The Drunken Lizard Pub

I wonder how necessary it will be to have a PowerPC version of Book II a year from now? I just had my second PowerPC Mac die and I really am wondering if it is worth it to find a replacement (or pay to have this rebuilt).

Mac fans- tell me what your plans are...

I'm in my third year with my iBook G4 and hope to keep it for a couple more years. I'm not sure if it will be able to run Book II with only 32 MB on its graphics card.

I guess I'll have to see if I upgrade when Book II appears.

Died already, huh? Bummer!

I have a G5 at present but I'm hoping to trade up later this year.

Died again?! Gee wiz. In our house, Mac's of all kinds seem to last forever...except for the battieries on my G4. Sounds like you got a lemon or something else is going on, to me..not that I know that much about the insides of computers.

You'll have to pry my Macs out of my dead fingers.

Of course, I will. I still have my old Power Mac 6100/60 running OS 8 that I keep to run old games that won't run under OS 9 or OS X, so there is no way I voluntarily would get rid of my Power Mac G4 1.25 GHz dual processor running OS X 10.3.9.

I'm keeping an eye on the development of the new Macs and OS, though and I may supplement my collection if something really catches my eye. Probably not for a couple of years or so, though because I can't afford it.

@ Basilisk Wrangler: Are you sure it wasn't something simple like needing a new battery or maybe a stick of RAM going bad? I can sympathize with you. My power supply died right after Christmas and I was worried sick it was something serious.

Add my voice as yes for PPC. Every Mac I have is PPC and unless some "must have" software appears as Intel only, I have no need to upgrade at this time.

Jyri

Same here. We have 4 PPC Macs (g3, g4, quad g5) and they all get used daily. Only time one has died on me is when our house took a direct lightning strike - and then it was only the onboard ethernet.

Now if someone were to give me one of those 8-core Intel desktop Macs, I'd not turn it down, but I have no plans to upgrade for a good couple years.

[GryphonMD]

Jude wrote:@ Basilisk Wrangler: Are you sure it wasn't something simple like needing a new battery or maybe a stick of RAM going bad? I can sympathize with you. My power supply died right after Christmas and I was worried sick it was something serious.

Well, it just doesn't boot. All I get is the gray Apple logo. I've put the boot disk in and I get a message saying "panic! We are hanging now..." and the system locks, not allowing me to do anything.

I tried reseting something by holding the power button while plugging it in. Tried booting with various keys being held (x, c, system s). Nothing happens, it just displays the Apple.

My son said it might (probably)
be the disk drive and there are ways to fix it but he doesn't know. Should go to someplace that has 'real' Mac innards knowledge, ie. an expert.

Tried booting via target disc mode via an external bootable volume (like a laptop)? That saved me from a grey screen once upon a time. Keeping an external drive formated as a bootable volume is always a good idea for a Mac user
Also, if it is a PowerMac that has a graphics card other than what it shipped with, you will need the disc for the new card, not the original system discs (iirc).

Anyways: I have a G5 PowerMac and a MBP. I played Book 1 exclusively on the MBP and would most likely do the same for Book 2. I'd still purchase Book 2 if it was Intel only, but I would rather it be universal so I could play on the G5 if so inclined. Programming for the lowest common Windows denominator but only for the most recent Mac users on an 'old school' game would (imho) leave a bad taste in some mouths. Just my 2¢.

Leej wrote:Programming for the lowest common Windows denominator but only for the most recent Mac users on an 'old school' game would (imho) leave a bad taste in some mouths. Just my 2¢.

I agree, but Windows is just Windows. All the different versions of Windows compile on my single Windows workstation. Mac is different- the PowerPC requires a significant number of code changes, and the code only compiles on a PPC machine. I can't use my Intel-Mac to compile the PowerPC version of our games. Essentially, the PowePC version of the game is the "odd man out" because it requires a dedicated machine and unique code changes, while the Windows, Linux and Intel-Mac versions can all be [theoretically] compiled on the same machine (a 3-way booting Mac) using nearly identical code.

I really love the Mac and I love working with it (I'm typing this now on a Mac Book Pro) but I (and many other developers) are going to be very happy when we don't have to make two distinct versions of every Mac program.

Interesting. I was pretty sure that universal binaries could be built on either platform with the right compiler (although testing them would require separate machines). Are you using XCode, or something else like CodeWarrior?

Regarding your Mac problem, I'd personally start by pulling any non-Apple RAM in the machine. Alternately, I've got a 1.3 GHz G4 tower I'm selling cheap

[GryphonMD]

GryphonMD wrote:Interesting. I was pretty sure that universal binaries could be built on either platform with the right compiler (although testing them would require separate machines). Are you using XCode, or something else like CodeWarrior?

No, we use Blitz- it has two different compilers which must be run on separate machines.

Have you tried (booting from the CD) running DiskWarrior or Drive Genius?

Jude

I voted unlikely not because I don't have a TON of powerPC macs but because I mainly use the Intel ones now (imac and a MBP).

I'll die before someone wrestles my 6100 away from me. Even then I might come back to haunt them, I loved that machine.