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Don't laugh, but...iMac G3??
- Thread starter stevep
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Are you serious??? They are plenty of people running Tiger on G4 mini's as well as Core Solo mini's.
Tiger runs just fine on either if these machines.
I'm just going to be the voice of dissent here. I used to have a 400 mhz imac DV SE with 256 RAM (yes, I know that's too low) and it was damn near unusable in OS X (ran great in 9!). Even my mother, who inherited it after me and is VERY patient with computers found it unacceptable. I'm sure it would have been quite different with more RAM, but let's be honest here - that's a 6 year old machine. Even faster G3s that I used to have (both 600 and 900 mhz ibooks) never felt quite right in X - at least not compared to anything G4 or later. It'll run, but it'll feel like slow death compared to your macbook pro.
Also, I don't know computer prices in the UK, but that doesn't sound like that great a deal. Old G4 towers go for little more than $100 US over here, depending on specs.
Also, I don't know computer prices in the UK, but that doesn't sound like that great a deal. Old G4 towers go for little more than $100 US over here, depending on specs.
10.39 runs faster on my G3 than 9.2. A fast harddrive and at least 512 ram will make it about five times faster.
Everything on the internet loads right away. I have cable. Word 04 is very fast with a 40 page document, no room for speed improvement.
A back up with CCC or SuperDuper is less than 20 minutes, which you can do at the end of the day.
Burning a backup CD of 9.2 wasn't unreasonable 5 minutes?
All in all, it is very responsive
But is setting up a G3 a good value? That depends on what you want to accomplish.
Everything on the internet loads right away. I have cable. Word 04 is very fast with a 40 page document, no room for speed improvement.
A back up with CCC or SuperDuper is less than 20 minutes, which you can do at the end of the day.
Burning a backup CD of 9.2 wasn't unreasonable 5 minutes?
All in all, it is very responsive
But is setting up a G3 a good value? That depends on what you want to accomplish.
Well, I've done it. The eBay iMac I was bidding for went through the roof and got £103 
eek: ) - i ducked out a lot earlier than that! But I went in to work today and asked around and came home with an indigo G3 for free, thinking it might be a 300mHz with 128mB ram, probably not bootable. Plugged it in, booted fine, and 'About this Mac' says 500mHz, 768mB ram. Wa-hey.
Just cleaning it out now, removing Classic, all the old user files and rubbish apps I won't use, ready for installing Tiger later this week.
I'm really grateful for all your many and varied opinions folks- they've made very interesting reading.
The moral of this tale - if you're selling an old Mac, use eBay. If you're buying one, don't!
eek: ) - i ducked out a lot earlier than that! But I went in to work today and asked around and came home with an indigo G3 for free, thinking it might be a 300mHz with 128mB ram, probably not bootable. Plugged it in, booted fine, and 'About this Mac' says 500mHz, 768mB ram. Wa-hey.Just cleaning it out now, removing Classic, all the old user files and rubbish apps I won't use, ready for installing Tiger later this week.
I'm really grateful for all your many and varied opinions folks- they've made very interesting reading.
The moral of this tale - if you're selling an old Mac, use eBay. If you're buying one, don't!
I just switched from a G3 900 mhz iBook to a new MacBook C2D and cant really tell the difference. Even when I go back to the snowball, I still do not notice that big a difference. But I always max out my RAM and keep the OS clean.
that would be 640 RAM if memory serves. I find it hard to believe that anyone can't tell the difference between a G3 and a core2duo. I mean, to each his own, but I've owned a 400 mhz G3, a 2 Ghz core duo, and a good many of the processors inbetween, and the differences are not subtle IMHO.
Anyway, congrats to the OP, that's outstanding!! A free 500 mhz imac with that much RAM is just fantastic, so enjoy it!
Like I said, to each his own. Maybe I just have a different definition of "fine," or maybe the RAM really makes that much difference, but my experiences with X on G3s have involved a lot of beachballing and waiting patiently.
I'm not saying the G3 is worth laying out a lot of money on, but ram and fast hard drive make a big difference. I picked up one G3 400 powerbook off ebay that had the original harddrive and less than 512 RAM, and that thing was so slow I thought it was defective.
A G3 is very snappy with OSX, but after upgrading the RAM, Harddrive, OS, PRAM it adds up.
You couldn't give me an old iMac, but I'll take two or three G3 powerbooks networked together over a single computer.
A G3 is very snappy with OSX, but after upgrading the RAM, Harddrive, OS, PRAM it adds up.
You couldn't give me an old iMac, but I'll take two or three G3 powerbooks networked together over a single computer.
I just have to correct this... I have an iMac DV SE 500mhz, and it has a DVD drive, so I'm quite certain that the 600mhz models must as well...
I could be wrong in the sense that not all models shipped with DVD drives, but I'm fairly certain that DVDroms were fairly standard by this point.
Well, I've done it. The eBay iMac I was bidding for went through the roof and got £103
Just cleaning it out now, removing Classic, all the old user files and rubbish apps I won't use, ready for installing Tiger later this week.
I'm really grateful for all your many and varied opinions folks- they've made very interesting reading.
The moral of this tale - if you're selling an old Mac, use eBay. If you're buying one, don't!
How does the speed seem? It should be good with that much RAM. And you got quite a good deal!
How does the speed seem? It should be good with that much RAM. And you got quite a good deal!
I have to say it's a bit slower than the MBP
but at the moment I'm doing lots of very disc-intensive things (like installing Tiger, clearing out all the languages and printer stuff that I don't need etc). When I've done that and run Onyx I think it will run fairly sweetly for what I want - ie as an ethernet store for media files. In fact, it's reminded me just how much faster (compared to wireless) a bit of cat5 is!Nope, even the first G4 towers and G4 iMacs had CD only drives. The DVD drives were available, but they weren't stock.
Check out mactracker, handy little utility!