G3 Redundancy problem

[zerohour]

Although I may have stated this problem in some other thread it's about time I asked for advice on what to do with said machines.

I have two G3 machines sitting idle at home. I have a beige G3 233mhz with 192mb ram but I need to restore the hard drive as I screwed it using XPostFacto as i tried to install OS X 10.3. The second machines an indigo iMac 400 MHz with 128mb of memory and OS X Tiger installed

Although I have used Macs for years it was mainly for word processing so actual Classic programs I have very little knowledge of.

OS X has always been a nightmare to find programs that still supply a version compatible with Jaguar or Tiger. But that might just be me being incompetent and not knowing where to look.

What can these machines really do or are they best consigned as no use which to me seems criminal.

 

[Unknown_K]

Figure out what year your models were made and then go hit a library with magazines archives (Macworld for one) and check out what was advertised in the issues of that year. Whatever they used it for then you can still use it for now with the added benefit of having cheap RAM and HD upgrades that were very pricey when the machines were new.

There should be tons of word processing, database, office, publishing, video editing, games, etc that would run well on those machines.

 

[Scott Baret]

Don't forget about older versions of freeware and open source software. Many authors continue to provide older versions for older operating systems.

If you want MS Office, you're looking at version X for these computers. Of course, if either has Classic installed, 98 or 2001 would work fine too as long as you used a printer with a compatible driver. (OS 9 drivers stopped being written for printers sometime around 2005; I have an HP from that year that needs 10.x).

Unknown_K's idea about the old Mac magazines is a great one. If you happen to have a library that keeps them, check out the old Mac Addict issues. This magazine was always great, had more humor to it than the Mac Life of today. Many also came with CDs loaded with freeware and shareware picks. Macworld works too, but it was always the more serious/dry one of the two.

 

[beachycove]

The beige G3 will run much better with MacOS 8.6-9.2 than with any version of X. You could set it up as, say, a machine for running old versions of Adobe products (note that some of the Adobe products are happiest under 9.x), most of which can be had for very little cost. A beige G3 will run something like Photoshop 5 very well, and be nice and snappy doing so, too.

MSOffice 2001 is feature-rich and MUCH more stable than Office 2008 in OSX.

Another option with the beige is to put ASIP on there and it becomes a very useful bridge machine between current and older machines. And it is very useful with old printers — you can even print to a localtalk printer from a current machine through ASIP.

The G3 iMacs I have personally always loathed, but if they turn your crank, you could probably squeeze a reasonably recent version of Ubuntu and associated software packages on there if what you want is something to to give you a reason to keep the machine. The beauty of such an arrangement is that you can then play with the installation without fear of buggering up your "main" machine, allowing you to learn a new system or acquire new skills and knowledge.

My $.02.

 

[phreakout]

Your Beige G3 was introduced in either 1997 or 1998. Out of the box, it will support Classic Mac OS up to 9.2.2 and Mac OSX up to version 10.2.8 (XPostFacto required for install). I would recommend setting it up as a dual boot option, Classic OS and OSX.

A few suggestions, though: make sure, under OS 9.x.x, you install Carbon Lib v1.4 or v1.6 and I think there is an Open Firmware upgrade needing installed before getting it up to OSX. Someone correct me regarding the OF upgrade if I'm wrong. Also, I would see if you can upgrade the RAM to either 256 or all the way up to 768MB if you can, for the sake of OSX. Make sure you partition the master hard drive with a single 7.4GB capacity before installing any OS. The remaining space can then be whatever you want.

Your iMac was introduced in October 1999 and was discontinued in the Summer of 2001. The Oct. 1999 models were either DV or DV Special Edition and included a DVD player. Summer 2000 models gave you the choice of CD only or DVD-ROM. Apple supplied the Early 2001 model with a CD-ROM only and no CD-RW, even though it had the support available.

It can take up to 1GB RAM. Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OSX up to Tiger (10.4.11) is natively supported. For this machine again, for the sake of OSX, I would up the RAM to either 512 or 768, especially if you wish to continue using Tiger; unless you decide to downgrade to Panther or Jaguar. Make sure you install Carbon Lib v1.4 or 1.6, along with Firmware Update v4.1.9f4 before installing OSX.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[jruschme]

Your Beige G3 was introduced in either 1997 or 1998. Out of the box, it will support Classic Mac OS up to 9.2.2 and Mac OSX up to version 10.2.8 (XPostFacto required for install).

IIRC, Jaguar will run natively on a Beige G3 without having to use XPostFacto.

MS Office 2004 claims to run on a minimum of 10.2.8 with 256mb RAM.