I've been trying more "modern" things with the PowerMac G4 and having a lot of fun. It's capable of more than I realized.
I have a UGREEN USB-A Bluetooth dongle for when I need to quickly A/B test a linux distro that doesn't like onboard chipsets, and decided to try it on the G4. It works!
Having a compatible network device is one thing, but how is the pairing? OS X 10.5.8 uses an older version of Bluetooth, v2.1 I think, and modern devices tend to use v5+.
With my Android phone I can send and receive files. Neat!
I could see and begin a pairing with my bluetooth speaker, but the handshake wouldn't complete. Darn.
I tried my portable music player next. The device could pair, and transport controls for play/pause/ffwd/rev worked, but I couldn't get an audio stream going out of any of its headphone ports.
I also tried a USB-C to USB-A cable to use it as a DAC, but the G4 and its software are too old for new digital audio standards.
There's a new web browser out for PowerPC Macs called PowerFox. The JavaScript JIT isn't complete yet but the rest of the web browser works great and is compatible with modern TLS encryption and certificates. Cool! So I now have a means of (slowly) loading the formerly impossible.
Gemini is correct: JavaScript IS the enemy. This amazing web browser + my supercomputer have a hard time with any site that contains heavy scripting, which is too many of the world's sites out there. I hate this. Web sites are supposed to be HTML based, for content, and not EverySiteIsAnApp dammit. Give me the 1990s web back! We were happier surfers then.
By Ariella, on Powermac G4 with Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Adobe GoLive CS
