PowerMac G3 B&W

[Graveyard]

Hey there guys! I managed to bring back to life an old PowerMac G3 a couple of days ago. Now i am working on making the thing look good again. It was really dirty, filled with dust bunnies and such. I removed all the plastic parts and washed them properly. So the cosmetics part is almost over. Now to the technical part. I got the machine without the original video card. It used to have an Ati Rage on a 66 MHz PCI slot. A friend gave me an Ixmicro ultimate rez video card for it which seems to be working so far. From what i found searching the web, this card was sold with some mac clones back in the os8 era. I have installed MacOS 9.2.2 on the powermac using this video card, but i haven't had the time to do any testing so far. My question is, will it work for the old games i used to play on my old iMac G3? I even played max payne on that imac, but it had an Ati rage videocard. Maybe some of you have had this videocard or still have it in an older machine and can give me an idea about its' performance and limitations. I've found a few old posts here about the ixmicro i have but they are pretty vague. I've read that it can be used only up to osx 10.2. I don't think i'll go that far with it since i want it as an os9 machine. I have tons of games and programs for os8-9 that i haven't used in ages. Heck, i might even give it to a kid if all works well. Grab another young one from micro****'s claws before windblows does any damage to his/her mind. Thank you guys in advance for any information.

 

[Graveyard]

Also, another thing i forgot to ask you guys. I have a 3dfx Voodoo 2 card. Have any of you used it in any g3 machines and what were the results? Also, if you have any links to any software for mac voodoo related, it'd be great.

 

[CapnCrunch53]

I can't offer any help regarding your first question, but I do have some info on the second. I'm using a Voodoo 2 in my G3 B&W and it's running great. I'm using it alongside a Rage 128GL, and am running OS 8.6. The latest extensions for the Voodoo 2 allow you to use a PC Voodoo 2 in a Mac; if you have an actual Mac Voodoo 2 of course that will work as well. I believe I got the extensions form here: http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm

Note that I'm not sure whether the extensions will work under OS9 (I expect they would but again, not sure).

Some software to try would be Unreal Tournament, Quake 1&2, and Diablo 2, all of which had releases for Mac OS (my Diablo 2 discs have the PC and Mac versions together, so that's very easy to get hold of).

 

[Graveyard]

I can't offer any help regarding your first question, but I do have some info on the second. I'm using a Voodoo 2 in my G3 B&W and it's running great. I'm using it alongside a Rage 128GL, and am running OS 8.6. The latest extensions for the Voodoo 2 allow you to use a PC Voodoo 2 in a Mac; if you have an actual Mac Voodoo 2 of course that will work as well. I believe I got the extensions form here: http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm

Note that I'm not sure whether the extensions will work under OS9 (I expect they would but again, not sure).

Some software to try would be Unreal Tournament, Quake 1&2, and Diablo 2, all of which had releases for Mac OS (my Diablo 2 discs have the PC and Mac versions together, so that's very easy to get hold of).

I have a pc voodoo2. I just saw yesterday a video made by someone on youtube with a much older powermac in which he installed a pc voodoo2. It worked like a charm after installing the extensions. I'm pretty sure it'll bring much better performance than the videocard i got in it. That's if the game has support for the 3dfx card...

 

[California]

Hey there guys! I managed to bring back to life an old PowerMac G3 a couple of days ago. Now i am working on making the thing look good again. It was really dirty, filled with dust bunnies and such. I removed all the plastic parts and washed them properly. So the cosmetics part is almost over. Now to the technical part. I got the machine without the original video card. It used to have an Ati Rage on a 66 MHz PCI slot. A friend gave me an Ixmicro ultimate rez video card for it which seems to be working so far. From what i found searching the web, this card was sold with some mac clones back in the os8 era. I have installed MacOS 9.2.2 on the powermac using this video card, but i haven't had the time to do any testing so far. My question is, will it work for the old games i used to play on my old iMac G3? I even played max payne on that imac, but it had an Ati rage videocard. Maybe some of you have had this videocard or still have it in an older machine and can give me an idea about its' performance and limitations. I've found a few old posts here about the ixmicro i have but they are pretty vague. I've read that it can be used only up to osx 10.2. I don't think i'll go that far with it since i want it as an os9 machine. I have tons of games and programs for os8-9 that i haven't used in ages. Heck, i might even give it to a kid if all works well. Grab another young one from micro****'s claws before windblows does any damage to his/her mind. Thank you guys in advance for any information.

Neat, somewhere I have a firewire adapter thing for this machine. Let me know if you need it. And then I'll have to find it. I also have a OS8 CD install disc, if you need that.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Neat, somewhere I have a firewire adapter thing for this machine. Let me know if you need it. And then I'll have to find it. I also have a OS8 CD install disc, if you need that.

AFAIK, my B&W G3 came with a machine specific version of Mac OS 8.5.1. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_8#Compatibility

The fastest OS on this machine was Mac OS 9.2.1 installed via a "ClassicSupport.pkg" (or a similar package) under Mac OS X 10.2.x. This version was a version for the so called Classic environment, but i used it many times as my primary OS (not in the Classic environment). I think this "special" version had optimized drivers. Apple improved the Classic environment from time to time.

 

[Graveyard]

Firewire adapter?

What kind of firewire adapter? It already has 2 onboard firewire 400 ports, and if i'd ever need any more ports, i have a spare pci controller with 4 more ports on it. I have all the system versions on discs and as i said, i already installed 9.2.2 on it and it works like a charm. I'd only go back to 8.6 if the voodoo2 extensions don't work properly on 9.2.2

 

[California]

What kind of firewire adapter? It already has 2 onboard firewire 400 ports, and if i'd ever need any more ports, i have a spare pci controller with 4 more ports on it. I have all the system versions on discs and as i said, i already installed 9.2.2 on it and it works like a charm. I'd only go back to 8.6 if the voodoo2 extensions don't work properly on 9.2.2

I don't know, the unit is for G3 tower b/w that did not come with Firewire...

SOunds good, good luck and if you need the older disc, let me know!

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

I don't know, the unit is for G3 tower b/w that did not come with Firewire...

All G3 B&W had FW400.

 

[Graveyard]

Transfer files.

Ok guys, so here's another one for you. Is there a simple way to transfer files from my intel macs running osx to this powermac? I've even tried ftp programs but they all mess up the forks in all the os9 files. I seem to remember that archiving all of the files i want to exchange between os9 and osx machines using stuffit, seemed to work. But maybe there is a simpler way to get them onto this machine than archiving huge amounts of software on an i5 iMac and then waiting for the archive to get decompressed on this old powermac.

 

[stridemat]

MOD NOTE

Open.

 

[MacinDan]

Ok guys, so here's another one for you. Is there a simple way to transfer files from my intel macs running osx to this powermac? I've even tried ftp programs but they all mess up the forks in all the os9 files. I seem to remember that archiving all of the files i want to exchange between os9 and osx machines using stuffit, seemed to work. But maybe there is a simpler way to get them onto this machine than archiving huge amounts of software on an i5 iMac and then waiting for the archive to get decompressed on this old powermac.

AFP preserves resource forks. Turn it on in the File Sharing preference pane by checking Personal File Sharing, then in OS 9 run Network Browser or the Chooser and enter afp://xxx.xxx.x.xxx where it wants your IP address. If you're running Lion, you may need to change some security settings, but for Snow Leopard and down it should work.

 

[Graveyard]

I have ML on my imac. It tells me on os9 that it doesn't support the file system when i try to connect to it. I have an image that i have used on sheep shaver under BeOS for years, and now under sheepshaver for osx. It is a dmg file. I wonder if i can restore that image on the powermac's hdd. I can connect the hdd with an adapter that i have used fo years. It's an usb to ide and sata adapter. The dmg file has 9.0.4, so that it can run in sheepshaver. But i could update it to 9.2.2. Any of you guys tried that?