Power Macintosh G3 AIO (all in one)

[Mr Rabbit]

I've never paid much attention to these outside of some fond high school memories. Any collectors of these out there? Any sort of cult following for them?

Always kinda felt they were overshadowed by the iMac that was released shortly after.

http://apple-history.com/g3aio

 

[Andropov]

The PowerMacintosh G3 AIO is unique in one thing: is the heaviest Macintosh ever produced by Apple. That thing is a behemoth, so shipping is usually more expensive than the computer itself nowadays. 60lb, aprox. 27kg. And it's also quite big.

It was only released as an education Mac (as far as I know, I might be wrong on that one) and it was the first desktop Mac to feature translucent plastic in its design, and the last Apple AIO with an expansion (PCI) slot, an ADB port, a floppy or SCSI disk drive, an Old World ROM or a beige design. Kind of the last one of the original AIO line of Apple, the iMac was completely different to anything released before so I wouldn't consider it an evolution of previous models.

Also, it had not one but THREE PCI slots and a weird PERCH slot only used for early G3 Macintoshes, and a bigger power supply to feed those slots, up to 300W vs the 80W of the original iMac.

It wasn't on the market for a long time, and as the iMac was released and it took all the attention and the PM G3 AIO was discontinued. I don't know about anyone specifically interested in this model.

 

[Intell]

Those are neat little (big?) machines. Put a ZIF G4, 768MB of ram, and an ATI Radeon 7000 in there and you've got yourself one unique Leopard capable machine. Always wanted one, probably will never get one.

 

[Andropov]

Only Leopard capable with the appropriate drivers found in an early beta of Leopard, otherwise it won't install (not even using LeopardAssist).

 

[Intell]

Only Leopard capable with the appropriate drivers found in an early beta of Leopard, otherwise it won't install (not even using LeopardAssist).

Leopard beta drivers are not needed and not recommended for Old World Mac installations. But some custom ones and some from 10.2.8 through 10.4.11 are required. With a properly integrated Leopard disc, you can install Leopard straight from the DVD. It does take a good long few hours for it to install, but it runs fairly well.

 

[tdiaz]

I put IIgs parts into one of those, since I had gotten it without a motherboard, and that's a system that is still better off CRT based.

 

[Mr Rabbit]

Some good info, thanks!

A friend at work has one and was asking about it. They are clearing out space in their house and didn't know if they should just recycle it or if someone would want to buy it. I might offer to take it off her hands just to save her the trouble of transporting a 60lb box.

 

[Andropov]

Leopard beta drivers are not needed and not recommended for Old World Mac installations. But some custom ones and some from 10.2.8 through 10.4.11 are required. With a properly integrated Leopard disc, you can install Leopard straight from the DVD. It does take a good long few hours for it to install, but it runs fairly well.

I'd like to know how, since I have a PowerMac G4 and a PowerMac G3 and I haven't been able to make any of them to run Leopard in any way. AFAIK the only way was to use Leopard kexts from the WWDC 2006 release, which supported Leopard and some kexts from Tiger, but maybe there are other ways that I'm not aware of.

(However, I don't know why would someone want to install Leopard on a system that runs over a 66Mhz bus apart from purely academic reasons 😛).

Some good info, thanks!

A friend at work has one and was asking about it. They are clearing out space in their house and didn't know if they should just recycle it or if someone would want to buy it. I might offer to take it off her hands just to save her the trouble of transporting a 60lb box.

It would be nice if you save a nice PowerMac from the dumpster. It's a model that will become rare sooner or later, as every Mac from those years. 🙂

 

[Intell]

I'd like to know how, since I have a PowerMac G4 and a PowerMac G3 and I haven't been able to make any of them to run Leopard in any way. AFAIK the only way was to use Leopard kexts from the WWDC 2006 release, which supported Leopard and some kexts from Tiger, but maybe there are other ways that I'm not aware of.

(However, I don't know why would someone want to install Leopard on a system that runs over a 66Mhz bus apart from purely academic reasons 😛).

Leopard doesn't need any thing special to work on a PowerMac G4, expect maybe the PCI graphics one. Just put the disc in and install away once the CPU speed has been altered. It will not run on a PowerPC G3 at all. A G4 CPU is required for Leopard to work. I've had it running on my 8600's 50Mhz (overclocked to 55Mhz) bus before. Works about the same as a stock single Sawtooth for the most part.

 

[647156]

I'd like to know how, since I have a PowerMac G4 and a PowerMac G3 and I haven't been able to make any of them to run Leopard in any way. AFAIK the only way was to use Leopard kexts from the WWDC 2006 release, which supported Leopard and some kexts from Tiger, but maybe there are other ways that I'm not aware of.

These ones did it for me, plus the normal XPostFacto ones which add back support for beige Macs that was removed from 10.3 onwards, to get Leopard running on my beige G3 (with a G4 processor upgrade installed) - they may not all be needed as this was a general set for both the beige and blue/white G3, and some were from 10.4.11 and some were from Leopard betas:

AppleCuda.kext
AppleGossamerPE.kext
AppleGracklePCI.kext
AppleHeathrow.kext
CMD646ATA.kext
HeathrowATA.kext
IOGraphicsFamily.kext
AppleBMacEthernet.kext (inside IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins)

I created the Leopard installation using another machine and added the kexts there before booting it in the Mac as that seems the easiest way to do it; I actually used a copy of Leopard running in VMware on a PC that was given direct access to the hard drive taken from the Mac.

You must apply the correct permissions to the kexts or it won't work - if you keep getting "unable to find driver for this platform" when trying to boot Leopard then the kexts are not present or have the wrong permissions.

It seemed to get broken after 10.5.5 for me and after updating to 10.5.8 I found that the following files from 10.5.5 had to be reinstated to make it work again (in addition to all of the above):

/mach_kernel
/System/Library/Extensions/System.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/Seatbelt.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/IONDRVSupport.kext

 

[Intell]

It seemed to get broken after 10.5.5 for me and after updating to 10.5.8 I found that the following files from 10.5.5 had to be reinstated to make it work again (in addition to all of the above):

/mach_kernel
/System/Library/Extensions/System.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/Seatbelt.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/IONDRVSupport.kext

The brokenness is caused by the Leopard beta kexts. Thus, why they are not recommended to be used. Because you replaced the kernel with an older one, you make the system slightly unstable and a bizarre hybrid between 10.5.8 and 10.5.5.

 

[MacTech68]

Apple Australia never shipped them here. It's one machine I never saw, which makes me want to see one.

Given their weight. I'm pretty sure that will never happen.

*sigh*

 

[647156]

The brokenness is caused by the Leopard beta kexts. Thus, why they are not recommended to be used. Because you replaced the kernel with an older one, you make the system slightly unstable and a bizarre hybrid between 10.5.8 and 10.5.5.

Interesting, the only way I ever found of doing this was to use a mixture of kexts from Tiger and the Leopard beta - though looking back it seems this was recommended because the beta ones were newer and therefore presumably more likely to be compatible with Leopard. Did you add the same kexts as I did but all taken from 10.4.11 (including the ones like IOGraphicsFamily that are replacing kexts supplied with Leopard, as opposed to just adding additional ones), and were you able to update to 10.5.8 without needing to replace the additional files? That's weird if so, that Tiger kexts would work better with Leopard than pre-release Leopard ones - back when originally getting this working I was actually surprised that Tiger kexts worked at all on Leopard!

Apple Australia never shipped them here. It's one machine I never saw, which makes me want to see one.

Given their weight. I'm pretty sure that will never happen.

Yep, they're very rare here in the UK too; I think they were a US-only model, where they seem to be much more common.

 

[Andropov]

I'm not sure about it being a US-only model, I've seen a couple of theme here (Spain). But it was an education-only market, so maybe it was way more common in the US than in other places where Mac OS was less extended.

 

[Intell]

Interesting, the only way I ever found of doing this was to use a mixture of kexts from Tiger and the Leopard beta - though looking back it seems this was recommended because the beta ones were newer and therefore presumably more likely to be compatible with Leopard. Did you add the same kexts as I did but all taken from 10.4.11 (including the ones like IOGraphicsFamily that are replacing kexts supplied with Leopard, as opposed to just adding additional ones), and were you able to update to 10.5.8 without needing to replace the additional files? That's weird if so, that Tiger kexts would work better with Leopard than pre-release Leopard ones - back when originally getting this working I was actually surprised that Tiger kexts worked at all on Leopard!

I honestly don't remember. I set up that system long ago and haven't had to change it since. Still works well.

 

[ColdCase]

I have one left over from my Daughter's college days, purchased at the UNH college computer store. Heavy is an understatement 🙂 Also pretty big. This high end model has the video capture card and AVID editing software, which adds another lb.

Last I turned it on 6 months ago, it still worked fine, for what it is. The AIO is not currently a collector item, hard to give them away.

 

[tevion5]

Leopard doesn't need any thing special to work on a PowerMac G4, expect maybe the PCI graphics one. Just put the disc in and install away once the CPU speed has been altered. It will not run on a PowerPC G3 at all. A G4 CPU is required for Leopard to work. I've had it running on my 8600's 50Mhz (overclocked to 55Mhz) bus before. Works about the same as a stock single Sawtooth for the most part.

I've got an 8600 myself. I assume you have a G4 upgrade card on that thing to run Leopard yeah?

Also something I always wanted to know, was if you put a G3 or even G4 upgrade card in an 8600, can I still make it run Mac OS9 or would I have to use OSX (especially with the G4)?

 

[Intell]

I've got an 8600 myself. I assume you have a G4 upgrade card on that thing to run Leopard yeah?

Also something I always wanted to know, was if you put a G3 or even G4 upgrade card in an 8600, can I still make it run Mac OS9 or would I have to use OSX (especially with the G4)?

Yes, mine has a G4 in it. Yes, you can still run OS 9 without a problem. OS 7 and 8 will fuss a bit and need to be modified for it to run, but it will though without the cache being enabled.

 

[Theclamshell]

I brought one of these from the trash once, back in 08 I believe. Brought it back after being too intimidated by it to do anything to it. (Hey, I was 13). Now I wish I would have stashed it away somewhere.

 

[AmestrisXServe]

My personal favourite all-in-one systems are the SE, SE/30, Colour Classic II, and Mac TV (as it is the Darth Vader Mac).

All of these had very slick designs, and the SE and SE/30 were my daily workhorses for many years. The Colour Classic II would have been better if Apple used an 040, or a faster (50Mhz) 030 option, but Apple never used the fast 030 chips, although it was possible to better it via the from the PDA socket. Did I have anything in there? I don't remember; but possible a //e card, and possibly a Presto card, later on. (I never cared for the curved face though, and would have loved an SE/30 with a colour CRT.)

I recall having something in the expansion slot on my SE and SE/30, but for the life of me, I don't recall what I had in each. It may have been an external video card in the SE.

What OS are you going to use on your G3?

 

[tevion5]

Yes, mine has a G4 in it. Yes, you can still run OS 9 without a problem. OS 7 and 8 will fuss a bit and need to be modified for it to run, but it will though without the cache being enabled.

Nice! Any ram requirements for the G4 card? I might pick one up for my 8600 because I imagine os 9 performance would be astronomical!

 

[Intell]

Nice! Any ram requirements for the G4 card? I might pick one up for my 8600 because I imagine OS 9 performance would be astronomical!

None that I know of. There are a few 400Mhz ones on eBay. I think there's a 800Mhz one as well for ~$120. They don't really reach their full potential because of the 8600's slow 50Mhz bus. On some of the cards you can overclock the bus a bit to be 55Mhz. Not much gain, but still better than 50Mhz.

 

[zea mays]

Not much market for them. I sent mine back to Apple to recycle about a year ago. I loved that thing, though! I sold it to my parents to buy a tangerine iBook when they first came out. I loved that iBook, too! That one I still have!