a powermac 6500 useful for anything

[Macmadant]

yes it's a power pc but no ethernet and 4gb hd although i've got a few 80 gig spares somewhere
it's alos got a protv card installed

 

[RacerX]

It would be just as effective at running software of it's day today as it was back then. But considering the limited amounts of RAM that can be installed and the fact that it uses a PowerPC 603e (which is significantly slower per clock cycle than the 604/604e series or the G3 series), it would have a hard time with current software or internet tasks.

I still use a PowerBook 3400c (which has a 200 MHz 603e in it) for many things (I have a ton of older software), but I rarely browse the internet on it.

What it comes down to is do you have a use for it for anything?

 

[gammamonk]

I used to have that same system. I maxed out the ram (to 128megs i think) and installed a new harddrive, video card, and network card. It ran a lot faster, but still, you couldn't do anything with it. The CPU is so slow, and you can't load OSX on it.

In the end, I gave it away. A co-worker loaded some old Mac educational games on it and gave it to his kid.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Use it if you want to run contemporary software on it, but it is not worth upgrading. It should run most pre-OSX applications reasonably well.

 

[macEfan]

I used to have one also.. What sucked about the machine is that it only has two ram slots.(128mb max). However, if you want to put a little money into it, you could buy a Sonnet Processor upgrade. Back in the day, I bought a g3 accerator for my old 6500 and it really helped.

If you upgrade it enough, it will make a very good computer for word processing, vintage gaming etc.

When I still had my 6500 it had:

-g3 300mhz processor upgrade
-128mb ram
-10gb hard drive
-ATI video card
-TV tuner card
-and a zip drive

I gave mine away also

 

[oingoboingo]

yes it's a power pc but no ethernet and 4gb hd although i've got a few 80 gig spares somewhere
it's alos got a protv card installed

Since you have spare hard drives, you might consider installing Linux onto it and using it as a file server or something similar. Otherwise it's too underpowered for anything much, especially considering the absolute rock-bottom prices that quite decent second hand PCs go for on eBay these days.

CPU upgrades from companies like Sonnet might seem a cheap way of improving performance (even to the stage of making it run with OS X), but they rarely stack up if you do the sums versus something like a second hand PowerMac G3 or iMac G3. I've been down that route with an old PowerMac 7600/120, and while it was a lot of fun and a big learning experience, it would have been more cost effective to just use the 7600 as a door stop and track down a G3 system from eBay or somewhere similar.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

...Like oingoboingo said.

It can be tempting to upgrade an older PPC Mac, but at the moment a used beige G3 can be had for under $100, and a basic Blue & White tower often runs under $150. Both machines can run OS X decently with little or no upgrades, and are much faster than a 603/604-based Mac, especially when you upgrade the RAM.

For a cheap Mac your best bet is one of the early G3 Macs.

 

[tjwett]

Install BeOS on it and get a taste of the greatest OS that never was. I think you'll be shocked at just how fast BeOS would run on that thing. Even better, upgrade it to a dual proc G3 or G4 and then run BeOS on it. BeOS loves dual processors. I can't wait for an Intel Mac mini so I can have a Be machine to play with again.