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Adding another iMac G3 to my collection...

Slix

Slix

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 24, 2010
1,726
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Hey guys!

I haven't made a post here yet about my collection of Apple stuff, notably of the PowerPC variety, but I figured now would be a good time to start! On Monday, I'm planning to meet up with someone I found on Craigslist that's selling an iMac G3 Blue Dalmatian, 600 MHz, and possibly some other Apple install discs! It's one of the few G3s I'm missing, and one of the more rare colors, so that's really exciting.

As of right now, I have:

Tray Loads iMac G3s:
-Bondi Blue
-Lime
-Strawberry
-Tangerine

Slot Load iMac G3s:
-Lime
-Strawberry
-Tangerine
-Blueberry (x2)
-Indigo (x4)
-Snow (x2)
-Graphite

The extras were from a lot of 10 I bought last year, I haven't been able to sell all the extras yet. :p

I was young when the iMacs first came out, and it's been a dream of mine to have all the colors, so I'm getting there. :D I'll be sure to post pictures when I check out, and hopefully buy, the Blue Dalmatian iMac!
 
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Look forward to seeing your iMac Dalmatian.
I have several iMac's G3. One of my favourites is the FlowerPower. Here's mine:

FlowerPower.JPG

I'd planned to complete the set of G3 iMac's, especially as they are so easy to find and pretty cheap (I've yet to pay more than 30€ ($32) for a near-mint, perfectly serviceable model. The trouble is they do take up a fair amount of space which is why I changed tack, and started to collect iBook Clamshells.
If I do purchase another G3 iMac it will be a Dalmatian. I see there's one currently for sale (shown below) in the Paris area for the equivalent of $97. Somewhat difficult to find, but too expensive imho.
Dalmatian.jpg
 
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Can you post a Photo of the Tangerine? I love mine and was wondering if the plastic is as cloudy on yours as it is on mine? I know its not on topic but can you?
 
I'm currently at the other house (my parent's are divorced) from the majority of the iMacs, but when I get back there on Sunday or Monday, I'll be sure to post one of each of the Tangerines. :D
 
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comda said:
Can you post a Photo of the Tangerine? I love mine and was wondering if the plastic is as cloudy on yours as it is on mine? I know its not on topic but can you?
Click to expand...
As requested, here are the backs of the Tangerines. Taken without flash, in the same location, with the same lighting. Hopefully this gives you a good idea of how cloudy they are. :)
IMG_1546.JPG IMG_1547.JPG
 
Slix said:
As requested, here are the backs of the Tangerines. Taken without flash, in the same location, with the same lighting. Hopefully this gives you a good idea of how cloudy they are. :)
View attachment 606509 View attachment 606510
Click to expand...
Thats great. I own the Slot loader. Mines a 400Mhz/1gb/80Gb/DVD ROM/airport card. mines just as cloudy. I was curious because i also have a indigo model thats a lot clearer to see through.
 
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Neat. I think the reason is probably because (I know Steve Jobs said this in one keynote or another) that because they were the one of the first companies to make molded plastic like these, they were getting better as the models went on. Since Indigo was a later one, that's probably why; they were getting better at making the plastics look better. I think the cloudy-level is similar on all of the original 5 slot-loaders. The tray-loaders were obviously much less clear to see through. :)

I'm excited to see the Blue Dalmatian tomorrow! :D
 
From recollection the fruit iMacs were "cloudy" when new. The later indigo and graphite ones were the first with more translucent enclosure.
 
It's official! I picked up the Blue Dalmatian iMac today. :D I got it, and some other random install discs and booklets from the guy for a total of $55! He also let me choose what keyboard and mouse I wanted from the ones he had, so I picked the black pro keyboard and the wired Apple Mighty Mouse, since the other keyboards were yellowed and this mouse is one I don't have yet. It's running Mac OS 9.1.1 only. I am planning to upgrade the RAM and possibly put in a newer drive, it's still got the original 40 GB inside. Is there anything I need to do (firmware upgrade?) before I wipe the drive and copy my 10.4.11 Snow iMac to it?

He said he got them from a church school, and had 5 Snow and 1 tray-load Lime iMac as well at his house, but I told him I didn't need the other colors. He apparently recycles computers and parts, but when he came across these, he figured they could maybe be sold, so I'm glad he posted them on Craigslist! I told him that if he ever finds more Apple stuff to let me know, and he asked to tell people about his recycling services if I run into any situation that might need that. So, we might see some more stuff in the future, but I don't want to get my hopes up right now. ;)

Here are some photos. :)

 IMG_1552.jpg IMG_1553.jpg IMG_1554.jpg IMG_1555.jpg
 
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Slix said:
It's official! I picked up the Blue Dalmatian iMac today. :D I got it, and some other random install discs and booklets from the guy for a total of $55! He also let me choose what keyboard and mouse I wanted from the ones he had, so I picked the black pro keyboard and the wired Apple Mighty Mouse, since the other keyboards were yellowed and this mouse is one I don't have yet. It's running Mac OS 9.1.1 only. I am planning to upgrade the RAM and possibly put in a newer drive, it's still got the original 40 GB inside. Is there anything I need to do (firmware upgrade?) before I wipe the drive and copy my 10.4.11 Snow iMac to it?

He said he got them from a church school, and had 5 Snow and 1 tray-load Lime iMac as well at his house, but I told him I didn't need the other colors. He apparently recycles computers and parts, but when he came across these, he figured they could maybe be sold, so I'm glad he posted them on Craigslist! I told him that if he ever finds more Apple stuff to let me know, and he asked to tell people about his recycling services if I run into any situation that might need that. So, we might see some more stuff in the future, but I don't want to get my hopes up right now. ;)

Here are some photos. :)

 View attachment 606611 View attachment 606612 View attachment 606615 View attachment 606616
Click to expand...
You are crazy lucky, $55 is nothing near the value of those!
 
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Slix said:
It's official! I picked up the Blue Dalmatian iMac today. :D I got it, and some other random install discs and booklets from the guy for a total of $55! He also let me choose what keyboard and mouse I wanted from the ones he had, so I picked the black pro keyboard and the wired Apple Mighty Mouse, since the other keyboards were yellowed and this mouse is one I don't have yet. It's running Mac OS 9.1.1 only. I am planning to upgrade the RAM and possibly put in a newer drive, it's still got the original 40 GB inside. Is there anything I need to do (firmware upgrade?) before I wipe the drive and copy my 10.4.11 Snow iMac to it?

He said he got them from a church school, and had 5 Snow and 1 tray-load Lime iMac as well at his house, but I told him I didn't need the other colors. He apparently recycles computers and parts, but when he came across these, he figured they could maybe be sold, so I'm glad he posted them on Craigslist! I told him that if he ever finds more Apple stuff to let me know, and he asked to tell people about his recycling services if I run into any situation that might need that. So, we might see some more stuff in the future, but I don't want to get my hopes up right now. ;)

Here are some photos. :)

View attachment 606611 View attachment 606612 View attachment 606615 View attachment 606616
Click to expand...
Great price. I want to get one of the graphite and lime ones.
 
@Slix,
You did very well, especially the price with all those accessories. Good photos too!
I can't advise regarding firmware, but I'd be inclined to retain OS 9, partition and add 10.4.11.
Another thing you'll probably need to do is change the PRAM battery. It's easy, especially if you plan to put in another HD. On all my G3's, the batteries were dead - fortunately none had leaked.
Your photos have now urged me to look around for a Dalmation, at around the price you paid.
 
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So, guys, some bad news. I finally had a chance to attempt to set up the Blue Dalmatian today. After updating the firmware successfully to 4.1.9, and wiping the drive and using Carbon Copy Cloner on my Snow iMac with 10.4.11, it now boots up in a few different ways, randomly: Either showing the grey Apple and then a black box in the middle quickly before shutting down, or booting into the black text-on white terminal with the firmware (which is correct - 4.1.9) and instructions to type "mac-boot" to startup normally, which then shows the grey Apple with the spinning wheel, which then never fully boots.

I think (hope, really) that the issue is that I used a version of CCC meant for 10.3 on the iMac that is now running 10.4 to copy the drive and maybe that corrupted something, so once I get a chance to try the 10.4 version of CCC, I'll report back. Unless you guys have any suggestions. :)
 
let it sit a day and try again. that's what i had to do with my cube when i got that black box.
 
Well, after a while of waiting, I got it to work!
IMG_1900.JPG

I used the 10.4 version of CCC to clone my Snow iMac again, got some errors for some files that couldn't copy (probably a bad sector or installation on the Snow) and tried manually copying them with no luck. So I just installed 10.4.3 on top of the Blue Dalmatian and kept the user folders and everything, and that worked! After doing all the software updates, everything is going smoothly. :)
 
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I've finally pulled my iMac G3 Bondi Blue out and set it up over the last day or so. I've got some work ahead to make it usable. The machine runs fine but the original owner factory installed OS 9 before he shipped it to me. Good and bad as there's no software!

I really admire this series of computers and always have ever since they were new. These things were so eye opening in 1998 when everything was a dull beige! Ofc my parents would not buy one because we had a perfectly good Windows PC...

I want to find some practical use for it. Maybe as a media player, I rather like the speakers. But I've one of the tray loading early gen devices. I had thought it was an original but there is a 6 GB drive installed so I'm thinking I have a Life Savers era machine. Someone installed extra RAM though! 96 MB!

Funny how a 5400 RPM drive seems like a dinosaur on a modern system but is lightning fast with this old computer. It boots almost as fast as both of my modern Macs.

Anyhow, sorry for rattling. I just really like these things! Congrats on your purchase, looks good!
 
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