Dual 867Mhz G4 MDD

[classic]

Won this last week and pretty happy about it.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261165750874?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

AU$11.50 is a ripper good price to pay for one of these.

Got it home and found that there were two hard drives-60GB and 120GB

The OS installed was 10.3.9, but from the moment I spied it, I wanted it as an OS 9 rig.

It has 896MB of RAM and when I can I hope to get that up to 1.5GB

Its a big improvement over the eMac I had (which I sold for a similar amount) but wow I can hear why they are nick-named the "wind-tunnel"!

I don't mind the noise too much though, its almost becomes meditative, like a Tantric Om or something..

Any thoughts on what I can stuff into the empty PCI slots?

 

[Theretrogamingroom]

If you only plan on running 9 on the machine, you probably wouldn't need to do any upgrades. If you wanted to add cards, you might want to add a USB 2.0 and/or airport card. The graphics card should work with most, if not all OS 9 apps/games, and you certainly have enough HD space for storage.

Nice find, BTW.

 

[Unknown_K]

Can you even do USB 2.0 on OS9? I like PCIX SCSI cards and video capture cards for upgrades.

 

[antony701]

Congratulations.

I was looking at it also, but decided not to get it for the noisy reason. I hope the one you won has PSU replaced.

 

[LCGuy]

USB2.0 is OS X (Jaguar onwards) only. You can still use a USB2.0 card in OS 9, however it will only work as a USB 1.1 card. I actually have a combo USB2.0/FireWire 400 card in my Beige G3 running OS 9. The USB part works fine, just only as USB 1.1.

Either way, great score. And the best part of it by far, is not just the price, or the amount of RAM in it....but the "Scenic Drive"

 

[Bunsen]

You can always replace the fans if replacing the PS is too much hassle or cost.

As for PCI cards, there are bootable SATA cards. Even cheap (like $10) PC ones that can be reflashed.

You know that OS 9 will only use one CPU, right?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

The OS itself only uses one CPU, but certain apps do benefit if they are MPTasks-aware. Photoshop is one, as is CodeWarrior.

 

[classic]

I agree that upgrading the RAM is not an absolute necessity whilst it is running OS 9

I did briefly install OS X 10.4.11 and it was quite snappy, but my software library is mostly classic based.

Video-capture card would be cool, but I've currently set up my Pismo PowerBook with a PCMCIA capsure card for that task.

I no longer have any SCSI peripherals (apart from a scanner that lives under my bed) so that negates a the use of a SCSI card.

I do have a PCI SATA card, but no SATA drives.

Extra usb ports would be handy, even if it is only 1.1

PhotoShop 7.0 is installed and it flys along nicely.

I've hooked up an HP printer to it and my intention is to make a booklet of some of my instagram photo's.

Either way, great score. And the best part of it by far, is not just the price, or the amount of RAM in it....but the "Scenic Drive"

As a homage to the original owner I've kept the namesake of "Scenic Drive"

Too cool.

For gaming I'm playing Quake III Arena

Thanks for all the responses comrades.

 

[Bunsen]

The OS itself only uses one CPU, but certain apps do benefit if they are MPTasks-aware. Photoshop is one, as is CodeWarrior.

Yeah, there is that. But compared to how much OS X loves having a second CPU, it's not as much use in OS 9.

Do you know of any MP-aware OS 9 audio apps?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I *think* that classic iTunes could, but I don't know for sure. Others I don't know, possibly Audion.

 

[LCGuy]

SoundJam MP was AltiVec aware, I think it also supported multiple CPUs as well.

 

[Bunsen]

Ah, I was thinking more of audio creation, like softsynths, VST instruments, effects, and hosts.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

ProTools might be (but I don't know if this is true of ProTools Free, which is the only version I've ever used).

 

[MinerAl]

The MDDs are perfect bridge machines, They'll boot into MacOS 9 for all your classic needs, they'll boot into OSX 10.2, for AppleTalking to older machines, and they'll do OSX 10.5.8 for running closer to modern software (like that copy of Adobe CS2 you have a legal license for).

Mine has a partition for each. You certainly have the drive space for it. No reason to choose!