iMac G3

[Crazy Matt]

Forgive me if this is not the right place to post.

I recently got a iMac G3 Blueberry. 1999, I think. with a 350mhz, 1GB RAM. 6GB hard drive.

What would be the latest OS and internet browser I could use on it. It currently has OS 9.2 and internet explorer 5.

Thank you!

 

[eyoungren]

1. This is the PowerPC forums, so it's the right place to post.
2. Latest OS would be OS X 10.4.11 (although if your G3 lacks Firewire, you'd need an alternate route to get it on there).
3. There is only one browser that is "current" and that is TenFourFox. TenFourFox is a fork of Firefox, which abandoned PowerPC shortly before version 4 of Firefox. T4FX is getting set to release T4Fx 38 soon, which is equivalent to Firefox 38. You'll want the G3 build. All other browsers (Safari, Firefox, Seamonkey, Opera, Omniweb, iCab, etc) have long ago ceased development and been abandoned.

Realize that even if you get Tiger on this Mac and T4Fx installed and optimized (there is a thread for that in my signature) this still won't be the best platform for browsing the internet. But if you're ok with that then I'd pursue installing as much ram as possible and as large a hard drive as you can get.

 

[bunnspecial]

As Erik alluded to, you can go all the way to 10.4.11, but you need to use Xpostfacto to get there. "Officially" 10.3.8 is the newest version that you can run on this system. The extra work to get to 10.4 is well worth it, if for no other reason than to use Tenfourfox.

I'm at least going to make the assumption that this is the case-as far as I know only the "DV" models had FW and they were all 400mhz and faster. If you do have FW ports, you don't need Xpostfacto to install 10.4, and it will do reasonably well with 1gb of RAM.

Personally, I like OS 9.2.2 on my iMac G3s-you also have the option of an up-to-date web browser in Classilla.

 

[Crazy Matt]

1. This is the PowerPC forums, so it's the right place to post.
2. Latest OS would be OS X 10.4.11 (although if your G3 lacks Firewire, you'd need an alternate route to get it on there).
3. There is only one browser that is "current" and that is TenFourFox. TenFourFox is a fork of Firefox, which abandoned PowerPC shortly before version 4 of Firefox. T4FX is getting set to release T4Fx 38 soon, which is equivalent to Firefox 38. You'll want the G3 build. All other browsers (Safari, Firefox, Seamonkey, Opera, Omniweb, iCab, etc) have long ago ceased development and been abandoned.

Realize that even if you get Tiger on this Mac and T4Fx installed and optimized (there is a thread for that in my signature) this still won't be the best platform for browsing the internet. But if you're ok with that then I'd pursue installing as much ram as possible and as large a hard drive as you can get.

Thank you so much for your detailed response!

But now I feel bad because I should have stated my intentions with this machine.

I really just bought it to ad to my small collection of 90's Apple stuff (pictured below).

What I'd like is that this machine just works. So a couple of new questions. I have a airport wireless card coming, hopefully that will work to get me online. Once I do get online will I be ok using the OS 9.2 and the internet explorer 5 and Sherlock?

Don't ask me what my purpose is. I have newer equiptment that does everything I need. I guess I just wanted to see if I could get it online.

 

[eyoungren]

Technically you don't need Xpostfacto either, but it may be more involved. I got 10.4.11 on my iMac G3 by pulling the HD out, putting it in an external case and then using another (PowerPC) Mac to partition the drive and install Tiger.

The boot partition has to be 8GB or less so if you get a drive larger than that you'll need to have at least two partitions. The G3's bootloader cannot see beyond 8GB which is the reason for this.

Annecdotelly, there is also a 128GB large drive limit on the G3s (and early G4s). There is a software way around that as well. Initech has it's ATA HiCap driver which you can install. It works from OS9 to OS X 10.5.8.

Of course, Xpostfacto will probably be a lot easier and won't involve disassembly of the Mac.

 

[eyoungren]

Thank you so much for your detailed response!

But now I feel bad because I should have stated my intentions with this machine.

I really just bought it to ad to my small collection of 90's Apple stuff (pictured below).

What I'd like is that this machine just works. So a couple of new questions. I have a airport wireless card coming, hopefully that will work to get me online. Once I do get online will I be ok using the OS 9.2 and the internet explorer 5 and Sherlock?

Don't ask me what my purpose is. I have newer equiptment that does everything I need. I guess I just wanted to see if I could get it online.View attachment 562886

Sure. You can get it online. I'm not too certain where an Airport card fits in an iMac G3, but yes you can do what you want (assuming an iMac G3 has a slot for an Airport card).

You will be limited to Wireless A/B on your home network for this Mac. You can get WPA, but only with TKIP and not AES. There is no WPA2. So you will have to modify your router settings to account for this if you have not done that already for any other older Macs you may have.

Not sure what you can get under OS9, maybe WEP only.

 

[bunnspecial]

Sure. You can get it online. I'm not too certain where an Airport card fits in an iMac G3, but yes you can do what you want (assuming an iMac G3 has a slot for an Airport card).

You will be limited to Wireless A/B on your home network for this Mac. You can get WPA, but only with TKIP and not AES. There is no WPA2. So you will have to modify your router settings to account for this if you have not done that already for any other older Macs you may have.

Not sure what you can get under OS9, maybe WEP only.

iMac G3s(slotload) require a special riser card for the airport card.(trayloads can't take an Airport card). The Airport card sits next to the RAM.

The whole assembly looks like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-iMac-...326?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2801e16c16

(MODS: NOT MY AUCTION)

As Erik mentioned, you're limited to 802.11b. Under 10.4, you can use WPA, but under OS 9-as Erik mentioned-you are limited to WEP encryption. You're better off hard wiring to your router if you can.

Also, IE 5 has serious problems. Not only does it have bad security holes, but it will have serious issues rendering modern web pages. You will want to use Classilla. The rendering engine isn't the best, but it's a LOT better than IE 5 and is still maintained so is reasonably secure.

 

[bunnspecial]

One other quick thing-you may want to hunt down a different keyboard, as that one won't be fully functional under OS 9. Several of us like the M7803 Pro Keyboard, which does work great under OS 9.

 

[Crazy Matt]

Thank you so much guys for the info. A lot of info to work with here. Thanks!

 

[Altemose]

Browsing under TenFourFox will be painful unless you follow eyoungren's tweaks here. I highly recommend using Bluhell Firewall and switching the user agent to an iPhone view to lighten the load on the CPU.