Clear the Runway - The G5 is Landing

This January my dual 533mhz PowerMac G4 will turn three years old. Over the years, my G4 has seen five operating systems (OS 9, OS X Public Beta, OS X 10.0-10.3), processed mountains of client-related work, built both my portfolio site and this weblog, and was, for a while, the fastest Mac you could buy. What a difference three years makes.

Tomorrow I'll be unpacking a dual 2ghz G5 with an upgraded 9800 ATI Radeon video card, 1.6gb of RAM, and my very first "Superdrive" DVD-burner. I'll also be installing the final, retail version of Panther 10.3, what is easily the best, most polished version of OS X yet. And to make it even more symbolic, for the first time I'll skip installing OS 9 and the whole Classic environment and run OS X as the one and only operating system (something I've always done with my laptops, but shied away from on my main production tower).

Sure, it's kind of silly to talk about personal computers with a dramatic, historic tone, but as someone who has used Apple products his whole life (I'm talking Apple // here), every Mac upgrade is an exciting, exhilarating moment to savor. I had thought the move from my previous machine, a 333mhz blue and white G3, was a big step up. But on the eve of receiving that big hunk of steel (otherwise known as the 'cheese grater'), I doubt I'm fully prepared for how big a jump 533mhz to 2ghz will be.

Once I transfer all my old content over, and give the G5 a thorough run-through, I'll be posting more impressions about it. But for now, if you're interested to see what Exposé -- the best reason to upgrade to 10.3 -- looks like running on a dual 2Ghz G5 with all kinds of applications running, have a look at this QuickTime movie (direct link, 9mb). Woosh!

[Note: I will be selling my G4 if anyone is interested. Otherwise it will be going on eBay in about a week.]