Newbie problems

[DaTsar]

Alright so here the thing I wanted to convert to Mac for a really long time but never had enough money. I finally got an old power mac g3 400mhz with 256mb ram (and I’m fine with it being slow) to start learning the new system. But it doesn’t have an operating system and it’s only got a cd-rom, and I am not sure what to do, I need your guys help. I can’t buy tiger cause its in dvd format (plus it’s like way more then I paid for the machine and it will run slow). I can’t burn tiger cause it’s in .dmg and stupid dmg2iso is giving me an error, I am watching a copy of panther on eBay (sitting at $65.00 CND including shipping), but it won’t end for 5 days and I also want to buy ram and a new drive so I was hoping one of you guys would have a better plan, os wise. Do you?

Also, I want to buy ram, and I just wanted to check if what I need is any generic p133, 168 pin ram chip? If so, I’ve seen a range price wise, so in CND what do you think is a fair price? Where a good place to get some?

Last is there anyway I can upgrade the drive? If so what the cost and what type of drive do I need? Where can I get it done, or get the parts (I’m in Edmonton, Canada)?


Thanks

 

[Steadmuffin]

Alright so here the thing I wanted to convert to Mac for a really long time but never had enough money. I finally got an old power mac g3 400mhz with 256mb ram (and I’m fine with it being slow) to start learning the new system. But it doesn’t have an operating system and it’s only got a cd-rom, and I am not sure what to do, I need your guys help. I can’t buy tiger cause its in dvd format (plus it’s like way more then I paid for the machine and it will run slow). I can’t burn tiger cause it’s in .dmg and stupid dmg2iso is giving me an error, I am watching a copy of panther on eBay (sitting at $65.00 CND including shipping), but it won’t end for 5 days and I also want to buy ram and a new drive so I was hoping one of you guys would have a better plan, os wise. Do you?

Also, I want to buy ram, and I just wanted to check if what I need is any generic p133, 168 pin ram chip? If so, I’ve seen a range price wise, so in CND what do you think is a fair price? Where a good place to get some?

Last is there anyway I can upgrade the drive? If so what the cost and what type of drive do I need? Where can I get it done, or get the parts (I’m in Edmonton, Canada)?


Thanks

As for determining exactly the kind of ram you need, try visiting http://www.crucial.com and using their system to find 100% compatible ram. It will tell you the specs of ram they recommend, guaranteed to be 100% compatible. However, crucial is a US site. Therefore, go to http://www.tigerdirect.ca and check out their memory. Very good prices. I plan on upping the ram on my 12" iBook from them. Be warned that you're going to pay about $10 for shipping, but everythings in canadian dollars.

 

[yellow]

FYI, you can buy Tiger on CD. It costs an extra $20. That being said, that's not the fastest Mac in the world, and Tiger is pretty CPU intensive. IMO, Panther is an excellent, polished, OS release and would work MUCH better for you, plus you should be able to get it very cheaply. Frankly, cheaper then $65CDN, I would think.

When you say "upgrade the drive" which drive do you mean? Hard drive or optical drive? Both are upgradable.

One thing you MUST remember here. You WILL need up grade the Firmware on that Mac BEFORE you attempt to install OS X. For that you will NEED Mac OS 9. You're going to have to look into getting that as well and installing it to upgrade the firmware prior to installing OS X.

You can download the firmware updates from HERE. This is not a step you can skip.

 

[DaTsar]

Thanks so much for the first time in awhile I actually think I can get a cool machine out of all this

When you say "upgrade the drive" which drive do you mean? Hard drive or optical drive? Both are upgradable.

Optical drive, I like it to become a combo drive if possible.

One thing you MUST remember here. You WILL need up grade the Firmware on that Mac BEFORE you attempt to install OS X. For that you will NEED Mac OS 9. You're going to have to look into getting that as well and installing it to upgrade the firmware prior to installing OS X.

Thank God, you told me that(though I won’t be too happy to see that screen, as I still remember OS 9 from my high school movie lab one never seen a powermac so whacked),If I got panther and it didn’t run, I would so have installed my openBSD and sanded that apple right off the box, and we wouldn’t want that now would we !

 

[yellow]

I didn't know there was an OpenBSD distro for PPC besides Darwin. Cool.

Yes, you can definitly replace the optical. In fact, you can get an OEM Pioneer DVR-109 (DVD+/-RW & CD-RW [aka SuperDrive]) for about $68.00. I buy all my stuff from HERE (Other World Computing). Great place.