Power Macintosh G4 AGP was obvious choice because of it excellent upgradeability, Sawtooth mother which is near bulletpoof and G4 with AltiVec instruction which real-life performance i wanted to test. Computer originally had ATI Rage, but I switched it into reflashed Geforce MX 32mb in order to get proper support on Os X Tiger. Upgrading machine was pleasure, because taking it apart only required screwdriver. Computer clock battery had ran out of power, but you can spare one for cheap. Battery type is SL-750 if anyone asks.

Macintosh Garden http://macintoshgarden.org/ on is best resource for PowerMac software and operating systems.

Machine was easy to open and maintain

Pentium 3 fixed this problem and also added SSE extension. As response Motorola added their 7400 cpu AltiVec instruction. This cpu was called G4 by Apple and AltiVec Velocity Engine. According Apple own hyping and tests cpu would 2.9 times faster than 633 Pentium 3. This has always puzzled me since in test they did not use SSE optimisation, rather it was AltiVec vs Pentium 3 raw clock speed. In opinion these tests were unfair. It same as remove turbocharger from turbocharged engine and compare it other car with supercharger and say that turbocharger is 2.9 times slower accerlate than supercharged engine. Sure supercharger will bring more power either way but in name of fairness both should be given best change to do their job.

400mhz 7400 was near identical to 500mhz cpu aside from lower clock speed due Motorola delivery problems. Since I also got 866mhz Pentium  EB, this would make excellent real life test. If Apple was telling the truth 400mhz G4 would be comparable to 1160mhz Pentium 3. In test I tested different SSE/AltiVec optimised programs on both platforms (Media Playback on CorePlayer and Quicktime on Mac vs Windows Media Player and TCPMP on Windows, running Web Browsers with SSE/Altivec optimisation and video editing on iMovie vs Windows Movie Maker) and I can say 400mhz 7400 cpu cant reach near 866mhz Pentium 3 cpu. Really performance is impressive it clock speed but not as impressive as Apple claimed.

I still intend to get 800mhz G4 cpu and test how much faster it is than 866mhz Pentium 3. I believe that Altivec is due architectural differences faster than SSE but Apple claims back in day were bullshit
 
 

Screenshots from MacOS9 desktop. Theme is Ibook and wallpaper, well my own doing from one picture.

In order to properly test Apple offering from that time compared to Microsoft offering, I had to choose Mac OS 9. I restored it using G4 AGP recovery CD and update 9.1, 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 updates seperately. I have to say I am very disapointed to many of the features on classic Mac OS. Only mediaplayer is Quicktime which can pretty much only play MOV and MPEG files properly. In full display mode video quality is lower than with worse video adapter under Windows 95. Codec support is weaker than with Windows and OS technical limits are causing me to turn gray..

Even though Xvid videos may be played 3ivx you need convert them in some 3ivx MOV format because Quicktime cant play MP3 audio in AVI file due technical limitations. Also OS9 does not have alternative and better media player unlike Windows 3.1 onward. Then second problem is operating system completely ignoring file extensions. For example I open PICT file and it opens in TextEdit, I want assiocate it back to Quicktime Image viewer. Well all I need do is add file there to Quicktime and it still wont work. Then I realise Mac OS uses per File extensions, well I download program and fix this problem. Then I save file as PNG with Photoshop and assume it will open with Image Viewer, well no it opens with Photoshop because it was creator and I must fix tags again with software. All I can ask what hell was Apple developer who designed this feature smoking.

If there is something positive to say about it, it is that compared to Os X it is blazing fast and light on resources because it is not based on BSD,  rather Apple own internal operating system which they have been able to optimised very well, due it only working on Apple hardware

I intentionally left out reviewing internet usage because Classilla does not support TLS 1.2 and I will wait until there is soluction in order get it working natively on OS 9. Even on Windows 9x we had wait TLS 1.2 for long and TLS 1.3 even long so it is fair to give OS 9 time. It is community project after all and not commercial one. 
 
 

Screenshots from OSX Tiger. You can Aque back to Tiger with Shuriken. Wallpaper is from here (vaunut.org)

On the second drive I got Os X Tiger which unlike Mac OS 9 earlier is not based off Apple internal operating system, rather NeXT BSD. Steve jobs was working at NeXT at the time and Apple eventually bouhgt NeXT. I think it was good move since they got good base to build their new operating system. I am pleased that there is Unix running under the hood and I can fairly say it is way better than other Unix operating systems even many years later. Linux for example did not reach it stability and comfornt until around 5 years ago. Also Os X there is no Os 9 problems with multimedia and Os X treats files like normal operating system (aside from OS 9 created files due compability).
 

If you wish to install Tiger with large hard drive into older Macintosh computer without LBA48 support it can done with SpeedTools Hi-Cap ata driver: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/speedtools-ata-hi-cap-driver, SSH support with modern chiphers you get with DropBear SSH: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/dropbear-ssh, for browsing the web best choice on slower cpu is RetroZilla PPC: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/retrozilla-web-browser or with faster cpu InterwebPPC http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/interwebppc-browser-a-rebrand-of-tenfourfox-the-future absolutely best media player is Coreplayer: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/coreplayer-mobile-os-x.

I need admit that Os X Tiger is fine contender, not just for XP but also Unix from same era.a.

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