Blast from the Past > Anniversary of PowerPC

It’s still strange to me that this small blog is actually celebrating 7 years of anniversary.  The original idea was only to post a couple of posts/apps that worked on the PowerPC, but we kept finding more and more out there… I already have many bookmarked for future testing, because there are more to come for the PowerPC community.

We did take some time off, because we got busy with our standard jobs and at the end of the day I just wanted to come home and watch Survivor and Amazing Race and go to bed.  I kept procrastinating to login and write a new post, putting it off for “tomorrow” which ended up turning to weeks and months….

Now we are back, and I recently purchased a mint condition PowerBook G4 (15”/1.66GHz/1.5GB).  I’m very proud of it, it’s a great machine and I’m bringing this blog back to life one more time, and breathing life into my stainless steel PowerPC!

So, if you find yourself like me, coming into possession of a brand new “old” Mac – wondering what the top 5 essential apps you need to have on your computer…then read on!  Listed below are the Essential 5 apps for you (in my opinion):

TenFourFox – Yes, a trusted browser is a must for any PowerPC user.  TenFourFox is putting in great effort and keeping us updated! – http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

iWork 09’ – This office suite it’s fantastic, still very up to date and you can pull off great results using Keynote, Number and Pages.  Before I was using AppleWorks due to a nostalgic feeling, but iWork works amazing!  Also deserving of a mention here is LibreOffice 5 (but still under development > http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/manulix/other/libreoffice/). iWork 09′ you can find for a great price at https://www.ebay.com/ or https://www.craigslist.com/about/sites

VLC – If you choose to keep your Mac PowerPC free of excessive software, embracing the minimalist movement – then just install this app for your media player, because it will play any type of media movie format.  Super powerful! – https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

Gimp – A Classic of the classics – everybody needs to have this app because before the internet you would have a computer to play with apps like Gimp. – https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

AppDelete – They say you only need to drag your app to the garbage bin, but I personally do prefer to use an app to take care of that. – http://www.reggieashworth.com/appdelete

Now my friends, you are ready to start!

Since we are an independent blog and there is an annual cost for running this blog any support/donation would be highly appreciated.

Thank you 😀

FinderPop for MacPowerPC

FinderPop 2.5.7

Right in the middle of 2018, I’m doing my standard search for PowerPC apps and found FinderPop which has brought a whole new life to my “pretty” and “powerful” 15 year old Mac computer.

FinderPop is a simple, yet powerful and intricate app.  It will keep everything you need one-click away, for quick and easy access.  It’s great for shortcuts and it will help you organize your app like never before.

I’m also pleased to report that it runs on an Intel Mac and our good old friend, Tiger 10.4

Needless to say –  it’s Free, so don’t waste your time,  click on the link below and install it right away.  Just make sure to share your find on your favourite social media page, and don’t forget to tag the app and your favourite blog 😀

For more details, please watch the following video, posted by the developers >

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTVGlsRzJvw

Download FinderPop here for free > http://www.finderpop.com/

Audacity for MacPowerPC

Sometimes we have these apps that are a must to have installed and we always forget to mention them because we assume everybody already knows about them…

I realized that Audacity is one of these fantastic apps…so I am going to break the cycle of not mentioning the basics…right now.

Audacity is a powerful music editor, recorder and player (also it’s free open source). You can either record your music, edit your tracks for DJs or wannabe sound editors or even for the newest millennial podcastor! A lot of features that you would probably pay big bucks with other apps (that you’d have to purchase), you end up getting for free with Audacity.

So get your PowerPC out of the closet and start playing with Audacity.  It’s really fun and maybe we can find yourself with a new hobby or even a new profession.

Download here> https://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac/

 

 

SJPhone – VOIP for PowerPC

SJphone® is a VOIP softphone that allows you to speak with any other softphone running on a PC/PDA, any stand-alone IP-phone, or using Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) with any traditional wired or mobile phone. It supports SIP and is fully inter-operable with most major VOIP vendors and ITSPs.

* http://www.sjlabs.com/sjp.html

Run Windows-based Programs on a Mac

Once I started using Mac I never actually had any issues finding and adapting to new applications.  I turned my back to windows and never retreat it.  But some of you might want to use some windows program and this application will help you.

* WineBottler 1.2.5 (stable) – http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/downloads  Tiger / Leopard.

Maintenance for PowerPC

Titanium Software also has a very interesting application:

* Maintenance is a system maintenance and cleaning utility for Max OS X that allows you to run tasks of system maintenance: repair permission, run periodic scripts, reset spotlight’s index, delete application, font and system cache, check status of the hard drive, etc.

* Maintenance – 1.1.8 – Tiger

* Maintenance – 1.2.7 – Leopard

Download here: http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadmaintenance.php

 

Summer is very busy time for me.  I will put some more effort to it as soon as slow down a bit.

Tinker Tool A Software for PowerPC

* Tinker Tool – (Free) – Is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system.

The tool makes sure that preference changes can only affect the current user. You don’t need administrative privileges to use the tool. With this design, it is no problem to use TinkerTool in professional networks where users have restricted permissions. The program will never change any component of the operating system, so the integrity of your system is not put at risk, and there will be no negative effect on system updates. Compliance with these security rules is additionally guaranteed by the application sandbox of OS X.

All preference settings changed by TinkerTool can be reset to Apple’s defaults, or to the state that existed before using the tool. No dangerous background processes are used for TinkerTool’s operation.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Tinker Tool – 3.95 – 10.1 Puma / 10.2 Jaguar / 10.3 Panther

Tinker Tool – 4.5 – 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard

 

PDF Writer for PowerPC

* PDF Writer for Mac – 1.2.1 – Download Here  (10.5 / Leopard).  I think it might work on 10.4 Tiger.

PDFwriter is a printer driver for Mac OS X, which will let you generate PDF files by simply printing. PDFwriter is heavily based on CUPS-PDF. It doesn’t use ghostscript to generate PDF files, instead it uses the Mac OS X internal pdf capabilities.

Bwana Manual Page Reader for Your Browser

* Bwana 2.7 – A manual page reader for your browser. It parses man pages in real time to provide the most up to date pages in an easy to read format. The pages have links to other man pages, http and email references–the way man pages should have been from the start. – PowerPC Friendly 10.3 Panther / 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard – Download Here

XNBJ PowerPC

XNJB is a Cocoa graphical user interface for Mac OS X for the Creative Nomad range of portable MP3 players and newer MTP players. It uses libnjb and libmtp for low-level device communication. See the device list to see if your device is supported. 

* XNJB (1.5.10) is free software – Download Here.  PowerPC Friendly and runs on 10.3 Panther / 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard.

Bodega an AppStore for PowerPC

Welcome to Bodega, the world’s most innovative way to find and obtain application on your PowerPC.  Just download and install the Bodega app, and you have access to a catalog of software and you can update some of what you already have installed.

* Bodega (1.5.3) This is the only version that runs on PowerPC / 10.5 Leopard.  Please do not update to 1.6.2.

Check here the app’s website

DOWNLOAD HERE The right version for PowerPC.

Let me know what you guys think and share comments.  If you try to install on Tiger let us know the results.

Powerful Disc Burning

One thing that we “PowerPC” can do and the new generation can not is burning CD/DVD.  So unless you want to spend $89 for an Apple USB SuperDrive you better keep your good old PowerPC somewhere in the house, and by the way if you don’t have any G4/G5 machine you can get one for way less than that.  By the way did you guys notice the G3 machines are getting expensive at the market?

Like we are always searching for FREE material this couldn’t be different.

* Disco (FREE) – PowerPC Friendly – 10.3 Panther / 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard. Easy to use in 3 steps: Drag, Drop and Disco.  Very Powerful disc burning.  DOWNLOAD HERE

Name: FREE DISCO
Code: DSCO-111-113-199-99

License available at the web-site.

Screen Shot 2014-04-05 at 12.30.20 PM

Play Games/Emulator on PowerPC

I would like to say thanks to our community on http://Facebook.com/MacPowerPC . You guys are awesome, we are sharing so many good news/informations/tips that I’m having a hard time to keep posting everything here.  So PowerPC users please Like our page and keep checking on us. I promise you that we will continue giving reasons to take out your PowerPC machine from the closet.

Now it’s time to play some games.

* Sixtyforce (0.95 beta) – the Nintendo 64 emulator – PowerPC friendly and works on 10.3 Panther/ 10.4 Tiger/ 10.5 Leopard. DOWNLOAD HERE

* Eat the Whistle GPL (3.6) – Football/Soccer simulator, PowerPC friendly and Morphos friendly – DOWNLOAD HERE

* World of Padman (WoP) (1.5.1) – PowerPC friendly – It’s a first person shooter video game. The idea is based on the Padman comic. DOWNLOAD HERE

* M.A.M.E – PowerPC friendly. Multiple Arcade (coin) Machine Emulator with up to 10.000 Games. DOWNLOAD HERE

Special thanks to Burdo.