She didn't respond, which is fair enough, it's probably not big enough to be interesting to her. But then I got auto-added to her PR mailing list. I didn't ask or consent to be on the PR mailing list (all the page says as of now is "To contact Sarah, please complete the form below"). Seems I was just added because I used the "contact" form.
Auto-adding someone who contacts you to a PR mailing list is a dark pattern. Seems she learned something at Facebook. I found it ironic.
This a very specific situation where someone comes to my website/company, takes an action they believe is safe, and gets a bunch of spam. That would absolutely be my responsibility - it’s where the buck stops.
If you're looking for a late PPC Mac to run esoteric PPC operating systems or PPC Mac stuff, the MDD G4 is a great machine if you need dual processors, expandability, and more than 1 GB of RAM.
But if you don't, you're much better off getting a Mac mini G4. I'm biased because I have a hobby business selling SSD upgraded ones running a hacked Mac OS 9 [0]. But compared to the MDD G4, the Mac mini G4:
- Uses a fraction of the energy
- Takes up a fraction of the space
- Largely can run the same operating systems
- Is much quieter (as the article alludes to, the MDD G4 is loud)
- For single core can actually be faster going all the way up to 1.5 GHz (MDD can go there with an accelerator)
- Has more integrated parts so has less parts that can fail
There are some cons to the G4 mini versus the MDD G4 though:
- Almost no expandability
- Limited to 1 GB of RAM
- No dual processors
- The hacked version of Mac OS 9 needs USB sound and some models can have some display incompatibilities at high resolutions
But for the vast majority of applications these don't matter much.
I'd say the best PPC Mac will depend on exactly what you want to do on it.
Fastest that can natively run OS 9 with full driver support is going to be the MDD.
Best low cost and low space for tinkering is going to be the mini with the caveats you mentioned.
Best price to performance on the used market for PPC OS X software is probably an iMac G5.
Absolute best performance for PPC OS X stuff is going to be the PowerMac G5.
Honorable mention to the eMac, which can be be found for ~$100, 1ghz combo drive models and below can natively run OS 9 with full driver support or you can go with up to the 1.42 ghz model which is going to be similar to the fastest G4 minis, and comes with a beautiful built in CRT, with the caveat that it takes up as much space as a CRT.
No, it's just a hobby and I'm way too far into this niche having purchased the particular parts for the mini G4 in bulk. Plus there is the built-in know-how of having done nearly 100 of these refurbishments/upgrades that I don't have the time to build up for another model.
Eddy Cue did an amazing job with the original Apple.com online store in the late 90s, the first version of the iTunes Music Store, and the early App Store. Interestingly these were all big WebObjects apps.
I wonder if there’s some interesting server-side technology culture story here and how it trickles down to the way services operate for consumers on the client side. Just pure speculation.
Edward Mendelson does an amazing job packaging Sheep Shaver with a bunch of built-in utilities and interfaces to your outer system that makes it much more usable out of the box:
I am looking for roles at the intersection of business and software. I'm an experienced technical communicator, mentor, software developer, and administrator with a background as CS faculty, programming book author, software developer, and startup co-founder.
I currently work as an associate professor at a teaching college where I am also the co-program director of computer science. On the side I build indie apps and have a small business restoring a very specific model of vintage computer. I also just released my fifth programming book with a publisher, Computer Science from Scratch: Building Interpreters, Art, Emulators and ML in Python:
In the technical community I am probably best known for writing the book Classic Computer Science Problems in Python which has been translated into 8 languages. But I am also an avid podcaster with a semi-successful podcast I co-host now on its fifth season called Business Books & Co.:
I’m selling refurbished and upgraded Mac mini G4s as the ultimate machines for running software for the classic Mac OS over at https://os9.shop
Over at macos9lives.com a group of hackers figured out a way to get Mac OS 9 running on these late model G4s that previously never supported it. That combined with an SSD upgrade makes them close to the fastest machines that can run Mac OS 9.
I’ve taken advantage of this hack, now having sold about 80 -90 machines. But I’ve hit a wall with finding ways to advertise it. eBay has been okay. I tried Reddit Ads on the vintage Apple subreddit and they were so so—probably lost money doing it but got the word out. Google Search ads have surprisingly been ineffective. I’ve posted on various vintage Mac forums but they don’t allow formal advertising (otherwise I would buy it). I probably will try Facebook ads next. Open to other advertising ideas!
You could purchase a booth / sponsorship at a retro-computing convention. You could also figure out which specific software from Mac OS 9 people are using, and participate + advertise in their hangouts (the marketing message there would be "you're set with software right now, but you could be running the same tools with less waiting-around-time on a faster machine."
Having previously programmed both an NES emulator and an IBM PC emulator, I can say that this is quite an achievement. The IBM PC is much harder to emulate than the NES. This emulator is written in 6502 assembly. So the person wrote an emulator for the 8086 in 6502 assembly.
The title on HN needs to be updated. Right now it says "YouTube shut down 15 years old audio developer's channel for "reasons""
It can be read as saying the age of the person is 15 years old. But the developer said they had the channel for 15 years, not that they are 15 years old:
"How they are willing to insanely shut down a 15-year-old channel with not a single issue on record, without any warning or question, is beyond crazy." [0]
Done. I had the same issues with it myself when I initially wrote it, but couldn't think of a better wording at the time.
Hopefully it's less confusing now.
https://sarahwynnwilliams.com
She didn't respond, which is fair enough, it's probably not big enough to be interesting to her. But then I got auto-added to her PR mailing list. I didn't ask or consent to be on the PR mailing list (all the page says as of now is "To contact Sarah, please complete the form below"). Seems I was just added because I used the "contact" form.
Auto-adding someone who contacts you to a PR mailing list is a dark pattern. Seems she learned something at Facebook. I found it ironic.
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