What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
80 Comments
- white1827, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32Let me summarize this and save someone some time:
WHAT WILL THEY DO? I HAVE NO IDEA.
I mean really. Every release leaves more and more hardware behind. This isn't news. Or even interesting. - swiftness, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Insert comment about how the latest version of OS X runs on Apple computers that were released 9 years ago. Try installing XP on a 9 year old PC..
- r3zonance, on 10/21/2007, -4/+15Why can't I run Vista on my IBM XT :P
- Eldoo77, on 10/21/2007, -2/+11What?? No Vista for my Etch-A-Sketch!
- estvir, on 10/21/2007, -7/+16Insert comment about the irony of Digg users not minding this but screaming @ Microsoft for old computers not running Vista, or running Vista and not Aero Glass.
I heart you guys. - ThirdPrize, on 10/21/2007, -3/+12Insert all those arguments about Vista and older hardware here.
- slyckidiot, on 10/21/2007, -0/+9Honestly, I'd be suprised if G3 machines were supported. Which sucks for me, since I have a G3 iBook. Not that I expect it to be supported forever.
- tvashtar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Where's Vista for my PDP-11?!
'Course in my day we didn't have operating systems, the year was 19dickety2, we had to say dickety because....... - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10And they're still just fine for mail, word processing, web browsing, ichat, itunes and marginally for iPhoto. But don't let me stop you splashing your money around.
- SpacePirate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7XPostFacto is the solution to many of your problems. It originally let you install OS X on pre-G3 systems, but now lets you install newer versions of OS X on machines that used to run OSX, but not the latest revision. For example, my old PowerBook G3 "Lombard" does not officially run Tiger, but XPostFacto allows it to run it.
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto.html#machine - ggko, on 10/21/2007, -1/+7I don't know about recent history, but System 7.5.3, released in 1996 officially supported as far back as the Macintosh Plus, released in 1986. (Not that I ever tried it myself, System 6 is the way to go on the old B&W machines.) Even OS8.1 could be run reasonably well on some of the 68k Macs.
- ganzhimself, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6All I know is that if my iBook G4 that I bought in August 2005 isn't supported, I'm not going to be happy. Unless they offer a buy back of old G4 hardware for a significant discount on a Mac Book... That's pretty wishful thinking, but one can dream, right?? Plus, there's no way they're going to do a 64 MB VRAM cutoff, because machines that are less than a year old would be unsupported...
- xero9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Am I the only one who is sick of hearing "Apple is a hardware company"? I swear, if I have this one more time....
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+71. Most current computers will be unable to run Aero Glass. This is different.
2. Vista will not run on a 600MHZ Pentium II - this is the kind of machine that is the minimum for Tiger. - mythicflux, on 10/21/2007, -0/+5"It would be nice if Companies could just focus on the newer technologies and make an OS That is light, Quick and Functional. And takes full advantage of TODAYS Tech... ie 64bit processors..."
Except that if you can design a light, quick and functional OS for older hardware, you are guaranteed to have a much faster system on newer hardware as you have more resources to spare for higher end applications.
Designing a system for hardware coming out in 3 years means you're going to have to wait 6 years for it to begin to be used by the majority of people; simply put people won't buy it because their computer will not run it (as not everyone can afford a new computer every 12 months.)
Furthermore, 64 bit does not necessarily improve CPU performance it merely allows you to address more that 4GB of RAM and only in certain situations (like heavy mathmatics in gaming) does it pay off to have it.
For the vast majority of computer buyers this means nothing, it's can they get online and email. - theCheeseStands, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Says you. As long as you aren't stupid, they can do just about anything. (Notable exception: my 700MHz iBook can't quite cope w/ iTunes videos) And if you're doing normal stuff (Open Office, FF/Safari, Thunderbird/Mail/Eudora, iTunes (except for above), dashboard (yes, less eye candy), or old games (read: CivIII)) it is pretty difficult to notice. If one has to deal with a little speed drop vs. a $1k+ replacement, the speed drop is an obvious choice.
Plus, carrying around a 4-year-old iBook (when backed up) has the distinct advantage of being less worried about what happens if it breaks, since it's time will have come at that point. Why throw out good (if a little old/bumped) hardware? It runs terminal/zsh/emacs/cmake/gcc, etc. just fine, w/ iTunes, FF, & Thunderbird in the background.
(PS--It's prettier than most 4-year-old laptops, too) - DarkJC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A four year old laptop most likely will run Leopard. It's the 6+ year laptops that might not. You're not a typical PC user if you're upgrading your hardware every two years. 4 year old PCs run Windows XP just fine, and some are even Vista capable with a bit more ram stuck in there.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Summary of the article: "I have no idea"
Marked as lame. - TechScribe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I have bought only Apple computers for my personal use since 1985. If my G3 iMac can run Leopard, I will really love Apple. If my G4 iBook can't run Leopard, I will hate them.
If the G3 iMac is excluded from running Leopard, I will understand. - DockZock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well I guess if you have a G4 Mac , you won't have problems with the new Mac OS X ;)
But complaining about " I can't run this OS on my G3 " is a bit like a Windows user complaining about " I can't run Vista on my Pentium II 300 MHz " :P - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OS X is usually a case of take a line at the release date and run back 6 or so years and everything is supported in that bracket. This means that AGP primary graphics (as the article suggests there may also be a VRAM lower limit of 32MB) may become compulsary in 10.5 as that line now only goes back to 2001 era machines. Last time it was the introduction of FireWire (1999) as stated in the article, which was 6 years before the release of Tiger. AGP graphics was the next major step after that I think, came mid-2000 on the PowerMacs as I remember? I also anticipate no G3/500 or less support - Tiger struggles on a G3 unless it's up in the 800+MHz range and the lack of Altivec is directly effecting large elements of the OS now.
- Natec2009, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3yeah I installed panther on an old 333mhz iMac and the machine was barely responsive (then again, it did not have a large amount of ram). Unless you have your G3 loaded with RAM, your out of luck on the newer OSs.
But if your main computer is six years old, go buy a new one! - NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It will be hardly different from Tiger performence wise, it's still OSX.
- Modano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2His speculation about VRAM as a cut-off is kind of stupid. Technically, that would rule out all the brand new Mac Minis and MacBooks with integrated graphics. Plus, how many non-techies know how much VRAM they have?
- Cooperjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually Tiger makes old Mac hardware run newer and faster. I have it on iMac G3s and it's great. There already is a cut off for iTunes of 16mb VRAM. That is the difference between Tittanium Powerbooks 400mhz and 500mhz with only 8mb of VRAM to Tibooks with 16mb VRAM at 550mhz and 667mhz processors. I don't know what the old G3 iMac's vram is but I think it was like 6mb on the really old ones?
- MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Seriously, I'm sick of hearing that Apple is a hardware company, too! Dell is a hardware company. HP is a hardware company. Intel is a hardware company. Hardware companies make hardware, and then they partner with software companies to provide software.
Apple does sell hardware, but they're also (and I think more so) a software company. Especially in this day and age where there's nothing special about their hardware (except the way it looks on the outside), they're a software company and a hardware company. They use their fancy looking hardware to push their proprietary software (Fairplay DRM, OSX, Final Cut, Logic, iStuff, Aperture). They also use their proprietary software to sell their hardware.
It's actually frightening, because they way that they do business is far more monopolistic than Microsoft and Dell combined. They do not license anything to or from anyone. If they had Microsoft's market share, they'd be out of business! Microsoft isn't even allowed put Media Player in Windows for sale in Europe. What would happen if they integrated Media Player and Office (ala iTunes+Quicktime, iLife) into Windows, and then said that you could only run windows on Microsoft hardware?
I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft or Dell, but I really don't like the notion of hardware companies that make exclusive software, and I don't want software companies making exclusive hardware. That is what Apple does. - TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You are a weird little man...
- ElectroBot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not totally the user's (with old hardware) fault, that OS' have to be backwards compatible thereby adding bloat and restricting some features. Quite a lot of the blame rests on the OS maker.
Here's what MS should of have done with Vista:
When they were talking about rewriting the whole OS they should of have done it (unlike the 30-70% that they actually did rewrite).
For compatibility they should have done what Apple did with Classic where you launch a app and it creates a sandbox-like environment for older apps (Win 95-XP).
This way they could've have created a more secure OS (because of the rewrite and focus on actual security) which can't be infected by Windows 95-XP worms/virii/spyware/malware because the "Classic" environment would be run from an image (sort of similar to Deep Freeze) and yet would allow backwards compatability. The apps that were written specifically for Vista would be more secure (tighter restrictions from the OS on how an app can run) and could use advanced features that only newer computers have. - Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2? Unless I missed something recently I was not aware that ANYTHING about Leopard has been announced with the exception that Boot Camp will somehow figure in it. Given this, what makes anyone think that support for computers currently supported by Tiger will be axed? I'm sorry but this is idle speculation and scaremongering based on nothing other than assumption.
Let's re-address this question again after the WWDC keynote in August. - im12env, on 10/12/2007, -0/+164 bit also helps when encoding video/audio.... ect
- siMac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3That's "en vogue"... :-P
- Harlequn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If I can't run Leopard on my two macs, it wont be the end of the world.
My iMac is about four years old now so it's almost ready to be retired anyway.
My iBook is a year old and I'll probably retire it in two years.
Both of them work fine for me now and will continue to work fine.
Actually fine isn't good enough. Both machines are *excellent* compared to the win and mac computers of the past. My new macs *NEVER* lock up. Neither has locked up for so long I can't remember. None of the apps I run ever freeze. This is the way these machines are supposed to work. Dang it took a long time for them to get 'em right! - danielctull, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4A friend of mine runs Tiger on a second-hand 400Mhz iMac G3. It came with 128MB RAM and she just plopped in some more and it runs fine. It can't do many of the more processor intensive stuff like H.264 decoding, but for email, web, chat, and uni work it does her fine...
I also know of people using the old 300Mhz B&W G3s to run Tiger. - kestrel55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So now you can run some versions of Linux on older Macs just like older pcs.
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If they complain then let then run System 7 under that emulation thing.
- tvashtar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you could have at least written <3 ;-)!
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1theCheeseStands: open those iTunes videos in VLC and by some magic they play at full speed, even on a 350MHz iMac.
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1there is also a difference between support and run. i have tiger running fine on machines from the early 90's. that means pretty much any mac will run tiger. the oldest might need G3 upgrades but they still run tiger... but aren't supported.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"but there's no way that all currently supported machines will run it"
Won't run it? Well if those machines won't run it, then they are not supported.
Period. End of ***** story. - althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Let me solve this dilemma for you all.
Every apple os release is not like a windows release! It's actually very rare than an apple release demands a drastic upgrade in hardware. So in fact all current mac hardware will run leopard no problem. So stop the FUD already! - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I quote from the MacBook techspecs:
"Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory"
Same goes for the Mini and the ed-iMac. - plasticated, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I switched to mac about 2 years back and I have never looked back. I am a very happy Apple user now. However, there are elements of the mac community that piss me off. The top one is Apple users lack of interest in upgrading. A PC user would never dream of still using a laptop running a 400mhz processor. I know you develop a close bond with your hardware, but you should still upgrade at least every 2 years to keep up with technological developments. If you don't, no problem, but don't start whining that your 4 year old laptop doesnt run Leopard!
- crashingechelon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, I just bought my PowerBook G4 in November 2005 and if for some reason it doesn't make the cut, I would be upset with Apple. Now by reading the article I doubt that it would be cut because the only major difference between mine and the MacBook Pro is the intel processor. I know the video card and ram on my PBG4 can handle it.
- SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1'Tis true. I run 10.3 on a 9600 with a G3 card - works pretty well with a Radeon 7000 for help. Apple never supported either the Mac or the CPU card in any version of OS X.
- stewacide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+132mb vram? I bought such a brand-new machine (iBook) less than a year ago.
- Matrixsjd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah, I doubt it will be cut, my 12 inch Powerbook G4 I bought back in 2003 will be able to run Leopard most likely as well, so I'm not worried. I've been though Jag, Panther, and now Tiger :) soon to be Leopard :D
- themuffinman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The way I understand it, 64 bit helps only if the operating system and program are coded to take advantage of it, which is rather uncommon today.
- awhiteflame, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Instead of hitting your tilda key 29 times, you could've just used the more classy "" and "".
- TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Sorry Eldoo77 here at Microsoft we would of supported the Etch-A-Sketch but the Blue Etch-A-Sketch of Death dialog took too long to draw. We broke the knobs on two test units. :(
- awhiteflame, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'd like to say something to the people who keep bringing up Vista and old hardware with a distaste for the Mac-ians.
Vista makes new hardware run like old hardware.
Vista doesn't run on old hardware.
OS X makes new hardware run like new hardware.
OS X makes old hardware run like old hardware. -
Show 51 - 80 of 80 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is