I need some eMac upgrade advice!

[tmiles]

First of all, I must confess I am not Mac savvy. Please be gentle with me.

I have an eMac computer that needs to be put to better use for my kids. They currently use my PC for homework. I will be losing the PC at the first of the next year. I want to add to the eMac, Microsoft Office and a printer for their homework assignments. Should I upgrade the eMac or just find a version of Microsoft office that will run on what I have. I was told that my system would support Tiger and Leopard, but I have no idea what would be best.

Here is my system info:
Machine Model: eMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.8f0
System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0
DIMM0/J2:
Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-30330

DIMM1/J1:
Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-30330
Any help would be much appreciated

 

[Sky Blue]

I've run 10.5 on eMacs of that spec before, it runs fine. You can run Office 2004 or 2008.

 

[lannister80]

Yep, I ran 10.5 on my 1x1.25GHz MDD PowerMac, which used to have 1GB of RAM (now has 2GB), and it worked just fine.

 

[roadbloc]

I've run 10.5 on eMacs of that spec before, it runs fine. You can run Office 2004 or 2008.

I second that. I've seen Leopard run just fine on eMac's like yours.

 

[tmiles]

Thanks for the advice

I wansn't sure if I could jump from Panther to Leopard skipping Tiger all together.