Not What It Says On The Tin

[TheNeil]

Landed a 6400 a couple of weeks ago via eBay and it finally arrived on Saturday. Ok so I thought I'd got a bargain as, for a mere £5, I'd snagged a 200MHz machine with 72Mb of RAM - WRONG!

When the delivery guy dropped it off it was making a horrible 'clunking' noise which didn't sound healthy so off came the case which revealed that a second hard drive (which I didn't know about) had been fitted but not bolted down (ouch - 2 days in the hands of DHL and rattling around all that time). Then came the surprise of seeing a pair of USB sockets on the back. The biggest shock though was seeing the Sonnet Crescendo card plugged into the motherboard. This '200MHz' machine is, in fact, a 400MHz G3 - the thing screams.

As if that wasn't enough, the unbolted hard drive (a 512Mb SCSI) still has life in it...never something to be ignored these days

 

[MacJunky]

Stuff a Rage 128 or Radeon 7000 in that sucker and install System 7.6.1 if it does not already have it installed.

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

Do Radeon cards even work with Mac OS versions prior to 8.6.1 or 9.1? I didn't think they did but I could be wrong...

As for an OS you'd possibly, at a stretch, be able to run OS X on it, although don't expect earth-shattering performance. I have a Rage 128 in my 8500 and a G3/266/1M, and it turns over respectable performance in 10.3 for such an old machine.

 

[TheNeil]

It came with 8.6 installed and seems quite happy running that - not that I've really had much time to put it through its paces

OS X is probably out as it'd need the hard drive and RAM upping massively - neither of which I really want to do

Might investigate a Rage or a Radeon though

 

[Bolle]

Do Radeon cards even work with Mac OS versions prior to 8.6.1 or 9.1? I didn't think they did but I could be wrong....

there are radeon7000 drivers for 7.6.

 

[MacMan]

£5 for a 6400 is very good and that G3 card is worth several times that!

 

[Christopher]

Do Radeon cards even work with Mac OS versions prior to 8.6.1 or 9.1? I didn't think they did but I could be wrong...
As for an OS you'd possibly, at a stretch, be able to run OS X on it, although don't expect earth-shattering performance. I have a Rage 128 in my 8500 and a G3/266/1M, and it turns over respectable performance in 10.3 for such an old machine.

I got a radeon 7000 in my 8500(400MB of ram) and it actually is able to play videos in OS X which my iBook cannot do sadly :'(

 

[Quadraman]

Don't most older USB cards require Mac OS 8.5 or higher? The latest Sonnet Allegro now lists Mac OS 9 for USB 1.1 support or OS X 10.3 for USB 2.0 as minimums. You won't be able to use USB with 7.6.1.

 

[Temetka]

Do Radeon cards even work with Mac OS versions prior to 8.6.1 or 9.1? I didn't think they did but I could be wrong...
As for an OS you'd possibly, at a stretch, be able to run OS X on it, although don't expect earth-shattering performance. I have a Rage 128 in my 8500 and a G3/266/1M, and it turns over respectable performance in 10.3 for such an old machine.

I got a radeon 7000 in my 8500(400MB of ram) and it actually is able to play videos in OS X which my iBook cannot do sadly :'(

My 8500 has a 500MHz G4, 512MB of RAM, a Radeon 9600PRO (flashed) 128MB card, a Sonnet ATA/133 controller, generic USB card, 60GB 8MB 5400RPM IBM HD, and a SCSI DVD-ROM drive. It runs just fine in Jaguar, although I am soon to be running panther or tiger on it. I would like to try and get leopard up and running on it.

Such a sweet machine.

/me loves my 8500.