Damn, that was fast: homebrew dropped Intel Macs and pre-Sequoia operating systems; amps that will die with the march of tech...

I’m a big fan of Homebrew, and install it on every Mac I setup. Including my totally rebuilt MacBook Air M2 (AppleCare+ FTW), which came back to me running Tahoe. I was lowkey shocked to see this on the Homebrew website: “Homebrew supports macOS (Sequoia 15 and newer)...” Damn. I have a 15" MacBook Pro still running Monterey I want to upgrade at some point to whatever makes the most sense for that old warhorse; I was kind of thinking Sonoma, actually. Sequoia will probably run fine. (The only note on the OCLP page is that it has legacy Metal support, which, so does like half of my machines.) But still. Feels like they dropped support for macOS 14 and earlier really quickly. Intel support has apparently also been moved to “Tier 3” support and is considered legacy, even though macOS X86_64 still represents about 14% of the users (with Apple Silicon users about 60%), for the 30 days 9/12–10/12/2026.

Can shit stop moving so quickly, especially when it’s not strictly necessary? This stuff is all open source... Anyway. At least MacPorts is still supporting legacy systems, all the way back to Leopard (2007)! (I’m still a little annoyed with Linux dropping 80486 support, let alone 80386; what if I wanted to run it on a spiffy translucent case Pocket 386 with its ALi M6117?)

Which brings me to another thing that’s been bugging me a bit lately: Amps with bundled “smart” features. I love the built-in profiles in my second-hand Spiker V 60 Mk II, but in 5 years, or 10, will I still be able to edit them with current computers, or will I have to keep a perfectly preserved current-tech laptop around to tweak the digital settings? (At least the Fractal FM3 can be edited, however clumsily, from the unit itself, and doesn’t strictly require FM3-Edit.) But for things like my Positive Grid Spark NEO or the NUX Mighty Air or ... that require an app on a cell phone to change settings, how long will they be supported? How long will the phone or other device used to interact with them? How easy will the batteries be to replace, when that eventually needs to happen? Or is all of this tech just meant to ultimately be disposable? That doesn’t sit quite right with me (as I keep 20 year old laptops and a 40 year old 8/16-bit Apple II computer quasi-viable).

You can grab a 1960s Marshall or old Epiphone tube amp, plug it into today’s guitars and a household 110V outlet, and be jamming. All the settings were easily tweaked with knobs on the unit itself. There was no ecosystem surrounding it that had to be maintained. (Okay, yeah, tubes are getting harder to find, but still, decades later ... And if the amp was solid state, the components should be readily sourced and anyone with a soldering iron and a modicum of electrical knowledge can maintain it.)

The other day in a lesson, my guitar teacher lamented the noise gate on a BlackStar combo amp he was plugged into. To turn it off? “Connect your amplifier to a computer or mobile device via USB-C, open the free Blackstar Architect Software, and toggle the built-in noise gate off in the effects or patch settings.” Motherfu—