Just bought a new iMac G3!!....I have questions

[125037]

so I just picked up an iMac G3 from ebay [http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=220294836002] for 60 bucks and the specs are as follows:

OSX 10.4 Tiger
DVD-ROM
40GB HDD
512MB RAM
400MHz

This is my first ever Mac. As I know it is nothing special (although its VERY deecent except the processor for the price of 60 BUCKS!) but I will be purchasing one of the new macbooks around Christmas figured I'd get this to start me off with Mac OS. I am familiar with how it works because I watch all of apples tutorials and youtube so i know some of the basics but I have never had hands on experience.

Anyway:

QUESTION #1: What do I need to get for wi-fi? i was on ebay and typed in airport and i find two things, a green looking chip and a silver looking thing that says airport on it... i have no idea.

QUESTION #2: So is leopard a complete negative, I know it would take up like 25% of my HDD because apple says it needs 9GB, but is my processor too slow or ... what.

QUESTION #3: IF it is possible to run leopard, would YOU upgrade to leopard, I know its better but given everything else such as sacrificing that much HD space and it most likely running slower.

QUESTION #4: Is it possible for me to restore it because I don't want other peoples crap.


THANKS!

 

[reddrag0n]

so I just picked up an iMac G3 from ebay [http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=220294836002] for 60 bucks and the specs are as follows:

OSX 10.4 Tiger
DVD-ROM
40GB HDD
512MB RAM
400MHz

This is my first ever Mac. As I know it is nothing special (although its VERY deecent except the processor for the price of 60 BUCKS!) but I will be purchasing one of the new macbooks around Christmas figured I'd get this to start me off with Mac OS. I am familiar with how it works because I watch all of apples tutorials and youtube so i know some of the basics but I have never had hands on experience.

Anyway:

QUESTION #1: What do I need to get for wi-fi? i was on ebay and typed in airport and i find two things, a green looking chip and a silver looking thing that says airport on it... i have no idea.

The answer is yes, to both of them. One is a carriage card *green card* for the airport card *silver card* to plug into the motherboard.

QUESTION #2: So is leopard a complete negative, I know it would take up like 25% of my HDD because apple says it needs 9GB, but is my processor too slow or ... what.

Leaopard needs at least a G4 867 MHz cpu, and as for trying to run Leopard on a G3, that i have no idea

QUESTION #3: IF it is possible to run leopard, would YOU upgrade to leopard, I know its better but given everything else such as sacrificing that much HD space and it most likely running slower.

I have Leopard on my QS G4 with a 1.4 GHz cpu and it doesn't seem that slow to me. plus i have an 80 GB drive to play with also.

QUESTION #4: Is it possible for me to restore it because I don't want other peoples crap.

Boot from a Panther CD since i don't think that mac came with a DVD Rom and Tiger *10.4* was shipped as a DVD.
Just boot the mac, insert the CD and press and hold the "C" key on the keyboard.

 

[Metuas]

QUESTION #2: So is leopard a complete negative, I know it would take up like 25% of my HDD because apple says it needs 9GB, but is my processor too slow or ... what.

Leopard will not run on any G3 officially, and no one has managed to boot it on the G3, except for the 900MHz G3 iBooks, because it requires the AltiVec instruction set from the G4s. (The 900MHz iBook is nigh unusable because it is so unstable- there's no reason to try to force it to work.)

QUESTION #3: IF it is possible to run leopard, would YOU upgrade to leopard, I know its better but given everything else such as sacrificing that much HD space and it most likely running slower.

Tiger ran *adequately* on my 700 MHz G4 iMac with 640 MB of RAM. So chances are that you shouldn't be going with anything above Tiger, even if it were possible. Panther might end up being a better choice.

QUESTION #4: Is it possible for me to restore it because I don't want other peoples crap.

Sure, as long as you have a CD or DVD to boot from.

 

[reddrag0n]

Tiger ran *adequately* on my 700 MHz G4 iMac with 640 MB of RAM. So chances are that you shouldn't be going with anything above Tiger, even if it were possible. Panther might end up being a better choice.

I had Tiger run on my upclocked iMac G3 Ruby (450 running at 500 MHz) with 512 Ram, so he/she shouldn't have any problem running Tiger on their iMac.

 

[jodelli]

OSX 10.4 Tiger
DVD-ROM
40GB HDD
512MB RAM
400MHz

Anyway:

QUESTION #1: What do I need to get for wi-fi? i was on ebay and typed in airport and i find two things, a green looking chip and a silver looking thing that says airport on it... i have no idea.

As another poster says, you'll need a standard b Airport card plus the metal sleeve or bracket to hold it that fits in next to the memory slots under the access door in the bottom of the case. The end of the antenna will be hanging around there too.

QUESTION #2: So is leopard a complete negative, I know it would take up like 25% of my HDD because apple says it needs 9GB, but is my processor too slow or ... what.

Tiger runs great on one of these machines, I have a Graphite with it running. Leopard, even if by some miracle you get it to run it would be paralyzingly slow.

QUESTION #3: IF it is possible to run leopard, would YOU upgrade to leopard, I know its better but given everything else such as sacrificing that much HD space and it most likely running slower.

No, not on this spec machine.

QUESTION #4: Is it possible for me to restore it because I don't want other peoples crap.
THANKS!

Yes, with the appropriate system disk, like a 10.4 retail version.

 

[125037]

Boot from a Panther CD since i don't think that mac came with a DVD Rom and Tiger *10.4* was shipped as a DVD.
Just boot the mac, insert the CD and press and hold the "C" key on the keyboard.

Thanks so much for the time and effort put into your answer and yes my Mac will have a DVD ROM drive built in.

 

[125037]

Leaopard needs at least a G4 867 MHz cpu, and as for trying to run Leopard on a G3, that i have no idea

BUMMER MAN!

 

[reddrag0n]

Thanks so much for the time and effort put into your answer and yes my Mac will have a DVD ROM drive built in.

Then you can boot and install Tiger without a problem. The only catch is that 10.4 requires a firewire port to be present on the computer. Your system has that so you should be good to go. With those systems, the more ram you put in it, the happier it will be. Maximum ram for those machine i do believe is two sticks of 512 MB PC-133.

Here are some Apple support docs for installing items...
iMac (Slot Loading): Installing or replacing an AirPort Card

The Airport Adapter looks like this

iMac (Slot Loading): Installing or Replacing Memory

Hope this information helps

 

[California]

1 gig of ram at two 512mb chips
New hard drive (get a 120gig 7200 drive as the iMac G3 cannot take more than 128 gig hard drive... and I have read that if you put a larger hard drive in there, it burns them out for some reason.)

Once your ram and hard drive are maxed, you will find Tiger a breeze. You can find an internal dvd/cd player around and someone, I think OWC, used to make a superdrive adapter for your iMac. I know they had one for the Cube.

The Cube takes the same optical drive the iMac G3 did, btw.

 

[125037]

Then you can boot and install Tiger without a problem. The only catch is that 10.4 requires a firewire port to be present on the computer. Your system has that so you should be good to go. With those systems, the more ram you put in it, the happier it will be. Maximum ram for those machine i do believe is two sticks of 512 MB PC-133.

Here are some Apple support docs for installing items...
iMac (Slot Loading): Installing or replacing an AirPort Card

The Airport Adapter looks like this

iMac (Slot Loading): Installing or Replacing Memory

Hope this information helps

THANKS!

 

[125037]

1 gig of ram at two 512mb chips
New hard drive (get a 120gig 7200 drive as the iMac G3 cannot take more than 128 gig hard drive... and I have read that if you put a larger hard drive in there, it burns them out for some reason.)

Once your ram and hard drive are maxed, you will find Tiger a breeze. You can find an internal dvd/cd player around and someone, I think OWC, used to make a superdrive adapter for your iMac. I know they had one for the Cube.

The Cube takes the same optical drive the iMac G3 did, btw.

Very Useful. Thank you.

 

[125037]

Tiger ran *adequately* on my 700 MHz G4 iMac with 640 MB of RAM. So chances are that you shouldn't be going with anything above Tiger, even if it were possible. Panther might end up being a better choice.

What are the main differences between tiger and panther

 

[fohawk17]

What are the main differences between tiger and panther

its like the differece between windows 2000 and Xp.
they are built off the same core concepts, but tiger can run more programs, comes with different default programs, and such. panther is behind tiger, so it isnt as advanced and doesnt support as much.

tiger also has a lot more software upgrades for it from apple, so you get more options. but it has a higher drain on system resources, so i would suggect trying to find larger ram and a new processor. i know the old imac g3's require dimm ram, so try that

panther is good when you have a low end g3 with little ram and a slow processor. i have a grape imac g3 with a 333mz processor and i think 192 mb of ram, and it works faster than my pc laptop that was made 2 years after.

 

[125037]

How am I supposed to get a Tiger DVD since they dont produce them anymore and isnt it illeagal to buy them used bc you dont know if the seller is still using the software or not.

 

[reddrag0n]

Best place to buy Tiger would be from any online used sales place. IE eBay, or even craigslist. Someone might have it for sale. I still have my Tiger disc but i plan on using it on a few more systems to get my proper server back up and running.

 

[fohawk17]

Best place to buy Tiger would be from any online used sales place. IE eBay, or even craigslist. Someone might have it for sale. I still have my Tiger disc but i plan on using it on a few more systems to get my proper server back up and running.

like he said, these are the best chances for finding an install dvd. there is always a risk that the person is still using the disk, but that is where you look for people on ebay with high ratings. if anything, ask the people you got the mac from if they are still using theirs

 

[leighonigar]

like he said, these are the best chances for finding an install dvd. there is always a risk that the person is still using the disk, but that is where you look for people on ebay with high ratings. if anything, ask the people you got the mac from if they are still using theirs

Several points here - they would be selling you the licence, so they would be the one lacking it if they kept using it - and so breaking the EULA. It's not your problem if you buy it from them, and you therefore get the 'license'.

- since apple doesn't require serials for installations and all the disks are the same they don't know, and it makes no difference to you. It's more like a trust system. Albeit one with laws involved.

I'd go with Tiger myself. It won't be fast, but I doubt it would be much slower than panther, and panther is effectively unsupported nowadays (esp with regard to new apps).

 

[125037]

so i just firgured out that when i receive it it WILL have a clean install of tiger which brings me to my next question. Is there a way for me to make a backup cd of some sort? ---and thanks for everyone who is being SO helpful in my switch to mac.

 

[125037]

so i just firgured out that when i receive it it WILL have a clean install of tiger which brings me to my next question. Is there a way for me to make a backup cd of some sort? ---and thanks for everyone who is being SO helpful in my switch to mac.

Does anyone know?

 

[applefan1997]

No, you cant because the system wont boot from it, as it bigger than a CD can hold. You can clone the disk to a DVD and clone it back if you have to, but other than that it's not easy.