1998 iMac G3 questions

[ArlisT]

Helloe, everyone.

I'm not very familiar with Mac since Performa, which was my first computer, but I just now scored a M4984 Apple iMac G3 233 Original Bondi, (64 mb ram, 4 gb hd, running OS9). Fires up ok and keyboard and mouse work. It's in amazing shape, really - just lots of little OS glitches after all these years, plus some redundant/unneeded software, plus of course certain things password protected and no chance breaking that. I'd like to just reformat the hard drive and do a fresh reinstall and set-up. OS 9 will be plenty for my needs. I just love the design and the amazing sound from those little speakers. Figure to load it with all my music and use it as a kind of juke-box, mostly. Do I need the disks that originally came with this 1998 iMac, or will some later iteration work? - Having trouble finding those original set.

I wanted one of these so bad when they were first introduced, but it was way out of my price range. Anyway, I am having trouble finding an intact set of the original disks. Are they necessary, or will a set from one of the 2000 or 2001 iMacs do?
Found a couple on eBay new in the sleeves for not too much. One has OS 9 *and* OSX, but they are from 2001.

Thanks

Arlis

 

[gsahli]

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Operating Systems for PowerPC Macs

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[swamprock]

Someone has gone and archived many of the system-specific disks on archive.org. You just have to search for them.

 

[Project Alice]

I've got the same model, except mine is a 333mhz. It was a 233, but the ROM on the original card was corrupted and the only one I could find was a 333 from a REV C. But it's still a Bondi.

Mine is running Tiger, and Mac OS 9.2. I don't really use mine for anything however it does make a good machine for typing. Under Tiger it would do well as a Juke box depending on the amount of songs you want. You can't fit a disk larger than 128GB in it without using this. iTunes works well for that. The built in speakers aren't very good so I'd recommend some decent speakers for that roll.

You can use any Mac OS install CD that's compatible with it. For Tiger, you'll need xpostfacto or install it on a supported machine and swap it in. If you want to choose OS 9 again, use the univeral install image from macos9lives. It's the most up-to-date one there is. Personally I'd use Tiger because iTunes for OS 9 only supports MP3s. Plus OS 9 isn't very stable IMO.

Mac OS X images: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc

Mac OS 9: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac...1-power-macintosh-g4-mirrored-drive-doors-mdd

And here's the univseral image I mentioned above: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html?PHPSESSID=ecm053ukk5e065pp38ndo14nb4