Boasting time - Proud of my newly aquired iMac G3's. (and I need a subwoofer)

[hottyson]

Greetings,
I have mostly used Microsoft Windows machines my whole life. I recently switched to an 17-inch Intel iMac. It has made computing a wonderful thing.

Then the fever took over and...
I decided that I would look into acquiring some old G3 slot and tray loaders for the cool retro factor. I purchased four of them on eBay. I also ordered 1GB of ram to throw into each one except for the Bondi blue which takes expensive notebook ram so I only put 192MB of ram in it.

Ultimately, when all the parts arrive I will have the following:
1) Ruby DV+ 450MHZ DVD /120GB hd / 1GB ram
2) Graphite DV Special Edition 400MHZ / 40GB hd / 1GB ram
3) Blueberry 400MHZ DVD / 10hd / 1GB ram
3) Blueberry 350MHZ CD / ? hd / 1GB ram
4) Bondi blue rev.B 233MHZ CD / 20GB hd / 192MB ram fan noise, so I sold it

I have installed OSX 10.4 and Word 2004 in the slot loaders.
I have installed OSX 10.3 in the tray loader.

I am thinking about selling the tray loader since I have more Macs than I can use. I have looked into wireless solutions and it seems that the best ones utilize the ethernet port. Now I have changed my mind. I will probably only go wireless with one iMac so that I can move it room to room. Perhaps an Airport express. The rest I will cat5-wire to my router. I have read that many people enjoy the reliability of wired ethernet with g3 iMacs. Well that is about it for now. I will update in the future on how everything went.

I am currently trying to figure out if there is any way to get a real powered subwoofer to work while using my internal speakers on the slot loaders. If that fails perhaps an old Harmon Kardon iSub might have to do?

Any ideas?

thanks

 

[Spock]

Just remember when thinking about wireless the slot loading iMacs can only use 802.11b internally so it would be cheaper to find an original AirPort base station and the AirPort cards are around $79 a pop.

 

[hottyson]

Just remember when thinking about wireless the slot loading iMacs can only use 802.11b internally so it would be cheaper to find an original AirPort base station and the AirPort cards are around $79 a pop.

I have a Netgear 802.11g router already so I am thinking Airport Express might be the ticket. They are only $80 as refurbs from apple.com.

I am thinking about selling the tray loader

Today I gave up on the Bondi blue. It made way too much fan noise so I sold it. I guess I will steer clear of tray loaders from now on.

It is funny how fast and easy it is to sell an old iMac. The girl who got it was so excited. She went on and on to her mother about how the same computer was what she used at her school and that she could do all sorts of cool things with it. When they left she whispered to me that she was now going to make her mom buy her an iPod. Too funny.

 

[Super Macho Man]

You only bought 4 of them? Why not add 3 more, then you'd have the total processing power of a Mac Mini.

 

[tom.96]

Well I've been using a 400mhz G3 Bondi Blue Slot Loader for 7 years now, and the thing that impresses me is the reliability. The hardware has never gone wrong all this time, the software has been stable too.

I use this as my main machine and have never been let down. One thing to look for is what graphics chips they have. The imac started off with vram before going to a dedicated card. I have the ATI Rage 8mb in mine which is great for Unreal Tournament (original), Quake 3.

 

[hottyson]

I have the ATI Rage 8mb in mine which is great for Unreal Tournament (original), Quake 3.

Will Unreal Tournament (original), Quake 3 run under OSX 10.4 or do you have to have OS9 on your iMac?

 

[SkyBell]

Today I gave up on the Bondi blue. It made way too much fan noise so I sold it. I guess I will steer clear of tray loaders from now on.

It is funny how fast and easy it is to sell an old iMac. The girl who got it was so excited. She went on and on to her mother about how the same computer was what she used at her school and that she could do all sorts of cool things with it. When they left she whispered to me that she was now going to make her mom buy her an iPod. Too funny.

Nice, we may have another mac user. Most likely the Bondi will be just what she needs.

 

[gkarris]

I have an HK iSub NEW IN BOX - PM me if you're interested...

 

[hottyson]

Well my ram finally arrived. I bought ten sticks of 512MB PC100 off of eBay. NONE OF THEM WORKED IN THE iMac G3's!!! iGuess iMacs are particular with what memory they will take. I stuck them in my Windows machines and slowed them down to 100mhz to match the ram. Don't make the same costly mistake as me.

I finally fired up the iMac Blueberry and was happily surprised to find that it is actually a 400mhz and has a DVD drive in it. Wow I got lucky there. That is the second time an eBayer got it wrong in my favor.

I bought an eMac from Craigslist for an insanely inexpensive amount. I could not pass it up. It looks like new and has keyboard and mouse. It also has iLife 05, Panther OS and Tiger OS discs. I am going to get an airport extreme card refurb for only $34 from Apple.com. So, I am thinking about selling two iMacs on Craigslist. The one iMac that I keep will be connected via Ethernet in the bedroom.

There sure are some awesome Mac deals out there if you look.

 

[kalisphoenix]

Well my ram finally arrived. I bought ten sticks of 512MB PC100 off of eBay. NONE OF THEM WORKED IN THE iMac G3's!!! iGuess iMacs are particular with what memory they will take. I stuck them in my Windows machines and slowed them down to 100mhz to match the ram. Don't make the same costly mistake as me.

Macs can be @#$%ing bitches when it comes to RAM. That's one of the reasons I stopped contributing to the MR wiki (soon after it began) -- I really wanted to concentrate on cautionary tales of what sort of RAM is needed, which B&W G3 to avoid, which PMG4 is a better deal, etc, but most everyone else wanted to go the "basic introduction" route.

 

[Rollershapple]

Shoot me a PM if you wanna sell the eMac or the Dv ;]