G3 iMac: Any 'old skool' Mac users possibly help?

[WeegieMac]

Ok, long story cut short, my Father in Law got hold of a G3 iMac which he wants me to get running on OS X so he can give it to his wife to use. The specs aren't great, it's a 266MHz G3 with 256mb of RAM, so I think I'd be looking at 10.1 at best, however all she wants to do is browse the web and use iTunes, and this iMac would be better than her old laptop should I get it up to OS X.

However, the main issue is that while it came with all the original CD's, it's running Mac OS 8.6, and no matter how much looking around online I've done, I'm not the wiser what I need to do to get the machine to OS X. I've read about firmware updates, needing to be on 9.1 before upgrading to OS X, but what am I looking for exactly, software wise? If I know exactly what to buy, I'll no doubt get it on eBay.

So has any of you guys gone through the 8.6 to 9.0 to 9.1 to OS X cycle? And if so, can you give any advice?

Much appreciated, and thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

I would try OS X 10.3.x on it -- might possibly work, and 10.3.9 is still a modestly usable OS (although the version of Safari that comes with it is weak, and you may need to supplement it with Firefox).

For a version of OS 9, OS 9.1 should do.

You _might_ be able to find used retail discs of these iterations of the OS.

But -- more likely -- you'll have to search "outside the normal channels" in order to acquire the software you need. If companies such as Apple believed in keeping older versions of the software available to users of older computers, this wouldn't be problematic. But, since they do not, "a man's got to do what a man's got to do", to get things working....