Recommendation on first 90s Mac

[Blastoid84]

Hi all, I'm fairly new around here but an old school DOS/Win guy that's always had an interest in Macs. Picked up a SE 1/40 (2mb of RAM) at VCF East and now I really want something I can play more 90s Mac games on (yes I know I can emulate but I like my old rigs). Found a Performa 6205 that ended up being dead (no power), so I backed out of the deal.
The 6205 seemed to fit my needs but know some people hate those so I wanted so see if anyone could make a recommendation on what I should get. Price is important, I'd like to stay under $200.

• PPC/Quadra era
• CD and Floppy
• Mac DB15 monitor port (no monitor needed, have DB15 to VGA)
• IDE drive is fine- nice to have
• SCSI DB25 external so I can use my BlueSCSI- nice to have

 

[joshc]

Try to find a Centris/Quadra 650.

 

[s_pupp]

I like the PowerMac 7300/7500/7600/8500/8600/9500/9600 machines. They'll run everything from OS7 to OSX (with some help from Xpost Facto hosted at OWC), can be upgraded to 1GHz G4 (if you can find the Sonnet daughtercard anywhere), and have PCI slots to obtain USB, ATA, Firewire and SATA capabilities, should you need them.

They have CD and floppy, DB 15 monitor port, SCSI DB25 external, and (as mentioned above) you can get an ATA PCI card for IDE drives. Just be sure the PCI card is compatible with Mac, and compatible with OS9.

 

[Blastoid84]

Thank you both, I'll keep an eye out.

 

[Cory5412]

Hello and welcome in!

Ultimately, the best one is the one in your hands. That goes for pretty much any hobby.

The "good" Macs are, in fact, very good, but the "bad" ones ae almost always never as bad as people say they are/were, especially here in the modern context where none of us are using these things to make money or whatever.

The 6200 et al are disliked because Low End Mac published some outright lies about them in 1997 and has been doubling down on those for 25+ years since. The stuff on their site about those machines are mostly not true and the machines are basically fine.

In reality, the 6200 performs nearly identically to the 6100 and has a couple things it does better, such as graphics, and a couple neat affordances such as IDE for internal storage.

So if you can repair your 6200, it should in general work fine. Especially for games, since most Mac games will have been aimed at the consumer computers.... like the 6200.

Otherwise, most 1990s Mac software is extremely tolerant of running on newer 7/8/9 hardware so a 2000s Mac may well work as well, again, with an eye toward, in general, the one you've got your hands on is the best one.
(Games will be the tough one but even that depends a bit on which games.)

So my recommendation, largely, is to cast a pretty wide net, get whatever you can in, and see how you like it, you can sell it onward later if needed.

Good luck!

 

[finkmac]

your first 90s mac should be a power macintosh g3

 

[Blastoid84]

Hello and welcome in!

Ultimately, the best one is the one in your hands. That goes for pretty much any hobby.

The "good" Macs are, in fact, very good, but the "bad" ones ae almost always never as bad as people say they are/were, especially here in the modern context where none of us are using these things to make money or whatever.

The 6200 et al are disliked because Low End Mac published some outright lies about them in 1997 and has been doubling down on those for 25+ years since. The stuff on their site about those machines are mostly not true and the machines are basically fine.

In reality, the 6200 performs nearly identically to the 6100 and has a couple things it does better, such as graphics, and a couple neat affordances such as IDE for internal storage.

So if you can repair your 6200, it should in general work fine. Especially for games, since most Mac games will have been aimed at the consumer computers.... like the 6200.

Otherwise, most 1990s Mac software is extremely tolerant of running on newer 7/8/9 hardware so a 2000s Mac may well work as well, again, with an eye toward, in general, the one you've got your hands on is the best one.
(Games will be the tough one but even that depends a bit on which games.)

So my recommendation, largely, is to cast a pretty wide net, get whatever you can in, and see how you like it, you can sell it onward later if needed.

Good luck!

Sadly I passed on getting the 6205 as it was over an hour away and did not turn on (it made noise but no lights, no cd-rom function). I assumed PSU and maybe system board so I did not want to take on a broken device.
Thanks, I've updated my list and with the info in this thread have a larger set of devices to look for which should help my search.

 

[Blastoid84]

your first 90s mac should be a power macintosh g3

I like the looks of those and with what Cory5412 mentioned it about backward compatibility this would work for me.
Added to the list, thank you.

 

[djhaloeight]

Hey and welcome! For a first 90s Mac, I'd say either a Quadra 605/LC/Performa 475, if you were wanting to run primarily 68k apps. Otherwise, I agree with what was said above: a Power Macintosh G3. I have a B&W G3 400MHz rev 2, and its a screamer. A 7500 would also be an ok choice, but those have a lot of daughterboards that can cause problems. Good luck!

 

[ymk]

• PowerMac/Performa 61xx - 60-66MHz PPC (requires additional monitor adapter)
• Centris/Quadra 610 - 20-25MHz 68040

 

[Snial]

Personally, I'd go with my 'Generations' approach to collecting Macs. That is, you want to be able to transfer data and run most applications across all of your systems via not-too-dissimilar Macs, because otherwise there's a bit of a brick wall. e.g. if you go from an SE (1989) to an iMac G3 (1998) then you lose SCSI, ADB, Serial/LocalTalk/AppleTalk, Floppy transfer; so you'd have to get some bridging device and on top of that, there are differences between Mac OS 9.x and System 7 (or System 6 if that's what you're running on the SE).

Next, I'd pick a machine that's representative of the 1990s and although I'd pick a connectable machine, I might actually pick a PPC Mac that can run System 7.5.x to Mac OS 9.1 and then later I'd go back and Pick a Quadra, or '040 Mac to make the bridging a bit smoother.

Finally, from a PC background I might want to pick a PCI PowerMac over a NuBus Mac (though NuBus is really interesting as it was already a Plug'n'Play standard since the Mac II in 1987).

This means I'd probably go for a 604(e) based PCI PowerMac or early beige G3 if I could, or a 5400/6400/5500/6500 (which are fast 603e(v) Macs). This kinda limits you to the 4400 (PCI, but 603ev), 5400..6500 (home computer 603e(v)s), 7300..9600 (PPC 604(e)), Beige G3s. But if you went for a NuBus Mac, then that basically means 6100/7100/8100 Macs.

To me, the 604(e) Macs are amongst the most interesting even though I don't have one, because they really did show what PPC could have become with far more functional units, whereas the G3s are dual integer unit and better Branch caching 603(e)-derived CPUs and the G4s are G3s with AltiVec (approx MMX) and deeper pipelines.

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mac_models . You can click a model to read more about it. Also EveryMac gives a good run-down of each model with Benchmarks and the ability to compare.

 

[mikes-macs]

A G3 iMac would have what you need for 90's games.

 

[LaPorta]

A G3 iMac would have what you need for 90's games.

+1 for this.

 

[Blastoid84]

You guys are awesome, so much great info here! Thank you everyone and a special call out to Snial for the write up.

I found a G3 all in one local, it does not meet my full requirements but I think it'll work well for my needs/wants.
Only caveat is it does not boot (posts but no desktop) and the cd drive is possibly shot but it's $50...
The icing on this cake is that my wife and daughter really like the G3 see through types so this maybe the one (likely to get a desktop model as well down the road).
The G3 will lack in some areas but due to the price and nostalgia with my wife and daughters I think it's a good start.
Plus I can transfer via SD card and BlueSCSI until I get a Mac to fill in the G3 to SE gap.

My vintage computer collection is starting to overtake my modern machines and I think that's fantastic!