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Apple eMac

TechEdison

Well-known member
Ah nevermind... For some reason it wouldn't take my 10.2 disc.

Upgraded to 1gb of ram and replaced the battery. Putting 10.4 on it :)

IMAG0211.jpg

 

Huxley

Well-known member
I have so many fond memories of the eMac series. Back in the spring of 2004 when I started working for Apple as a "Solutions Consultant" (as part of their ill-fated partnership with the doomed CompUSA chain), literally the first new Mac I ever sold was a 700MHz eMac, with (IIRC) the add-on for the clear plastic swivel-base. Something about the eMac's design always felt like the ultimate evolution of the original iMac G3 design-language, updated to neatly span the design-era separating the late-90's look (curvy, brightly-colored plastics) and the much more sedate and refined look of the early 2000's (clean white plastics + touches of elegant brushed metal).

Anyway, congrats - it's a lovely machine!

 

CC_333

Well-known member
1.25ghz. Guess it can't run OS 9
I'm not sure any of them could run OS 9, even the lowly 700MHz model.
The 700 MHz model definitely can run OS 9 (I've got proof). The 1.25 GHz (aka USB 2.0) eMac was actually the first model that couldn't.

I have fond memories of the eMac as well. A friend had been given one new around 2002 or so, and I got to use it. It was my first experience with Mac OS X (10.1.4), my first experience with any Classic Mac OS newer than 9.0.4 (it had 9.2.2), my first experience with Photoshop, and my first experience burning CDs.

I remember borrowing the restore disks so I could install Mac OS X on my iMac. It was okay, but I liked 9.x better (I only had 128 MB of RAM in my iMac, and my friend's eMac had 512 MB, which seemed like a huge amount at the time).

Fun fact: I once installed Mac OS X 10.1.4 on my Rev.D iMac with 32 MB of RAM. It took about 5 minutes of constant hard drive thrashing to boot or load any applications, but once it was booted up, it was surprisingly useful, as I recall.

Those were fun times!

c

 

TechEdison

Well-known member
Hah funny story... While using it and installing TenFourFox, Classic mode, and Quake III the CRT suddenly shut down and wouldn't come back.

I had almost given up hope for it, as it was just $15, when I thought "old computers could pretty easily be fixed by a big whack on the side". And what do ya know, it worked! Coughed back to life after a pretty sizeable whack on the side. Lol!

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Up through the 1.0GHz 2003 "ATi video" model can run 9.2.2. That model's installation CD, which I've been trying to burn unsuccessfully for a few weeks, can boot and install on  many other models of Mac that can run 9 but that didn't come with proper independent install CDs. (TiBook@867-1000, QS'02).

A 1.25 or 1.42 should be good for a few newer tricks though, and would make a nice 10.4/10.5 machine.

 

CC_333

Well-known member
Up through the 1.0GHz 2003 "ATi video" model can run 9.2.2. That model's installation CD, which I've been trying to burn unsuccessfully for a few weeks, can boot and install on  many other models of Mac that can run 9 but that didn't come with proper independent install CDs. (TiBook@867-1000, QS'02).
Agreed. The Mac OS 9.2.2 installer it came with is pretty much universal.

I could burn you a bootable copy of it if you want. Do you think Toast 5 on my PowerBook G4 running 10.4 would do the job?

Hah funny story... While using it and installing TenFourFox, Classic mode, and Quake III the CRT suddenly shut down and wouldn't come back.

I had almost given up hope for it, as it was just $15, when I thought "old computers could pretty easily be fixed by a big whack on the side". And what do ya know, it worked! Coughed back to life after a pretty sizeable whack on the side. Lol!
The eMac seems to be quite prone to this problem. My friend's eMac's gave out when the display got stretched out horizontally, and the software adjustments wouldn't work anymore. That one I eventually gave up on, because the power supply on the replacement analog board I found began to fail, which of course meant it wouldn't boot. Consequently, I decided it pretty much wasn't worth fixing anymore at the time (I may revisit it if I ever encounter another working analog board), so I got another eMac instead :)

c

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
I could burn you a bootable copy of it if you want.
I appreciate this offer! I don't need a physical copy of it, but I absolutely would like a better/working image of it if you've got it.

I had a bootable copy I was using until a couple weeks ago, but I put it in an iMac with trouble ejecting, and had to use some paperclips to eject it.

I burned it in 2011 and I have no idea how I got it or what I did to make it burn.

If you can image it with Toast 5, I can burn it with my TiBook and then reimage it. The intent is to include it on vtools and on my other informal ISO resource, both in vintage-compatible and in modern burnable format.

PM me for a VTools account if you don't already have one!

 

CC_333

Well-known member
I appreciate this offer! I don't need a physical copy of it, but I absolutely would like a better/working image of it if you've got it.
I shall get to work on it ASAP!

I had a bootable copy I was using until a couple weeks ago, but I put it in an iMac with trouble ejecting, and had to use some paperclips to eject it.
I take it your disk was an unfortunate casualty of that incident?

If you can image it with Toast 5, I can burn it with my TiBook and then reimage it. The intent is to include it on vtools and on my other informal ISO resource, both in vintage-compatible and in modern burnable format.
OK. I have various other disks (iMac Rev.D disk set, Sawtooth G4, various iBooks and PowerBooks) that I could also image, if you'd like? It'll take awhile for some, because I need to dig through storage to find them, but I can started on the eMac one first.

I also have a straight (not-machine specific) 9.1 disk, if you'd like that as well (that can be updated to 9.2.2 fairly simply, yes?)

PM me for a VTools account if you don't already have one!
I shall! I've been waiting until you get the bugs worked out, but I might as well get started now!

c

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
I already have an image of the 9.1 disk. http://personal.stenoweb.net/oldmac/ is the collection of "modern-burnable" ISOs I have, I'll probably eventually move the collection to VTools.

My workflow for anything coming out of the MG set or anybody who reads anything as a toast 5 image (I have 5.2.1 Ti) was going to be to burn it on the TiBook or perhaps the G5 (or Mac Pro, we'll see what Toast for 10.6 is like) and then rip it with either infrarecorder or imgburn on my modern PC. The resulting .ISO file should be burnable with Toast (at least 5+, IDK about 4), as well as disk utility and any random ISO burning software on Windows.

As far as actual file service stuff goes, VTools is mostly "worked out" but I do have the still-upcoming rebuild. I could do that before I have RDNS going, but.

At some point, my plan was to put ASIP6 on the TiBook just to make sure I have the process down, also documenting that process for the guidebook I plan on building.

Anyway, I primarily suggest VTools because you can connect to it with (as far as I've tested) 7.5.x (+ patches) through 10.6.8 using appleshare and anything with FTP, and it's a convenient way to transfer files, presuming your connection is stable.

 
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