Newest Mac / OS X combo that can run OS 9 apps?

The original iMacs that came in fruit colors and were powered by G3 chips can run OS9 as can the fruitberry macbooks. Also, the first generation Titanium laptops can run OS 9 within the original OS X shell. If you're looking for straight OS 9 in a laptop then look at one of the black Powerbook models that were last made in 1999.

macquariumguy said:

Sorry, I want the newest Mac that can run OS 9 under OS X. I guess that probably means the last of the G4/G5 Macs. Something from late 2006 or early 2007 perhaps?

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The newest would be the G5 iMac and PowerMac. There were no late 2006 PowerPCs, that's when Intel took over.

I suggest a G4 Mac Mini. It should work just fine for him and you might get a better price for it and not have to deal with the issues that many of the G5 iMacs have and the noise a PowerMac G5 makes.

You might even try asking this in the PowerPC forums, as they'd have a better idea as to what to use since we're all still using those machines as our main ones over there.

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/145/

Any PowerPC can run OS 9 apps. Decide which one is fast enough within your budget. If you want the ultimate in PPC speed, the quad 2.5 GHz G5 is your best bet. If you want something less insane, a nice iMac G5 would serve well.

OS X Leopard (10.5) removed Classic support, so you'll want to stay on OS X Tiger (10.4.)

I have a first-generation "iLamp" iMac G4 (800 MHz) that was the last iMac to be able to natively boot into OS 9, set to tri-boot OS 9, OS X Tiger 10.4, and OS X Leopard (10.5 - the latest OS any PowerPC can boot.) This lets me run OS 9 apps directly (a few have issues running via Classic,) or have a "speedy" OS X setup (10.4 is way faster than 10.5 on this hardware, since this hardware was never officially supported on 10.5,) or "modern" OS X (10.5, although more and more apps are abandoning 10.5 support, so I'll probably abandon 10.5 altogether soon.)

Jessica Lares said:

I suggest a G4 Mac Mini.

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So do I.

I've read on several websites that Pagemaker does not run well under Classic, so any machine that shipped with OS X is out. (meaning Mac mini's and many others suggested here.)

http://www.textndata.com/forums/pagemaker-under-classic-163350.html

Many others, just do a Google search for "Pagemaker Classic Problems", the biggest complaints are it isn't stable, doesn't display fonts correctly, doesn't print correctly, some people never get it to even install, etc., so it's definitely something to investigate more before buying anything.

macquariumguy said:

I'm hoping this is the right place to ask. I need to replace the G4/400 tower my dad is using. The kicker is, he needs to be able to run Pagemaker and there wasn't an OS X version.

So, I'm looking for an old Mac that can run OS 9 under OS X. I would love to get him something much smaller, perhaps even an old Mac Mini. Is there a handy resource that would let me know what the last Mac and last version of OS X was that can do this?

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Couple of queries.

What's wrong with the G4 Tower? For example, it might be easier to replace the Power Supply IF it's faulty.

Was he already running Pagemaker via the emulated classic environment (OS9 on OSX) ?

If the answer to the last question was no, and if cocacolakid is correct, and I can attest that not everything runs well in the emulated "classic", you'll need to tread carefully. Not all PPC machines can natively boot OS9. See here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2321

The absolute best machine would be the Power Mac G5 Quad running 10.4.11, it would be the ducks guts and give you performance similar to a Core 2 Mac Pro, software issues aside with Classic.

If you need a machine that can run OS 9 natively then you're looking at something more along the lines of the Mirror Drive Door G4 DP model that will boot 9.2, but try to go for the 1ghz or 1.25ghz dual in terms of performance for your best bet for performance.

The plus of either option is that upgrades are still relatively cheap with modern components, new RAM, a SATA2 card which will give you fast hard drives, USB2, etc... all can be had on ebay as parts costing you less than $50 each. Up your RAM to 2GB or more, though OS 9 will only recognise 1.5GB, get a decent hard drive instead of the old clunker and any of these machines will be more than fast enough to run an old version of page maker and then some.

The G4 Mini is great. I have one that was used for email and light web browsing. And, they run OS9 (albeit Classic only) so you could run Pagemaker. Definitely would suit your father's needs.

Although I doubt it has been tried before, mailing it would probably work... Who knows. Keep us posted!

A PowerMac G4 MDD with a modern graphics card can boot MacOS 9 natively, and gives amazing performance on even the latest versions of some apps. They're a bit unreliable though...

macquariumguy said:

It ran well enough. My dad had used it on the G4/400 since I gave it to him in 2006.

I fixed him up with my old G4 in 2006 because OS9 was a PITA to get on the internet. He's been running OS X for mail and web stuff and using Classic/OS9 for Pagemaker ever since.

It seems like once or twice a year he messes something up and I have to fix it. He's 82 and and lives 1500 miles away and I only see him once a year for a few days, so it would be great if his computer was small enough that he could just mail it to me when it needs help. The Mini sounds like a great idea.

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Fair enough, though if it's usually an OS problem, a Firewire boot drive would be lighter to post than a MacMini, provided the G4 tower is at least an AGP graphics model or later.

Of course, the Mini will be faster than the G4 Tower.

macquariumguy said:

I'm hoping this is the right place to ask. I need to replace the G4/400 tower my dad is using. The kicker is, he needs to be able to run Pagemaker and there wasn't an OS X version.

So, I'm looking for an old Mac that can run OS 9 under OS X. I would love to get him something much smaller, perhaps even an old Mac Mini. Is there a handy resource that would let me know what the last Mac and last version of OS X was that can do this?

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The latest would be a 2006 Power Mac G5.