Got OS X Leopard Running On An Old Mac? How Old?

The Information Super Highway could easily be called the Misinformation Super Parking Lot. Or, Junk Yard.

One thing is for sure, Matt Freestone doesn’t know squat about Macs. He says Mac users have to buy new Macs to run OS X Leopard. How old is your Mac?

In reading one of the most poorly written, illogical and unreasonable articles about Macs vs. Windows PCs, or Leopard vs. Vista, I came away with two thoughts.

First, some people shouldn’t be allowed to write about that which they do not know. Second, old Macs seems to run Leopard quite well (contrary to poor Matt’s assertions to the contrary).

Matt is just on a rant, low on medication, or high on something other than facts and research. “How many users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it? The silence is deafening.”

Sigh. No, Matt, it’s not. Many, many, many Mac users with non-Intel Macs run Leopard just fine. It gets worse.

Matt must have something crawling in his shorts at night to come up with beauties like this one: “All the Mac OS’s through it’s life cycle have been hardware dependant.  In other words, for the most part, you bought a new PC to get the new Mac OS.”

Fortunately, the Information Super Highway has traffic cops. What Matt doesn’t know and didn’t bother to find out is that Macs back to slower than 1Ghz run OS X Leopard as well or better than OS X Jaguar.

Ron has a 1Ghz PowerBook G4 which started life as Jaguar, went to Panther, then Tiger, now runs Leopard. He swears it runs better than ever and has never crashed using Leopard.

Matt continues, “Mac OS’s have never been designed with backward compatibility (hardware wise) in mind.” I’m beginning to think there is something to euthanasia.

Wait! Just when you thought your head had cleared, Matt continues anew: “How many Mac users have wanted to install Leopard on a 3 year old Mac, and if they do, how many complain about it’s performance?  They don’t because they knew it would be horrible.”

Alright, so Matt can’t get a clue at a Free Clue Festival, but we can excuse him because there have been budget cuts which affect the disadvantaged.

In the meantime, give due consideration to something buried deep within Matt’s premise of new operating systems running on old computers, specifically, Mac OS X Leopard running on an old Mac, pre-Intel, PowerPC variety, perhaps a Mac that started life on Jaguar, or Panther, or Tiger.

How does your old Mac run now compared to the previous or original Mac OS X? Click Here for a look at the discussion in the Forums.

By the way, Mac360 gives daily Mac updates on Twitter. If you Twitter, give Mac360 a tweet. One more thing. Only the best Mac software gets reviewed on Ron's NoodleMac site. Check it out.

Off Topic Note: Guess what? Former Mac360 writer Kate Mac is back online after dumping Windows and re-embracing the Mac. Again.