs jaguar?

-vasu

[monkpea]

Not huge, but noticeable. Resizing is the same pretty much, apps load quite a lot faster, scrolling much the same.

Expose is smooth and incredibly useful.
So useful in fact, that I can't really see the need for the dock except to start programs.

The finder windows overhaul makes life more pleasant too.

Overall I'd say it's not really worth upgrading, like buying a comfy new chair when you've got a reasonably comfortable one to start with.

Don't know if I'd be happy at 300mhz, but it is pretty rude of apple to kill off these machines just to attempt to boost current sales, with no other valid reason at all that I can see. At least I'm not running it on an upgraded clone, apple.

[monkpea]

Since you have to pay $10 here:
http://anybox.owc.net/forum/ I'll post all the information I have on installing panther on a beige here.

Downloaded xpostfacto and popped it onto the small partition.

Inserted Panther cd

opened xfacto and disabled the cache and set radeon as output

clicked install in xfacto

Machine rebooted...

I then opted to upgrade jaguar over a clean instal.

That's it!

I then downloaded powerlogix cpudirector to check that the cache was on (it was)

Ran pciextreme and have noticed a larger difference than with jaguar, can't use the check program since it only runs in jag so it might be all in the mind...

The only flaw I have found is that the new DVD player window displays black if anything is on top of it. Howerver the Jag player works fine.

I have no OS9 installed and jag was fully updated to 10.2.8? I think.

[Ed De]

Installed it on an unmodified wallstreet 233. Is good.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by monkpea:
Don't know if I'd be happy at 300mhz, but it is pretty rude of apple to kill off these machines just to attempt to boost current sales, with no other valid reason at all that I can see. At least I'm not running it on an upgraded clone, apple.

Maybe because it's a machine that was discontinued 6 years ago?

Maybe because the motherboard design is completely different than more recent machines?

Maybe because they're a computer manufacturer and are supposed to boost sales to stay in business?

Support for 'em had to end sometime. And 6 years of use is more than fair.

[Mike S.]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Maybe because it's a machine that was discontinued 6 years ago?

Maybe because the motherboard design is completely different than more recent machines?

Maybe because they're a computer manufacturer and are supposed to boost sales to stay in business?

Support for 'em had to end sometime. And 6 years of use is more than fair.

1) Irrelevant - Who cares?

2) Irrelevant - Beige G3s worked just fine with Jag and I doubt Panther did anything terribly new at the Darwin level. The fact that one guy can make it work is proof of this.

3) Bingo. Forced obsolescence is utter BS, however. They want people to upgrade? Build a <$1000 computer that's expandable, isn't an all-in-one and isn't built on three year old technology that can be outperformed by a PC notebook.

My old Mac does everything I ask it to so why should I upgrade the hardware when a software update is all I want?

It's an OS, not a fricking 3D video game that requires an �ber CPU and monster video card. I'm perfectly willing to accept less than optimal UI performance whilst parting with $130 because of the feature set.

4) Irrelevant - The computer still works, the support for the hardware already exists they just chose to remove it in an attempt to force people to upgrade.

Do you know what I call that? An abusive monopoly.

[Moonray]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Maybe because it's a machine that was discontinued 6 years ago?

Maybe because the motherboard design is completely different than more recent machines?

Maybe because they're a computer manufacturer and are supposed to boost sales to stay in business?

Support for 'em had to end sometime. And 6 years of use is more than fair.

With similar reasons I could try to explain that you shouldn't be able to get spare parts for your 6 year old car anymore. But car manufactures have more competitors and can't risk pissing their customers off.

-

[sniffer]

Originally posted by Moonray:
With similar reasons I could try to explain that you shouldn't be able to get spare parts for your 6 year old car anymore. But car manufactures have more competitors and can't risk pissing their customers off.

-

Well six year in the computer industry is like 20 year in the car industry technological speaking.

[Moonray]

Originally posted by sniffer:
Well six year in the computer industry is like 20 year in the car industry technological speaking.

Of course that had to come and many people are blind for innovations in the car industry only because it's not measured in speed.
Computers don't grow old that fast, that's only what computer dealers want you to believe. First you get spare parts for older cars too, and second a "high quality" Apple computer that did cost around $3500 six years ago is not just some Intel 700 MHz computer that might have been up-to date at the same time for less than $1000, and there's no reason to throw those away either.
Microsoft did support Windows 98 until June 2003, and note that this is not hard- but software, and Windows 98 came out in Mac OS 8 times.
The fact that Apple does not even support 10.2 with security updates anymore should make you think the right way. If not I can't help.
If I get half the support for twice the price I won't hold my opinion back, and here it is not about unusable technology but about greed.

-

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Moonray:
Of course that had to come and many people are blind for innovations in the car industry only because it's not measured in speed.
Computers don't grow old that fast, that's only what computer dealers want you to believe. First you get spare parts for older cars too, and second a "high quality" Apple computer that did cost around $3500 six years ago is not just some Intel 700 MHz computer that might have been up-to date at the same time for less than $1000, and there's no reason to throw those away either.
Microsoft did support Windows 98 until June 2003, and note that this is not hard- but software, and Windows 98 came out in Mac OS 8 times.
The fact that Apple does not even support 10.2 with security updates anymore should make you think the right way. If not I can't help.
If I get half the support for twice the price I won't hold my opinion back, and here it is not about unusable technology but about greed.

-

Beige G3s came out December 97, 1 year before Windows 98.. (or maybe just 6 months.. I don't remmember if it was out in june or in december).

IBM usually offer 7year support for their machines. It quite near you'll have to admit. And personnaly, I'd rather not use that kind of machine unless it was upgraded. If you do upgrade, that's why XPostFacto exist.

Also, don't forget that Apple got a lawsuit for stating that the beige G3 was ready for MacOS X, but got quite slow 2D performances and no 3D accell from the beginning. They also got poor support of ADB and no floppy disk driver. They don't want to risk an other lawsuit.

[mitchell_pgh]

I have a few beige systems, I'm cool with what Apple did. It's not like they are FORCING me to upgrade hardware. I simply can't run Panther. Jaguar still works and they are still releasing security upgrades/patches.

I'm happy someone spent the time to get Panther to work on Beige systems, but I would rather see Apple spend that money working on the next generation of computers. They need to draw a line and say "we can't support systems older then X years...". I'm not trying to apologize for Apple, but really... You can't compare Apple to Microsoft because Microsoft doesn't have to touch the hardware. If there is a hardware problem, the first thing the Microsoft rep will say is "perhaps you should contact the manufacturer"...

Again, I think people are diluting the line between hardware and software.

If you went to Dell with a six year old computer and said "I want to install Windows 2003 Server". I'm sure they would laugh in your face.

[mikerally]

I think Apple is just trying to leave legacy hardware behind.

In the same way Apple finally let go of 68k machines and supporting them in the transition to PowerPC.

Now Apple is phasing out older machines in favour of the "New-world" ROM Macs (with open firmware).

Mac OS X never really offered the full support to legacy hardware it promised. There is barely any accelerated video for the orignal iMac based on the Rage II Graphics chipset as it is, so supporting the Beige G3 is one step beyond.

It's better for Apple to cut their losses at the moment.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Moonray:
Computers don't grow old that fast, that's only what computer dealers want you to believe.

Actually, they've run studies on this.

The average useful life of a Mac -that is, the time period during which it can be expected to run the latest software at an acceptable rate- is about five years. This may not seem like long, but consider that the same studies found the average useful life of a PC to be only two years.

First you get spare parts for older cars too...

However, you cannot usually retrofit a car from the 1970's with 1990's technology.

and second a "high quality" Apple computer that did cost around $3500 six years ago is not just some Intel 700 MHz computer that might have been up-to date at the same time for less than $1000, and there's no reason to throw those away either.

And there is no reason to throw away your Mac. Or did it magically stop working when Panther came out?

Microsoft did support Windows 98 until June 2003, and note that this is not hard- but software, and Windows 98 came out in Mac OS 8 times.

That is an inappropriate statistic, because it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

An appropriate comparison would be to look at the minimum requirements for Windows XP (actually, a Microsoft OS which came out at the same time as Panther would make for a better comparison, but no such OS exists, so XP will have to do). Can you run XP on a six-year-old machine?

I have a Beige machine and a TiBook. I haven't jumped to Panther yet (both still run 10.2.8), but when I do, I will upgrade only the TiBook unless there proves to be some compelling reason for running Panther on hardware that doesn't support it. The Beige G3 still runs just fine with Jaguar, and does everything that I need it to do. It didn't mysteriously stop working when Panther came out.

My advice to you is to either do something about your LAGS (Latest-And-Greatest Syndrome) or be more consistent about it by getting new hardware to match the software. I found that the former made much more sense from an economic standpoint, at least for me.

[mitchell_pgh]

Every time I talk to a REAL computer guru about upgrades, they all say, Unless it's a critical security patch, I don't touch it for at least a month. In their own words, "Let the kids destroy their machines while I sit in comfort knowing my system is operational".

I feel for the early adopters, and they do have bragging rights... but when it comes to stability, I'll take the older version any day.

That being said, I have 10.3.1 on all of my systems

[[APi]TheMan]

Beige G3? As insensitive as it is to say that, it's true. Get a new machine already. It's good we have Xpostfacto to shut all the whiners up. 6 years old? Give me a break.

I don't think anyone can make the argument "I don't have the money for a new computer." Bull. I'm a college student too, I don't have any money but I could find a decent NewWorld machine to run X on for a few hundred.

Soon people are going to be complaining because peaches don't grow in the winter. Yuck.

[czeky]

Originally posted by Ed De:
Installed it on an unmodified wallstreet 233. Is good.

does it sleep ok?

[gdiddy]

Installed Panther on my trusty FrankenBeige two days ago.

FrankenBeige:
Beige G3 333
Sonnet G4 500 zif
768mb ram
Macally firewire/usb pci card
ATI 7000 pci card
Lite-on 52x32x52 CD-RW

After several attempts I was finally able to get 10.3 installed on this beast. Still can't get the L2/L3 cache enabled which really seems to slow the machine down. Another problem is that I can not restart with out my machine hanging up. I have to hold down the option key on the keyboard to boot into OS 9, run Xpostfacto, select my 10.3 system and restart. A pain that I can deal with since this machine is rarely restarted. Overall my system seems slower than with Jag. Have yet to repair permissions, Disk Warrior etc. Will do a follow up post after.

'Diddy

[JLL]

Originally posted by Moonray:
The fact that Apple does not even support 10.2 with security updates anymore should make you think the right way.

And yet they just released one for 10.2.8

[Moonray]

Originally posted by JLL:
And yet they just released one for 10.2.8

Unbelievable ... I'll check that next time I boot into 10.2.8

-

[vasu]

I've actually got Panther Server installed on a beige g3/300, 768mb ram, 60gb hard drive, Asante 10/100 ethernet card, Radeon7000, USB card. I've got it running afp, web, (s)ftp, print and music streaming servers. It ticks along just fine, and I have the computer running headless tucked away in the corner, and seeing as how it's one of the quietest computers i've ever owned, it's perfect.

A reliable, quiet, workhouse.

[mitchell_pgh]

The people that think that Panther on a beige box is foolish, and that we should upgrade hardware don't realize that many of us already have new high end systems.

It's fun having another system in the house...

[Millennium]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
The people that think that Panther on a beige box is foolish, and that we should upgrade hardware don't realize that many of us already have new high end systems.

It's fun having another system in the house...

Oh, certainly it is; I never said otherwise. However, I reiterate my point that the box still works, even without Panther on it. For developers it also offers another system that you can test on. This can be important in and of itself, because it lets you get a better idea of how your apps work on different systems.

[zanyterp]

does it sound like to anyone else that it will eventually have support for the onboard/built-in graphics card? i just have the one that came with the computer, and if i read the info page right, i cant run this one yet, right?? or anyone have luck with getting it to work, even though it says it needs another graphics card?

[monkpea]

My point is that panther runs extremly well on my machine, so why remove a small bit of code to stop it loading? Even if it didn't say it was supported on the box...

Does the color of your computer make a difference to how fast it is? My computer is **** loads faster than the first two imacs.
(and as fast as the original imac un-upgraded)

And as to why I like having 10.3 on my machine it's so I can run 10.3 only programs that have started popping up, and will in ever increasing numbers.

It's not my fault beige G3's were made so well. OK maybe it is since I bought it.

All in all it's not a point to labour over, since panther is installed anyway and running fine..

[monkpea]

zanyterp:

I don't think you can run xpostfacto/panther with the onboard video yet, all you'll get is a black screen.

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by monkpea:
zanyterp:

I don't think you can run xpostfacto/panther with the onboard video yet, all you'll get is a black screen.

thanks monkpea, that's what i was afraid of. . .you have another video card that you use as it loads on your machine? what card do you use?

[trusted_content]

I would do this except my Beige G3 at home only has onboard video.

Is it possible to use a kext from Jaguar for Beige G3 video and possible make it work then?

[Keda]

The fact that this app is available shows that Apple is only trying to force its customers to upgrade. I have a 12" PB that I bought last year, but my upgraded Beige still kicks ass.

The new Macs are nice, but I don't really see a point in spending the $$ right now. I use a DP1.25 G4 at work. Yeah, its faster than the G4/500 in my beige, but its not that big of a difference in everyday tasks. I run LightWave at home on my beige and it is fine. There is nothing wrong with the Beige G3's.

Moreover, I don't appreciate being strong-armed into buying a machine. Apple should have included support and let users run it at their own risk. I have an 8600 w/a G4 upgrade that also runs flawlessly. I should decide when to upgrade, not Apple.

[Boondoggle]

I would do this except my Beige G3 at home only has onboard video.

You can get a rage pro card on Ebay for under $20.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Keda:
The fact that this app is available shows that Apple is only trying to force its customers to upgrade. I have a 12" PB that I bought last year, but my upgraded Beige still kicks ass.

And how many people upgrade Beige G3s to keep them around for six-plus years? I count three on this thread so far -I am one of them, in fact- but I very much doubt there are enough that any kind of forced-upgrade campaign would make a significant change to Apple's bottom line. If this were done solely to protect Apple's profits, it would be monumentally stupid, because it would likely cost them more to add in this measure than they could realistically hope to get back.

Apple did not "remove" any code in order to "remove" support for the Beige. What it means to drop support is that they stopped testing Panther on these machines. Rather than deal with the headaches of idiots like us who would install Panther on unsupported hardware and then complain when it doesn't work right, they added a bit of code to simply stop bootup on these machines. I can't blame them for this; it's no different than sites which don't support Netscape 4.0 (which, come to think of it, hasn't been updated in roughly that long either).

Moreover, I don't appreciate being strong-armed into buying a machine.

You are not being strong-armed into buying a machine. Last I checked, Jaguar has no expiration date; it will continue to run. No one on this thread has yet said what exactly is so horrible about simply continuing to run Jaguar, an OS which has worked fine for a year and continues to do so.

Apple should have included support and let users run it at their own risk.

Spoken like someone who's never tried to do such a thing with his own products. I can't blame Apple for doing what they did, because I've seen what happens when you don't.

[Keda]

Ok, so you know computer. Of course I haven't released an OS before.

One guy has written Xpostfacto. One. IIRC, early DP builds of OSX ran on many Macs. But, certain models were weeded out. We heard the reasons why and how they couldn't handle it, but then people started doing it. Apple might not have deleted code, but I think they stopped working on certain parts in an effort to help marketing.

This helps a couple things. First, I'm sure Apple is able to do more w/the OS by only supporting new-world ROMs. Second, this does help the bottom line. Apple doesn't support CPU upgrades; Apple doesn't support 'old' Macs. Why?

Macs have a longer lifespan than PCs. Thats good for you and I, but it doesn't do anything for Apple aside from preserve a user base. But nobody measures user-base. We hear about market share. The thing is, market share is determined by measuring how much of the current market a product has. So, our 5% means that 5% of computer buyers are buying Macs. It doesn't mean that 5% of all computer users are using Macs.


Whatever the case, I'm very grateful to Ryan for writing this app. and I don't see why some people are hell-bent on arguing about it. If you don't care about keeping your OS, then don't. OS9 doesn't have an expiration date either.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Keda:
Whatever the case, I'm very grateful to Ryan for writing this app.

Oh, I agree completely. It's a great thing to be able to bypass that protection if there's some kind of need to do so.

I don't argue that this app shouldn't exist. I argue that Apple is not -and shouldn't be under- and obligation to officially support machines which are a good eight generations behind the current models, speaking as someone who has just such a machine. Mind you, I'm one of those who believes that Apple never really supported the Beige G3s, because they never supported every part with which the machine originally shipped (notably the 3-D acceleration, the floppy drive, and the A/V card).

These are computers. They go obsolete. This doesn't mean they're useless, but eventually it becomes unreasonable to expect a machine to support the Latest And Greatest anymore.

If a third-party app exists which allow people who actually know what they're doing to continue to run the Latest And Greatest, then that's all well and good; it acts as a filter to help ensure that only people who have any real business running the OS on a machine that old are able to do so. Kudos to Ryan for coming up with such a thing. But he is not "giving back what Apple has taken away"; rather, he is doing something completely different: namely, opening a way for experts to push obsolete hardware further than it was ever intended to go. Nothing wrong with that.

[Landos Mustache]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I'm one of those who believes that Apple never really supported the Beige G3s, because they never supported every part with which the machine originally shipped (notably the 3-D acceleration, the floppy drive, and the A/V card).

I think it is more that STEVE never supported it because it was invented before he was back at apple.

[Ed De]

Originally posted by czeky:
does it sleep ok?

Yes, seems to. I've let it sleep for a day before answering this, and on wake it seems to be fine. However, I've always found sleep to be flaky on the wallstreet so I don't expect too much from 10.3. In that I expect repeated sleeps -> wakes will eventually cause a warp core breach (segmentation fault).

Apart from that, I have also noticed that the PCMCIA slot works fine with a wireless card (G, not B) despite reading somewhere that PCMCIA support was broken with xpostfacto. The graphics are sluggish (expos� etc) but do work and overall it's a nice improvement. Actually seeing expos� working on such an old machine has a certain geek value.

Memory usage seems as good as 10.2. However, I have 192mb in this machine and hit swap once more than one application is loaded. Does anyone out there know if I can stick in a 512mb simm and get me all 576 (512+64) MB to play with? This is a wallstreet 233.

[monkpea]

I downloaded a recent update 10.3x, not sure which one and my machine will now not boot from cd or hd!!


Got a friend to reformat my drive on a pc, still no boot.

Is there a way to totally reset my motherboard to factory settings?

Any help appreciated.

I think I'll be getting a b&w G3 from ebay!!

[monkpea]

Restarted with apple alt p and r held down, now she boots, but the god damn hd is invisible! Perhaps due to the pc formating. Help!

[Link]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Maybe because it's a machine that was discontinued 6 years ago?

Maybe because the motherboard design is completely different than more recent machines?

Maybe because they're a computer manufacturer and are supposed to boost sales to stay in business?

Support for 'em had to end sometime. And 6 years of use is more than fair.

You can install ANY current x86 OS on a machine with 64mb ram .. I think this goes as far back as the mmx enabled P1's. (which I think start at 166mhz).... those things are about 8 or 9 years old..

There IS no reason for apple to do **** like that.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Link:
You can install ANY current x86 OS on a machine with 64mb ram .. I think this goes as far back as the mmx enabled P1's. (which I think start at 166mhz).... those things are about 8 or 9 years old..

There IS no reason for apple to do **** like that.

XP needs a pentium II..

[-Q-]

Originally posted by Link:
There IS no reason for apple to do **** like that.

I'll give you two:

1. Those machines aren't powerful enough to run the OS. For good or bad, Apple made a decision to go with the aqua GUI and had to draw the line somewhere. And I don't think b/c you have an old machine, new technologies should be put on hold or limited so you can use it too.

2. Apple is a hardware vendor. To survive, they need to sell hardware. Selling you a $129 copy of OS X won't get them very far. Hardware keeps them 'alive' so they can develop the kick-ass operating system. It's a tough decision for customers, but it's the right one for the business.

And just b/c you can install some windows on old hardware, doens't mean you should.

[Moonray]

Originally posted by monkpea:
Restarted with apple alt p and r held down, now she boots, but the god damn hd is invisible! Perhaps due to the pc formating. Help!

Plug the HD to the CD drive connector and the CD drive to the HD cable, power on (reboot another time if necessary) and it should be back. Then exchange CD and HD again.

-

[qnxde]

Can I just point out that everyone claims "you expect a 6 year old PC to run winxp?"

A PC from circa 1998 at the time would be a PII266-300 or so, which is well supported by XP according to microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...on/sysreqs.asp

[-Q-]

Originally posted by qnxde:
Can I just point out that everyone claims "you expect a 6 year old PC to run winxp?"

A PC from circa 1998 at the time would be a PII266-300 or so, which is well supported by XP according to microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...on/sysreqs.asp

Well supported? It's the minimum requirement to run XP. And we all know how well a machine that meets the minimum requirements usually runs software. My wife's PIII 800 can barely run that beast. I'd love to see you try and use XP day-in and day-out on a PII 300.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Well supported? It's the minimum requirement to run XP. And we all know how well a machine that meets the minimum requirements usually runs software. My wife's PIII 800 can barely run that beast. I'd love to see you try and use XP day-in and day-out on a PII 300.

Having a PC with a SCSI card with Windows XP makes it quite usable.. but that's not the point I know
(I got quite surprised by this.. but since the CPU gets the disk management offloaded to a specialised card, it's logic..)

Did you know that NT4's requirements were a 486? Did you know that Win95 is barely tolerable on that kind of hardware? Did you know that NT4 on a 486.. it takes ages to boot?

Apple got sued for saying any G3 was supported. The users won, Apple paid back. Now you are asling them to support it with even newer softwares..

So you want the butter, the butter's money and you want that handed out on a silver plate!

[Moonray]

Originally posted by Drizzt:
So you want the butter, the butter's money and you want that handed out on a silver plate!

Apple charges much for their hard- and software so why shouldn't loyal customers expect a bit more?

-

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Moonray:
Apple charges much for their hard- and software so why shouldn't loyal customers expect a bit more?

-

Does your machine still work?

Go have a look at that PC, compare speed and software versions.. you'll see that you have more.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by Moonray:
Apple charges much for their hard- and software so why shouldn't loyal customers expect a bit more?

-

Not six years later.

[Keda]

I'm just checking in here. I have an extra Beige desktop G3/400, Radeon, FW/USB. I tried XPFa11 w/no luck. The machine just wouldn't boot. I did the process twice w/no luck either time.

After that, I reinstalled 10.2 and will wait until a newer build is released to try again.

[milhous]

On Your Mac Life several months ago, Sean King interviewed Gary Dailey who's the President of Daystar Technology (who makes XLR8 Mac processor upgrades and such).

When Dailey approached Jon Rubenstein (Apple VP Hardware) and asked him for technical assistance in designing future processor upgrades, Rubenstein replied, "Steve (Jobs) and I are in the business of making disposable computers."

Let's face reality and the truth--Apple appreciates your business and your loyalty in the Macintosh. And regardless of how long you've been a Mac user or the number of Macs one may have, they don't care about your Classic, Performa, or Beige anymore. It's all nostalgia and fanaticism to the user, but it is of no benefit to Apple as a business.