My G5 Is No Different Than My G3

I�ll never forget the moment I first used a G3. It was a blue and white, which already made it seem like something so utterly different than the beige Macs (and clones) I was used to using. The way the case opened, allowing easy access to the inside of the machine, seemed like a stroke of genius�actually it was!

Then I booted it up.

Wow. Opening windows happened in a snap! Images in Photoshop opened, rotated, blurred and saved with ease. This was, compared to the 604e processor, a significant shift. Suddenly more seemed possible. Even crashes (this was a classic OS after-all) weren�t as bothersome, the G3 booted up so quickly compared to my old machine.

I had exactly the same feeling a couple of weeks ago when I finally spent a day with my new G5. OS X suddenly made sense! Photoshop opened up absurdly quickly. More importantly the whole OS felt smooth and responsive. Apple has done it again!

The G4 was a great machine but it never gave me that feeling I have when going from a 604e processor to the G3. Sure the G4 did things incrementally faster, and by the end of the processor line, the duals kicked some serious butt.

But nothing compared to the dual 2GHZ G5 sitting on my desk right now. Yes there are still some quirks with Panther but this is truly amazing stuff. I still remember having issues only a couple of years ago selecting more than ten files in the beta of OS X. Now we have an OS that surpasses by leaps and bounds the old legacy classic OS we put up with for years and an incredibly fast machine.

Which brings me to this thought. Just out of curiosity I wonder how well OS 9 would perform on a G5. It is a theoretical question but would the boot time be faster (which would be important with crashes and all). I guess we�ll never find out which is ok by me.

I still have a blue and white G3. It looks very odd now compared to the understated design of the G5. We went from colored plastic to dull metal. About the only thing they have in common, apart from the large Apple logo on their sides, is that they will go down in the history of Apple as being quantum leaps in the quality, and speed of computing.

Not a bad rap.