What did you do with your PowerPC Mac today?

[Greystash]

Today, my lovely Pismo is helping me learn quite a few painful lessons on how C works.

Most notably, I accidentally used '%n' in a printf format string instead of '%d'. It took quite a bit of debugging to figure out why my code kept crashing

Nice one! I've wanted to do that for a long time.. What resources are you using to learn?
I've just set up my PowerBook G4 Al with os 9.2 and it's the absolute best combo of machine/OS I've ever had. So fast! I'm hoping to learn a bit of C on this machine

I use Macintosh Programmer's Workshop for developing and building programs.

I've got information from so many different sources it's hard to keep track of it all. I have read physical books, a whole ton of Inside Macintosh pdfs, and quite a few other things.

One of the big things I use is an image of the Apple E.T.O #23 cd, released in 1997. It has a whole bunch of documentation on MPW itself and the various tools it has. I got it from https://www.macintoshrepository.org/12250-apple-e-t-o-essentials-tools-objects-1997-disc-collection.

I am currently limited to writing MPW tools and such. Actually building a proper Macintosh application is such a monumental task that I don't think I will be able to make one anytime soon.

Awesome thanks for that! Yeah it does sound like a huge task..

[torvan]

Moved my 1.25Ghz iMac into the living room, then added a 2TB FW400/800 external to it.  Also added a USB3 to FW800 adapter to the Intel Mac Mini so the FW400/800 drive can load all the music and video!

[Knezzen]

Resurrecting an old thread. Put the MDD back up on the desk yesterday and fell in love with it all over again.
It's amazing how a computer made in 2002 still manages to fulfill my computering needs so well.

It has more or less been my main machine since 2006 or so when I first bought it (quite cheaply at the time thanks to the Intel switch making PowerPC Macs plummet in value).
I bought it for $600 complete with a 20" ADC cinema display, Pro keyboard and mouse. A steal at the time. Dual 1ghz G4's, 1GB RAM, ATi Radeon 9000, 120GB 7200RPM harddrive, Sonnet USB 2.0 card. Now it has dual 2ghz G4's, 2GB RAM, GeForce 4 Ti4600, SeriTek 64bit PCI SATA card, SATA SSD, Sonnet USB 2.0 card, the D-Link BlueTooth USB dongle that works in Mac OS 9.2.2.

AN AWESOME MACHINE!

I was so happy that I made quite some progress coding on MacTorrent and started working on a new software project as well. I'm back with the Mac!

[Philgood]

Holy smoke!!! That is quite a upgraded monster!

Didn't you lately also switched back to old protools in the studio?
How is it going ?

[Knezzen]

Yeah, it's quite alright to say the least

I did intended to switch back to Pro Tools TDM 5.1.3 in the studio, but I never got the time to make it happen.
Hopefully this winter

[MacFox]

Currently using my PM G4 to browse the web.

[torvan]

Took my MacMini G4 1.25 Ghz out of storage and connected an Aluminum 23" LCD to it, installed the OS9 version for it, and am restoring from the FW400 backup.

[Halian]

I found Mozin, my 1.25 GHz eMac, in a corner of the garage after several months of not even being able to remember whether I brought it with me in the move. I opened it up, towel-dusted it off, replaced the known-bad hard drive with another I had of the same model… which also turned out to be bad. So I ordered a 120 GB drive (and a new PRAM battery) off of Amazon, and I got a 180 GB one. Normally I'd be happy, but I was going to try my hand at putting OS 9 on it, and I think 180 GB is too large.

[Mat]

I got a 180 GB one. Normally I'd be happy, but I was going to try my hand at putting OS 9 on it, and I think 180 GB is too large.

Just for the records; usually formatting such a drive to the onboard controller supported size (128GB, 137GB) is possible without any problems. It is just that you cannot use the additional 32 GB. Lowendmac.com has some nice articles online about it, for example.

[GigaG]

I pulled my indigo 500Mhz iMac G3 back out and I'm currently posting from it.

I also have a 1GHz 17" PowerBook G4 which I want to put OS 9 on (it seems to be unofficially supported by some voodoo y'all have done here) but it requires a new optical drive first.

[GorfTheChosen]

Dug the Power Mac 8100 out from under the desk in the studio, put it up on top next to the 9600, and proceed to hook up a keyboard, mouse, monitor and power cables and tried to start it up for the first time in over 15 years.

Booted up on the first try ... ... but I couldn't see the desktop because I couldn't remember what resolutions the onboard video supported and I had the Belkin video signal adapter set wrong and the monitor wasn't showing a picture. Once I got that sorted out no problemo.

Turns out it was last running OS 8.6 ... which felt rather snappy.

Of course, it does have a Sonnet Crescendo G3/266 card in it and I'm sure that helped.

Now I just need to figure whether I want to do anything about the Micropolis 4421 2GB drive that's in it.

I find the similarity to a dentist's drill somewhat annoying ... 

[Europa]

Earlier this week I completed a complete redo of the way I store data on external hard disks. My G4 is the machine that everything else hooks into to run backups, so it saw almost three days straight of run-time backing up everything. 

I also created a thank you card using Print Shop Deluxe to a friend who gave me a box of cameras to add to my collection.

Really my G4 holds the duty of being a file server most of the time and I also use it for tasks that would require paid software on newer machines.

[Bolkonskij]

Doing some HTML authoring using BBedit. Using GraphicConverter (which I registered back then and still love!) for editing the graphic files. Meanwhile listening to some internet radio via Sound Jam. Whoever says MacOS9 cannot be used productively anymore has no idea.

(and non-Mac related drinking a cup of good coffee. Life is good, I tell ya! )

[IIO]

i am currently "downgrading" my custom 3d-audio applications (10-channel ambisonics) which are currently hosted on an XServe, so that they run on an MacOS9 G4.

quite difficult because of the rigid CPU limit. everything has to be broken into smaller parts, which then can only be used one after another.

composing and mixing with this system has to happen almost totally in nonrealtime now.

[torvan]

Well, put a Samsung EVO 850 500gb into my Quicksilver 2002 dual 1.0 machine, and two Crucial MX 500 (500gb and a 1 TB model) into my 2003 G4 1.25.

The G4 MDD got a Sonnet Tempo SATA Controller, whereas the Quicksilver 2002 is getting a IDE to SATA adapter. 

Right now, on the MDD, 10.5.8 is on the 1 TB drive, and the 500GB is about to get the 9.2.2 install.

The Quicksilver will be done much later today.

[mrhappy]

Sounds like some fun projects there torvan!

[GorfTheChosen]

Have been trying to get the Power Mac 9600/350 with the Sonnet G4/450 running stable.

Lots of random freezes and hangs ... suspecting it might memory related.

I had ran MemTest with extensions on and was getting occasional errors, now I need to run it with extensions off and see if they persist.

Update: Looks like its one (or more) bad memory sticks. Pulled all but two (or four ?) ... and am getting no errors regardless of what INITs are loaded.

Now just a matter of isolating which DIMMs are good and which are bad.

[GorfTheChosen]

Have narrowed down the RAM issue somewhat, two DIMMs have been definitely identified as being problematic.

Reinstalled what appeared to be good RAM (1.25 gigabytes) and ran TestMem overnight with only the Sonnet Processor INIT enabled.

Still got 14 errors though (had gotten hundreds of errors with the bad RAM installed) ... so further extended testing appears warranted.

Will remove half the RAM and do another overnight run and see what that turns up.

[Knezzen]

Doing some coding on the sofa using my TiBook running 9.2.2. Connected to the router using AirPort and running on battery power for the last hour or so. The control strip is indicating that I have one and a half hours of operating time left on the battery. Fairly good for what looks to be an original Apple  branded battery

And of course I'm writing this on that very machine. life is good!

[kharm]

I made a little cello part for my 8 yr old daughter (one of the Frozen 2 songs!) 

In Cubase.