The Beige Power Mac G3 isn't obsolete!

[mectojic]

Apple has a very comprehensive list of all their vintage and obsolete products:

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support

Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.

support.apple.com

They do seem to try and cover every possible model. But on close inspection, there are some missing. I spotted the Power Macintosh G3 (1st generation – i.e. beige) and the iMac DV+ are missing.

Anyone spot others? Could we potentially bring one into an Apple store with repair requests?

 

[ojfd]

Beige G3 was such 'neither fish nor fowl', so they're probably ashamed of it

 

[za9ra22]

Beige G3 was such 'neither fish nor fowl', so they're probably ashamed of it

I'll happily accept donations of any beige G3s the owners are ashamed of!

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Shh... you're giving them ideas!

 

[JustAnExpat]

I forgot, was the Powermac G3 AIO released before Steve Jobs or after Steve Jobs? It looked like a very rough beta of a iMac.

 

[ojfd]

Before Jobs.

IMO, it was a joke compared to PM9600 - move from SCSI to slow IDE, just 3 PCI slots, barely faster than 604e processors, (if at all), backwards software compatibility and and and..
If you wanted to connect any kind of peripherial that was common at a time - HD drive, scanner, ZIP, MO, you were forced to buy an extra SCSI card, which then took away one PCI slot.

 

[za9ra22]

Actually, the beige G3 was a real workhorse. We had a dozen or so of them at the Uni where I managed Mac systems, and these were the go to machines in our design studios for a variety of work, including hi-res photoshop, graphics and CAD/CAM.

They were a lot faster than 604e systems, benchmarks would be about 30% advantage, and even lowendmac point out that the EIDE HD in these were similar or better performance than SCSI drives at the time. It also has SCSI on board, with a port for external devices as needed.

The desktop and tower (released November 1997, I think) and AIO (released April 1998?) were after the return of Steve Jobs.

The only complaint I have about these systems is the plastics. Every time I open my 266, another part breaks off. But given they're readily speed-bumped, a beige G3 is a very credible classic MacOS system. Not sure they're that great on OSX, but honestly, if I was looking for performance, it wouldn't be a near-30 year-old computer I'd be expecting to provide it. And I'd say that 3 PCI slots, and personality card options would cover all the probable expansion needs of the day.

Pass them all along - I'll happily rehome a few strays.

 

[ojfd]

XLR8YOURMAC.COM's G3 Compatibility Page

If you're nostalgic about those G3s, so be it. I am not.
As to the 3 PCI slots being sufficient, you're probably not familiar with audio world. 5 free PCI slots in 9500/9600 were barely enough to run expanded ProTools systems without going expensive, external PCI Expansion Chassis route.

 

[za9ra22]

There's a difference between opinion and factual inaccuracies which isn't about nostalgia. And sure, some use cases may need more of one or another hardware capability, but that's much the same as anything else, so sensibly you buy what suits your needs.

But yeah, long time audio and acoustics engineer, I am a bit familiar with the world of audio. It doesn't prevent me appreciating competent computer engineering though.

 

[mectojic]

Before Jobs.

IMO, it was a joke compared to PM9600 - move from SCSI to slow IDE, just 3 PCI slots, barely faster than 604e processors, (if at all), backwards software compatibility and and and..
If you wanted to connect any kind of peripherial that was common at a time - HD drive, scanner, ZIP, MO, you were forced to buy an extra SCSI card, which then took away one PCI slot.

No, the G3 came after Jobs returned.
it was Jobs' idea to call it "G3". The product naming before sucked, and he came in and fixed.

 

[ojfd]

No, the G3 came after Jobs returned.

Ok, my mistake. I always associated Jobs' return with Ive's designs, but one can't remember everything. It was such long time ago.

 

[bunnspecial]

ove from SCSI to slow IDE, just 3 PCI slots, barely faster than 604e processors, (if at all), backwards software compatibility and and and..
If you wanted to connect any kind of peripherial that was common at a time - HD drive, scanner, ZIP, MO, you were forced to buy an extra SCSI card, which then took away one PCI slot.

Ummm....the beige G3 did have a SCSI bus with both an internal 50 pin header for a ribbon cable and an external DB-25 connector. I can assure you that I have in fact run scanners and other devices off the external port.

Yes, the default configuration did not make use of the internal SCSI, but it very much was there and I have also run drives off of it.

It could be optioned with a 68 pin UW SCSI card(or the server config came standard with this and a couple of 10K hard drives) but it was by no means a necessity.

I often find myself wishing for one more PCI slot, as in a typical modern config I'll have a better GPU(preferably Radeon 9200), a USB/FW card, and then a bootable IDE card to get around some of the hiccups of the factory IDE bus(OS X in the first partition max 8gb, 128gb maximum drive size). I'd love to throw at least a 10/100 card if not a GigE card in there too, as 10baseT is awfully slow even for those systems.

The typical shipping drive I've seen in a Beige G3 was a 4gb WD Caviar. I forget who usually made the drives in the 8600/9600, but 2gb was a typical size. I've also not speed tested them, but I'd be really curious to see how a WD Caviar on an ATA/66 bus stacks up against 50 pin SCSI like the 9600. I suspect that they're at least equal, and if you fit the best drives you can get in their respective systems even on the installed bus, I'd expect an IDE drive to hold a big edge.

The 604e was a really interesting CPU, but at the end of the day it was a dead end(not unlike the G5) and not that much really even took advantage of it. Moving forward with a more advanced 603 really was the right move in the end.

 

[ojfd]

Ummm....the beige G3 did have a SCSI bus with both an internal 50 pin header for a ribbon cable and an external DB-25 connector. I can assure you that I have in fact run scanners and other devices off the external port.

You are, of course, right. Being an old fart, I've mixed it up with later G3s.

Anyway, if one worked at some organization, that bought those machines en masse directly from Apple because it had contract with them or was moving up from NuBus machines, that's all one got and that's ok. They were/are Macintosh'es and quite capable.
But they were very unloved models in my circles, especially among freelancers, both audio and DTP.
People were heavily invested into SCSI, both internal (drives, burners, ZIP, MO) and external and then suddenly IDE. In the past, Apple laughed at PCs with their IDE drives and now this. WTF! Yes, G3s had SCSI, but only slow one, 5MB/s, compared to 10MB/s on previous models. Also, IIRC, with IDE, data transfers were overlooked by processor, whereas SCSI drives worked "on their own", not to mention that with SCSI one could have up to 6 drives on the single bus, compared to only 2 with IDE.

 

[GMShadow]

You are, of course, right. Being an old fart, I've mixed it up with later G3s.

Anyway, if one worked at some organization, that bought those machines en masse directly from Apple because it had contract with them or was moving up from NuBus machines, that's all one got and that's ok. They were/are Macintosh'es and quite capable.
But they were very unloved models in my circles, especially among freelancers, both audio and DTP.
People were heavily invested into SCSI, both internal (drives, burners, ZIP, MO) and external and then suddenly IDE. In the past, Apple laughed at PCs with their IDE drives and now this. WTF! Yes, G3s had SCSI, but only slow one, 5MB/s, compared to 10MB/s on previous models. Also, IIRC, with IDE, data transfers were overlooked by processor, whereas SCSI drives worked "on their own", not to mention that with SCSI one could have up to 6 drives on the single bus, compared to only 2 with IDE.

Very few Macs actually used the full 10MB/s though. Apple had also been using IDE longer than that, and really they were just reading the writing on the wall.

And yeah, as has been said, the G3 just kicked the pants of the 604 for less money, and was possibly the most successful and longest lived PPC design ever, given that it saw consumer use until 2017 and still sees use today in radiation hardened projects.

 

[ojfd]

Very few Macs actually used the full 10MB/s though.

I had Seagate Barracudas that were very close to that number on my machines. But I also switched to UW and Adaptec cards at first opportunity and didn't look back.

Apple had also been using IDE longer than that, and really they were just reading the writing on the wall.

Yes, in mid-range machines. Performas and similar. Apple was just cutting corners.

And yeah, as has been said, the G3 just kicked the pants of the 604 for less money..

Less money - quite possible. As to the "kicking the pants", I have Norton 'System Info' System Ratings open on my PB G4 right now. G3/233 scores 641 vs. 460 for 9600/200 in CPU ratings and 548 vs. 495 in FPU ratings. That's only about 1/3 better, I wouldn't call it "kicking the pants". Also, worth remembering that G3/233/266 were effectively replacing the faster model - PM9600/350; for which, unfortunately, Norton has no data.

... and was possibly the most successful and longest lived PPC design ever, given that it saw consumer use until 2017 and still sees use today in radiation hardened projects.

Where does that 2017 number come from? A far as I know, people use G3 machines even today. And what are those "radiation hardened projects" that still rely on Macs, especially PPC based? Mission critical?
The radiation related stuff that I'm somewhat familiar with (Ortec, Canberra) runs on Win only.

 

[GMShadow]

I had Seagate Barracudas that were very close to that number on my machines. But I also switched to UW and Adaptec cards at first opportunity and didn't look back.

Yes, in mid-range machines. Performas and similar. Apple was just cutting corners.

Less money - quite possible. As to the "kicking the pants", I have Norton 'System Info' System Ratings open on my PB G4 right now. G3/233 scores 641 vs. 460 for 9600/200 in CPU ratings and 548 vs. 495 in FPU ratings. That's only about 1/3 better, I wouldn't call it "kicking the pants". Also, worth remembering that G3/233/266 were effectively replacing the faster model - PM9600/350; for which, unfortunately, Norton has no data.

Where does that 2017 number come from? A far as I know, people use G3 machines even today. And what are those "radiation hardened projects" that still rely on Macs, especially PPC based? Mission critical?
The radiation related stuff that I'm somewhat familiar with (Ortec, Canberra) runs on Win only.

The G3/750 wasn't just used by Apple - Nintendo used it for three successive generations of game consoles, and the RAD750 has seen extensive use in spaceflight applications.

Boeing's 787 also uses Honeywell flight control systems driven by the 750FX.

 

[ojfd]

What does all this have to do with Beige G3?