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Just got my iMac G3, pic included! but i have a couple of questions...

likemyorbs

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 20, 2008
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NJ
hey guys!! my imac g3 just came in today, its in great cosmetic condition and everything seems to work good. i have 2 questions, first off, how do i install os x in addition to the os 9 thats already there? i know its capable cuz its 500mhz with 128mb ram. also, anyone have a suggestion how to get wireless internet on there?

UPDATE- This computer has totally impressed me, i upgrades the os to panther easily, and the computer even has a built in airport card which i didnt know about. this thing is great! i think ill just up the ram to 256mb
 

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I hope your kidding about putting OS X on there. You could possibly get 10.4 on there, but you are going to have to update the RAM to at least 512MB. 128MB is not even enough to load OS X by itself, much less run anything else.

Wireless.... You need to get the original Apple airport card and install it in the Airport card slot right next to the memory.
 
You can purchase an AirPort card for this machine. I would either get 10.4 or 10.4. If you go with 10.3, assume you'll need 256 Mb RAM minimum and for 10.4, 512 Mb RAM minimum. A general rule of thumb is to max out the RAM as much as possible. At what the cost of the RAM and AirPort card are going to be.. as well as OS X unless you have a copy around will cost you considerably more than the machine is worth. Your money though...

That being said, the iMacs are great machines. I used to own an old 466 Mhz Clamshell graphite flavor which I sold this year for $400 with AirPort, upgraded HD, max ram, Tiger, and OS 9.
 
Loading which version of X will depend on if yours has the CD or DVD drive. (Either way, Tiger is the Max OS it will take).

And I agree with Jestered, you will need way more RAM. 512 minimum. (Yours should take up to 1GB).

According to Mactracker, yours has the capability of an AirPort card (802.11b) (adapter required). Check eBay.

Have fun with your new iMac! :)

Edit: Wow, I must be getting slow... 2 people posting before me. :p mBurns, nice return on your Clamshell! Those things sure keep their value. I sold my tangerine several years ago for the same price (maxed out just like yours).
 
im going to try and put panther on it, i already have a copy of it, its on like 3 separate cd's so this imac could read it. but how do you make it so you can have both operating systems?
 
Ah, how quickly we forget...

Several OS X 10.2 machines came with 128 MB standard.
OS 10.3 gave a HUGE performance increase, especially on older, slower machines.

Personally, at the moment I have a 400 Mhz iMac with 288 MB RAM, and it runs 10.4.11 fine.
However, I have a 160 GB, 7500 RPM drive (128 GB recognized), which speeds things
up nicely. However, you will need a minimum of 256 MB to install Tiger (unless installing
via target mode). It's true, !0.4 won't boot on less than 256 MB of RAM.
 
10.3 panther includes classic,

which is OS 9. So yes you can run older OS 7 though 9 programs, in what is called classic mode. You will see a option for installing classic support, when you run the the OS X 10.3 install.

When apple released 10.3 Panther they were still selling imacs with 256MB as Standard.
 
rpaloalto said:
10.3 panther includes classic,

which is OS 9. So yes you can run older OS 7 though 9 programs, in what is called classic mode. You will see a option for installing classic support, when you run the the OS X 10.3 install.

When apple released 10.3 Panther they were still selling imacs with 256MB as Standard.
Click to expand...

but i dont want just os 9 support in panther, i wanna actually be able to boot os 9
 
Welp. It sounds like you really wanted that old machine, so congrats. Personally - it sounds like a waste. But, good luck! :D
 
I know.. I got a SWEET return. It was absolutely mint though with the original box, etc. The only way you could do better is if you bought new.
 
congrats!

Hey,

I know this thread is a little old, but I wanted to warn you about a couple of things about these iMacs.

For one: If it was heavily used, the flyback transformer may burn out. This was a design flaw that caused it to permanently over heat, thus shortening its' life. It was because of its' small size.

Also: Just to save you some time, you may want to install firmware updates before wiping OS 9.

I found an iMac by the road with no HD, RAM and a dead CD-ROM. $20.00 of parts later and I now have an awesome machine! It runs OS X Tiger (10.11) with 384 mb ram @ 400 MHz. I have a MacBook and a 2.0 GHz PowerMac G4, but I love the speakers on these iMacs, they sound great! I never fixed the CD-ROM, just installed via Target Disk Mode.
 
I have a 400 MHz g3 iMac that lives in the kitchen. It's used for web browsing, keeping recipies on and streaming music from the iMac in my sig. I'm running 10.4 on it. I installed 1gb of ram in it and in os9 is unstoppable and the processor is the bottleneck when my wife leaves 2 or 3 safari windows open (one of which is running flash for her weight watches tracker) and then runs iTunes streaming and tries to open mail as well, then shouts that "the iCook is acting funny and seems realy slow. Then I go and remind her that the thing is nearly 8 years old close the windows/tabs in safari and quit mail and remind her to go easy on it
 
I completely agree!

I work in a business that uses OS 9 as their primary OS. It gets tough to get things done efficiently.

I have a PowerMac G4 with a Power Logix 2.0 GHz card in it. It is fantastic. I put it at my desk for when I am doing website work.

I got my MacBook 3 days ago, so it will get its money's worth!!
 
since i started this thread, i upped the hard drive to a 40gb (took it out of a dell from around the same time), installed tiger on it, and took some ram out of that same dell and put it into the imac, bringing the total ram to 256mb. a couple of days ago i ordered a 512mb chip for $12, once that comes in, this machine will be totally priceless, for its age its a fantastic machine, im really impressed with it
 
OMG you have a dead LISA!! I have always wanted one of those!

What is the matter with it?

Are you handy with a soldering iron?


Also, I bought a PowerMac G4 with 2.0 GHz card/1 GB RAM/120 GB Hard Drive/DVD Burner for $350. Did I make out ok?
 
Coldacre said:
now if i only I could get this Apple Lisa going... :D
Click to expand...

wow youre so lucky to have that, theyre pretty expensive on ebay! thats an antique, if you can get it functioning you could probably get a lot for it.
 
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