After four years, plus or minus a month or two, My long vaunted Original 2 GHz PowerPC G5 has finally given it's short life in the throws of a down-loaded upgrade. Is that a contradiction in terms?
The bottom line is this: You will recall that having listened to Steve Jobs introducing OS X, and wanting to know the truth of his words, I ran out and purchased a turquoise 'Smurf', the earliest of it's line, a 450 MHz PowerPC G3, retrofitted it with a larger 3rd Party Drive and a GB of RAM in order to test OS X and see whether or not Steve Jobs was being honest.
I was so impressed by what I saw that I ran out and bought a new 'Chromed Bay Door' Smurf, The 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4. This baby screamed, but ....
Isn't there always a 'But' ?
When the Original Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 and 'Tiger' The OS X v. 10.4 was released in a pre-publication advance-order mode, I ordered both. Here is where 'The Rub' comes in.
While It Worked, versions 10.4 through somewhere arround version 10.4.6, There were a myriad of updates here, a 'Bug' developed such that the machine ... I know Bill Gates & Steve Jobs 'hate' the term 'froze-up' ... 'Failed to Respond on Re-boot'.
Commonly, after an installed upgrade, a 're-boot' is mandated.
The first time this happened, I reverted to version 10.4, reinstalled the OS off the original Mac Disc,
and went to all the power user forums, other leading edge PowerPC G5 user-groups, and tried to fathom what was going on.
Here is where it gets really interesting. It seemed as if no two 'Original G5s' existed. Unknown to me and hundreds of others, the components of the G5 were always changing. Engineering modifications? This being the case, no clear cut cause, and therefore no clear cut cure were to be found.
For a year I kept attempting 'downloaded upgrades' in the hope that one such would repair the conflict. Apple seemed to be saying ' It's all about Third-Party Software. ' Finally, In desperation I erased and reformated my hard-drive eliminating ALL Third Party Software and double-checking all my hardware to be certain that nothing was added.
I went through the process again, with the same results - An extremely expensive paper-weight or door-stop.
After three levels of support, some two and a half hours later, I was asked to run update SD 9641, the 10.4.5 Combo and see if that worked. I was given a case number # 64191257 and asked to call back to discuss the matter with level four, The Product Specialist.
She was curt. In retrospect, cold. "Take the machine to a shop." She seemed to understand why I didn't wish to take it back to the Apple Representative at CompUSA and recommended someone else.
_______________________________________________
It's too early to tell, but one fact remains. Steve Jobs and Apple are going down the same path that Bill Gates and Microsoft have- And all those like myself who have been using personal computers since the onset, In my case some twelve years before the first IBM PC was introduced, begin to realize that we are talking life-cycles of less than four years and constant headaches.
Many of my peers are building dual-core 64bit 'Open Source' Linux / Unix boxes ...
_______________________________________________
The following is purely a test of the 'Embedded Video' or 'Video Web Log' ( Vlog ) Concept.
I've been working toward this end for the last four or five years, Well aware that Six Apart and TypePad were more than suited for embedded audio and/or embedded video within the body of text. The next phase involves 'On-The-Road' Authoring. My trip across-country by rail, a la Amtak in late July will be perfect. I'll be shooting, recording, editing and uploading from July 22 through August 3rd or so and generating hours and hours of content- Much of which will be displayed here, So 'Watch this space ...
Videos by vMix Member:
Singulus
