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G3 iMac success story

M

minifridge1138

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 26, 2010
1,175
197
Hello everyone,

About 5 years ago I bought a G3 iMac for $60 from a company that was upgrading.
I'd only turned it on a few times until this weekend.
Then I got ambitious.

It has a 350 mhz processor and had 128 mb of ram and a 6 Gig hard drive.

Now it has 512 mb of ram and a 100 gig hard drive; which I was able to salvage from old PCs I had laying around.
I used super duper to clone the 10.3 install to the new drive.
I bought a new battery for the logic board (the date time reset to 1969 everytime it booted).
I also found a copy of os 9.1 at the same store that sold me the battery.

Now I have a dual boot iMac.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this thing, but I'm having fun.

Any suggestions or tips of what I should try next?
 
Well if i had an old mac I would use it as a tv.
I would put up home sharing and put all my tv shows and movies on to the HD and then I would have a tv :)
 
They make great iTunes boxes. That's mostly what mine does now day. Got it an iSub a few years back and now it sounds better then ever.
 
wrinkster22 said:
Well if i had an old mac I would use it as a tv.
I would put up home sharing and put all my tv shows and movies on to the HD and then I would have a tv :)
Click to expand...

Took the words straight out my mouth :p

Dude, the speakers on this thing are AMAZING, the best speakers on a PC or Mac ever in my opinion, and the display is actually really nice and crisp... If I were you I'd watch a few films & TV on it, do some emails and web browsing, that kind of thing... It's not going to do much in the space of a usable Mac in 2011, but it'll still do a lot of basic things for you... I've always wanted a G3 iMac, enjoy it! :D

Edit : ...And of course, a Jukebox! This thing will be the best music player you'll ever have had!
 
Goftrey said:
Took the words straight out my mouth :p

Dude, the speakers on this thing are AMAZING, the best speakers on a PC or Mac ever in my opinion, and the display is actually really nice and crisp... If I were you I'd watch a few films & TV on it, do some emails and web browsing, that kind of thing... It's not going to do much in the space of a usable Mac in 2011, but it'll still do a lot of basic things for you... I've always wanted a G3 iMac, enjoy it! :D

Edit : ...And of course, a Jukebox! This thing will be the best music player you'll ever have had!
Click to expand...

Just note that a G3 iMac can't actually play anything but SD or below QuickTime movies. (Heck, I get choppiness watching video on my Dual 867 G4 if its above SD). As well as DVDs if your iMac has a DVD capable drive.

I would also be tempted to try and use a slightly older version of iTunes if you can as it will again be faster (iTunes 6 is the version I use on my G3/500 even though it could run iTunes 8), as well as iLife '04 (Last version to properly support the G3s under 400Mhz as iLife '05 is sluggish on G3s).

They also make fantastic machines for when you absolutely must get work done without distraction. (I use either my G3/500 for this when Im at home or my G3/300 iBook when away - neither can run distracting websites but both are great for light office work)
 
I admit that the speakers are extremely good for ones built into a computer.

I think that a jukebox / tv / entertainment center is a great idea.
I'll also try to find some very simple games for it as well.

No DVD player; unfortunately.
 
A small suggestion, the latest version of iTunes that Apple officially supports on G3 processors is 8.2.1. But, if you install Tiger, you can run 9.2.1, get it here http://appldnld.apple.com/iTunes9/061-8725.20100722.Bhnyt/iTunes9.2.1.dmg. I run Tiger on my 350Mhz G3 iMac and I've found it much faster then 10.3. Lastly, if you plan on using iTunes' media sharing functions, you'll need iTunes 9 or later. You can no longer share media with iTunes versions older then 9.0 from a 9.0 or greater computer.

If you're having trouble installing iTunes, use Pacifist to install it. Or setup Tiger on a G4 Mac, install iTunes, and clone the whole system over. Don't forget to disable Dashboard and Spotlight on Tiger if that's what you end up running.
 
Intell said:
A small suggestion, the latest version of iTunes that Apple officially supports on G3 processors is 8.2.1. But, if you install Tiger, you can run 9.2.1, get it here http://appldnld.apple.com/iTunes9/061-8725.20100722.Bhnyt/iTunes9.2.1.dmg. I run Tiger on my 350Mhz G3 iMac and I've found it much faster then 10.3. Lastly, if you plan on using iTunes' media sharing functions, you'll need iTunes 9 or later. You can no longer share media with iTunes versions older then 9.0 from a 9.0 or greater computer.

If you're having trouble installing iTunes, use Pacifist to install it. Or setup Tiger on a G4 Mac, install iTunes, and clone the whole system over. Don't forget to disable Dashboard and Spotlight on Tiger if that's what you end up running.
Click to expand...

With luck you can even do that cloning with an Intel machine.
I did that for my Powermac for Leopard using my macbook (wich came with Snow Leopard, so theoricaly wouldn't support leopard..so maybe you can do the same with tiger.and much faster =)
Instructions here and of course it is on the PowerPc FAQ =)
 
depends what you want to $$$

if nothing then for os 9 i would install classilla browser

http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/

install usb overdrive (to use scrolling mouse) for os 9

http://download.cnet.com/USB-Overdrive-Classic/3000-2110_4-10028015.html

and for panther i would install camino browser

http://caminobrowser.org/releases/1.6.11/


if you don't mind spending a little $$$

-upgrade mem to 1 gig (will support up to 1 gig)
-find and install tiger
-in tiger disable spotlight and dashboard
.............................................

To turn Dashboard off: use terminal
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:
killall Dock

To turn Spotlight off: use terminal

cd /etc
sudo nano hostconfig
SPOTLIGHT=-NO-
ctrl-x
y
enter

Then to get rid of the existing index, run these two commands
sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /

reboot computer

to remove spotlight icon

1. As an administrator, navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices, and delete Search.bundle. If you think might want to re-enable it later, just move it somewhere else or rename it.
2. Open up the Activity Monitor and force quit SystemUIServer. When it reopens, your menu bar will be Spotlight free.
.................................................

-in tiger i would install tenfourfox

http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

-itunes 9.2.1

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1056
 
I'm confused. I thought that 10.3.9 was the latest OSX that would run on the G3 iMac.

Is it able to run 10.4?
Does it require some kind of a hack?
 
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