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Might buy a iMac G3

V

VistaWiz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 18, 2012
2
0
Hi! I am new to the forums, and I want your help :) My friend MIGHT buy me a blue iMac G3, that comes with power, the computer its self, the keyboard and mouse, nothing else. No floppy drive, i heard thats rare. So any good suggestions of what I could possibly have fun with on the iMac? Anything nice about it, bad etc? I would like to know. Thanks





VistaWiz
 
If you are feeling adventurous you could try to find some older versions of linux to throw on it. I was able to make my old PC do some crazy things when I put ubuntu on it. It would still have that mac feel but it'd be a totally different beast. I dunno the specs of those imacs, but it'd be fun to mess around with.
 
In case you have not found it check the PowerPC area of this board. You are more likely to get info there.
 
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Those were a bit crappy 10 years ago. These days, I'd say good luck getting anything done with it.

I would probably try to get a small-ish LCD monitor which corresponds with the case, remove the old CRT it has and try to build an all-in-one computer in the iMac case.

Good luck though, hope you get some enjoyment out of it.
 
I used to have a 600MHz iBook G3 (sold it about a year and a half ago now) the performance would be comparable. I upgraded the ram to 640mb and installed Tiger on it, contrary to what everyone here is saying you would be surprised what it can do. Of course you won't be able to watch YouTube videos or anything like that, but there would no problem going on any other websites that dont rely on falsh or fancy graphics. If you run software from the same era as your iMac comes from it'll run everything at a normal speed. There shouldn't be a problem watching standard definition movies on it either, you can upgrade it to have a DVD drive or just watch from the hard drive.
 
OS X will run slow. I suggest OS 9 for the iMac G3. I have tons of games for OS 9 and my iMac is my gaming rig at least for OS 9 games.

You can find software that is legally free for OS 9 with a Google search.
 
I would guess there's not much more fun you can do with that machine than awe of the technological leaps we've taken the past decade and get a good laugh. If that's worth paying for, go for it. Or store it for a few generations and your grand children can sell it on eBay in 2100 as a valuable historical item. Other than that its just a waste of space.

That machine has way slower hardware than in today's smartphones :D sort of puts it in a perspective.
 
Oh erm.... woah.... It goes in to the PowerMac? Thanks! And why would I have a aquir-cant even spell it, and I am planning to keep OS 9 on it... And iMac G3s are good, i ant making my friend waste more then the 85.00 iMac G3on eBay, so no... NO NEW IMAC. >.>
 
Depending on the PowerMac, they're still quite usable. The G3's are a bit slow as are most <1Ghz G4's. But the G5's and faster G4's are still very able machines.
 
I've still got one somewhere, was one of the first or second ones i think. I used it with OSX.2 until 2006 when i replaced it with a G5 iMac. I liked it, I even liked the mouse that no-one else liked.
After reading this post and something I read the other day about someone putting a PC motherboard and a TFT inside I'm wondering how easy it'd be to put a Mac Mini inside...
 
I've got about a dozen sitting in a closet back at my office... Let me know if you find a good use for them outside of target practice.
 
If you're going to spend money, buy an iMac G4. It is worth it.

I have an iMac G3, the first model. The CPU makes too much noise, it's pretty slow, considering it's on Panther, and it just sits under my desk.

If it wasn't that I got it handed down to me, I would never have bothered with one.
 
For fun? Yeah, I have one that just sits around that pretty much only plays old Mac games you won't find on OSX or Windows, its a heap. But its only good for fun stuff, as far as actually using it for anything useful? Nope. It can't even go on flash sites. You gotta realize how old these machines are.
 
I had a Tangerine iMac G3. It got me back into working with MIDI.

I remember it's hard drive made an annoying high pitched whine like a mosquito but my brain eventually blocked it out.

I also remember that it came with a cute game called Bugdom which had cool music.

I have two unopened Timex alarm clocks that look like miniature fruit colored iMacs. Timex only made one run of these before Apple put a stop to it so they are quite rare.
 
fastlanephil said:
I also remember that it came with a cute game called Bugdom which had cool music.
Click to expand...

Haha yeah, I remember that game. I was in 1st grade and we had those iMacs in the computer lab. We used to play it all the time. If you held Tab while it was starting up, it let you choose what level you wanted to play instead of having to start at the first one.
 
Jessica Lares said:
If you're going to spend money, buy an iMac G4. It is worth it.

I have an iMac G3, the first model. The CPU makes too much noise, it's pretty slow, considering it's on Panther, and it just sits under my desk.

If it wasn't that I got it handed down to me, I would never have bothered with one.
Click to expand...

I second that (well the 1.25GHz ones anyway) .
 
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