Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Cloud-based file sharing Panther <--> Mavericks

Rusty33

Rusty33

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2011
274
53
Australia
Hi folks,

I was wondering if anyone could suggest the best possible way to network an old iMac G3 (Panther) with a 'modern' MBP (Mavericks) via the Internet. Ideally, I'd love to use dropbox (or google drive), although 10.3 is not supported. Unfortunately the iMac does not support 10.4.

Some background: I use my G3 at work for the purpose of writing word documents...nothing more. I would like to be able to easily sync and access these documents from home - and then re-sync when finished. While my employer does allow the use of shared folders on our network - accessing these shared folders from home is extremely cumbersome...a simple cloud-based solution would be amazing!

Ideas? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
 
Rusty33 said:
Hi folks,

I was wondering if anyone could suggest the best possible way to network an old iMac G3 (Panther) with a 'modern' MBP (Mavericks) via the Internet. Ideally, I'd love to use dropbox (or google drive), although 10.3 is not supported. Unfortunately the iMac does not support 10.4.

Some background: I use my G3 at work for the purpose of writing word documents...nothing more. I would like to be able to easily sync and access these documents from home - and then re-sync when finished. While my employer does allow the use of shared folders on our network - accessing these shared folders from home is extremely cumbersome...a simple cloud-based solution would be amazing!

Ideas? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Uhm, I have an old tray loading iMac G3 that runs Tiger with less than 100mb of ram. I've installed Tiger on quite a few iBook G3s. What makes you think your G3 cannot run Tiger?
 
eyoungren said:
What makes you think your G3 cannot run Tiger?
Click to expand...

It lacks FireWire.

I suggest putting Tiger on that iMac. Other than a custom built web interface that is supported by very old browsers, there isn't any other way to do cloud based file sharing with Panther.
 
Intell said:
It lacks FireWire.

I suggest putting Tiger on that iMac. Other than a custom built web interface that is supported by very old browsers, there isn't any other way to do cloud based file sharing with Panther.
Click to expand...
Oh, that's right! Forgot about that. There's a way to do it though. My tray-loading iMac lacks FW too and I got Tiger on it.

I took the drive out, put it in an external case, hooked it up to my G4 and made two partitions, one less than 8GB and the second for the rest. I then installed Tiger on the 8GB partition using the G4 and then put the drive back in the iMac.

Boots right up into Tiger. That said, if this is a work Mac then the OP is not likely to be able to do this.

That being the case, I know of no other solution other than sneakernet.
 
eyoungren said:
Oh, that's right! Forgot about that. There's a way to do it though. My tray-loading iMac lacks FW too and I got Tiger on it.

I took the drive out, put it in an external case, hooked it up to my G4 and made two partitions, one less than 8GB and the second for the rest. I then installed Tiger on the 8GB partition using the G4 and then put the drive back in the iMac.

Boots right up into Tiger. That said, if this is a work Mac then the OP is not likely to be able to do this.

That being the case, I know of no other solution other than sneakernet.
Click to expand...

I second sneakernet, but OP could easily get permission to upgrade the iMac to a 'better' OS.
 
Thank you for your feedback - alas, unfortunately I'm not in a position to begin disassembling my computer at work. Perhaps I'll just have to rely on our network shared folders.

I wonder if I can somehow set up dropbox to sync with my network share folder...

PS - I am already an avid user of sneakernet! Unfortunately I forgot my USB drive at home yesterday - which has prompted this thread!
 
Rusty33 said:
Thank you for your feedback - alas, unfortunately I'm not in a position to begin disassembling my computer at work. Perhaps I'll just have to rely on our network shared folders.

I wonder if I can somehow set up dropbox to sync with my network share folder...

PS - I am already an avid user of sneakernet! Unfortunately I forgot my USB drive at home yesterday - which has prompted this thread!
Click to expand...
Thats very possible, or you could use a FTP server :p.
 
Maybe a compromise?

It's not the best route, but it'd let you still use Dropbox.

Continue to use Dropbox as normal on your Mavericks Mac. On the iMac at work, access Dropbox.com via your browser. Navigate to your file and download to the iMac.

I don't think there's any browser dropbox.com won't work in. Certain features may not work, but you should still be able to download your file from the website.

If you need to transfer something from work to your Mav Mac then just use dropbox.com to upload your file and it will be in your Dropbox on the Mavericks Mac when you get home.
 
eyoungren said:
I don't think there's any browser dropbox.com won't work in. Certain features may not work, but you should still be able to download your file from the website.
Click to expand...

I thought of this also...but unfortunately the Dropbox website isn't a fan of safari 1.3 and Firefox 2! I've yet to successfully login...although haven't given up hope yet!
 
There's also Mozilla and early versions of Sea Monkey.

Both of course, Mozilla, so I don't know if they will be any better that FF. Netscape though will be Gecko so, who knows.
 
eyoungren said:
There's also Mozilla and early versions of Sea Monkey.

Both of course, Mozilla, so I don't know if they will be any better that FF. Netscape though will be Gecko so, who knows.
Click to expand...

Maybe use a modern computer that has Dropbox syncing a shared network folder?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back