Saving an iMac g3

[Christine1234]

I picked up a grape iMac G3 at a yard sale today. When it starts up it goes to an OS X installer. Each step takes a long time, and I don't have the OS X disks. What should I do? I have OS 8.1 on a disc, but that might be a little too old for this computer. TIA.

Edited to add: After it had been on an hour or so, it was quite warm, especially near the carrying handle on top.

 

[chrismacguy]

I picked up a grape iMac G3 at a yard sale today. When it starts up it goes to an OS X installer. Each step takes a long time, and I don't have the OS X disks. What should I do? I have OS 8.1 on a disc, but that might be a little too old for this computer. TIA.

Edited to add: After it had been on an hour or so, it was quite warm, especially near the carrying handle on top.

I'd check how much RAM the system has. While the OS X installer will boot on even 32MB RAM (10.0) or 64MB RAM (10.3), it will take it a long time to install. The system version you want for your iMac G3 is 9.0.4/9.1/9.2 or any version of Mac OS X. I would recommend trying to find a copy of either Mac OS 9.1/9.2 or OS X 10.1 or so on eBay so you can at least try and boot it to Mac OS X to see what the actual full specification of the hardware is. (These disks tend to go for about $5-$10). RAM for these systems is also really cheap (Think $5 for 256MB), and with 512MB RAM in them they are very nice computers.

As far as the heat goes dont worry about it, after an hour or so my iMac G3/500 heats up quite a lot, but thats mainly because the CRT display produces a lot of heat and the handle is part of the case ventilation system.

 

[Christine1234]

That sounds great! The computer has 64 MB, and I just returned from picking up 10.3 Panther install disks that somebody had and didn't want. I plan to use this machine to learn how to install an OS and RAM and do other things that I've never done before. At least, that's how I'm justifying bringing home a third Mac. ($10 yard sale find + free OS + learning how to do this sort of stuff = an excuse to get another Mac.)

Will the Panther work OK on it, or would it be better to just stash that away and look for OS 9? Where's a good place to find more RAM? It's an iMacDV 400. I'm glad to hear the heat is not a problem.

Edited to add: The three Panther disks are the black ones, not the gray ones. They came in the original box with the books and a disk of Mac OS X code tools.

 

[MAC MAN JW]

That sounds great! The computer has 64 MB, and I just returned from picking up 10.3 Panther install disks that somebody had and didn't want. I plan to use this machine to learn how to install an OS and RAM and do other things that I've never done before. At least, that's how I'm justifying bringing home a third Mac. ($10 yard sale find + free OS + learning how to do this sort of stuff = an excuse to get another Mac.)

Will the Panther work OK on it, or would it be better to just stash that away and look for OS 9? Where's a good place to find more RAM? It's an iMacDV 400. I'm glad to hear the heat is not a problem.

Edited to add: The three Panther disks are the black ones, not the gray ones. They came in the original box with the books and a disk of Mac OS X code tools.

I know this post is a bit old but i just wanted to tell you to remember to update your imacs firmware (if not allready done) if you are installing OS X 10.2+ you need to do this or your screen will not work. the update has to be done in mac os 9.