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Can a G3 Mac Be Used As a Daily Driver in 2014

  • Yes!

    Votes: 37 62.7%
  • No!

    Votes: 22 37.3%

  • Total voters
    59
Both look good but to me the translucent ones look better. Only one reason, the see through lid that reminds me of an eMac's front panel.

I did have an iBook G4 before. Awesome machine. Very last 14" 1.42GHz.

I prefer the later G3s as they are sharp looking machines while still having the translucent keyboard.
 
LOL!

SMH. All three of those iBooks were my mom's daily use G3s at one point. Beaumont Unified School District. She used them for yearbook, getting junior high yearbooks out year after year under OS X 10.1 or less. :)

Allright, would you like to "hear" something awesome??? The answer to that question can only be "yes, of course. Anyway, my brother-in-law gave me this iBook G3 and I thought that this would be my last PPC Mac that I would actually ever want to use again. Well....yesterday I was shown something beautiful.

iMac G3, 400MHz , 384MB RAM, 10GB HDD, Slot-loading ODD, dual USB, dual FW, ethernet, nice light blue/teal(I think) color in PERFECT condition.

My aunt was a teacher in the Texas school system and they used Macs. So she got this new iMac, used it for a few months for grades, put a cover over it every night and it seriously runs AMAZINGLY well. It has the original power cable, keyboard, and mouse as well (the awesome circular single click one). She was laughing at me at the way I was acting once I saw it on a shelf in her office. I plugged it in and everything "just worked." Awesome.

Ok, I have to go now because drool is about to drip onto my iBook!
 
Depends on the condition. Most of the time, you'd want to upgrade it a bit to use it. You'd want to get an 80GB harddrive here, then max the ram from here. If any of the plastic pieces are missing or broken, you can purchase them here.

Its amazing that there is some one out there manufacturing replacement parts for 14 year old laptops!
 
I recently used an 800Mhz iBook G4 12-inch for a 6-week college course. Of course, it ran very general things that I needed, so it wasn't testing a whole lot, but I did everything that I had to with it. (taking pages upon pages of notes on its comfortable keyboard, connecting to the class web page and other browsing, using email, etc. I even had to do a PowerPoint presentation on it and brought my attachment to hook it up to the class' projector. Occasionally I used my desktop/s at home, which are still over 8 years old each, but the iBook G4 was fine... funny thing though, it was slower than I remembered. It has a 150GB HD in it. Maybe that is heating it up a little bit too much. Then again, the thing must have a faster read/write rate since it's a newer HD. IDK, but I remembered it being faster. I guess everything felt laggy because I was using (stupid) MS Office 2008 on it when I should have used 2004. In fact, I would have used Pages if I didn't have too new of a version for it to handle. A girl in my class eyed my iBook and asked "How old is that MacBook?". I said, "It's not a MacBook, it's an iBook". *confused face*, "Wha-??". She asked me what year it was from, and I said it was from 2003. You should have seen the look on her face when I said that! xD It looked like her eyes would pop out of her sockets. Typical of other kids in general to think 2003 is an ancient year and not appreciate the great thing that is an iBook. She ended up mumbling "...looks like *****", to which I was angered at.
 
I recently used an 800Mhz iBook G4 12-inch for a 6-week college course. Of course, it ran very general things that I needed, so it wasn't testing a whole lot, but I did everything that I had to with it. (taking pages upon pages of notes on its comfortable keyboard, connecting to the class web page and other browsing, using email, etc. I even had to do a PowerPoint presentation on it and brought my attachment to hook it up to the class' projector. Occasionally I used my desktop/s at home, which are still over 8 years old each, but the iBook G4 was fine... funny thing though, it was slower than I remembered. It has a 150GB HD in it. Maybe that is heating it up a little bit too much. Then again, the thing must have a faster read/write rate since it's a newer HD. IDK, but I remembered it being faster. I guess everything felt laggy because I was using (stupid) MS Office 2008 on it when I should have used 2004. In fact, I would have used Pages if I didn't have too new of a version for it to handle. A girl in my class eyed my iBook and asked "How old is that MacBook?". I said, "It's not a MacBook, it's an iBook". *confused face*, "Wha-??". She asked me what year it was from, and I said it was from 2003. You should have seen the look on her face when I said that! xD It looked like her eyes would pop out of her sockets. Typical of other kids in general to think 2003 is an ancient year and not appreciate the great thing that is an iBook. She ended up mumbling "...looks like *****", to which I was angered at.

How dare she insult her machine... She is either a PC user or a high end MacBook Pro/Air user. Either way it was rude and I would of said something back! :mad:

iWork '09 works under Leopard (10.5.6+) and Tiger (10.4.11) if you wanted to try it. You must use a disk and not copy a Mac App Store version from another Mac as that is incompatible. The full system requirements are here.
 
Guys, you'll notice that the insult was only after being told what the Mac was. She was interested to know until told that.

The circles she walks in are those of priviledge where anything less than a year old is trash. People like that aren't worth the time of day because you don't matter to them unless you're one of them. Most likely the question was not being asked because she was serious, but more from the aspect of "what is that, so that I can make myself look good among my peers by getting one (if it's better than what they have)".

This is the same kind of person that Altemose encountered that sparked this thread.

For the rest of the average people out there the Macs that we have are cool and being able to keep them relevant is a feather in all of our caps.

Don't let one person's opinion from a group who's self-worth is determined only by the value of the items they own get to you.
 
Guys, you'll notice that the insult was only after being told what the Mac was. She was interested to know until told that.

The circles she walks in are those of priviledge where anything less than a year old is trash. People like that aren't worth the time of day because you don't matter to them unless you're one of them. Most likely the question was not being asked because she was serious, but more from the aspect of "what is that, so that I can make myself look good among my peers by getting one (if it's better than what they have)".

This is the same kind of person that Altemose encountered that sparked this thread.

For the rest of the average people out there the Macs that we have are cool and being able to keep them relevant is a feather in all of our caps.

Don't let one person's opinion from a group who's self-worth is determined only by the value of the items they own get to you.

My VCR is trash to some but very valuable to me. I agree, there are going to be schmucks who will put your things down and uptalk theirs. It is a way of life for some.
 
Great project, OP!

If you are eventually installing OS 9 somewhen, I would be interested in a report on how playable "Eight Legged Freaks" (free on macintoshgarden) is on the highest clocked G3 there is (aside the 1GHz G3 Sonnet Upgrade Card for the B&W G3), with its ATI 7500.

I tested it in classic mode on my ibook G4 1,33GHz (ATI 9550) and when you move the mouse (turn the players head/direction) it was a bit like you jump between two frames.
On a 1,2GHz PowerMac G4 (Sonnet Upgrade) with ATI 9200 (flashed AGP or Nvidia MX2) in OS 9 itself, it was better, but still slightly wobbly.
The 7500 should behave similar to a 9000 or 9200 and maybe a 8500, but maybe there is a difference somehow.

I'd like to get this 900MHz G3 model myself one day as a OS 9 gaming machine. Maybe converted to a box, if the Display is bad.
 
My brother has the original Snow iBook G3, 500 MHz with a CD drive and airport (which he didn't know was coming with it). The only things that would keep it from being used more is the fact that the airport card doesn't work with my router no matter what, and I would want to upgrade the CD drive to at least of combo drive. Other than that, it has no GPU issues at all, it hardly gets warm, and it's pretty snappy although it's only 500 MHz.
 
My VCR is trash to some but very valuable to me. I agree, there are going to be schmucks who will put your things down and uptalk theirs. It is a way of life for some.

There are opposite examples as well. I spend many of my days around people who value recycling and sustainable things (design school FTW). We were once sitting in our workspace, briefly discussing computers and one person literally told me "it's amazing that you're still using a laptop that old – I genuinely respect you for that." That was about my Early 2008 MacBook Pro but people have generally been very curious and positive toward my 12" PowerBook as well.
 
There are opposite examples as well. I spend many of my days around people who value recycling and sustainable things (design school FTW). We were once sitting in our workspace, briefly discussing computers and one person literally told me "it's amazing that you're still using a laptop that old – I genuinely respect you for that." That was about my Early 2008 MacBook Pro but people have generally been very curious and positive toward my 12" PowerBook as well.
I'm sixth generation Swedish (family moved to South Dakota six generations ago from Sweden) so I totally get this mindset.

If America could adopt Scandinavia's recycling attitude we'd be much better off when it comes to waste around here.
 
How dare she insult her machine... She is either a PC user or a high end MacBook Pro/Air user. Either way it was rude and I would of said something back! :mad:

iWork '09 works under Leopard (10.5.6+) and Tiger (10.4.11) if you wanted to try it. You must use a disk and not copy a Mac App Store version from another Mac as that is incompatible. The full system requirements are here.

One of my finest moments was sitting my Late 2001 600Mhz iBook G3 (with only 640 MB of ram) down next to a group of friends in class. Not to mention, they both had their brand new 2013 Retina Macbook Pros out. The look of shock on one of my friends faces put a smile on mine, and the demonstration of PowerPC usability in this age motivated another one of my friends to get an iBook G4 for himself.

Not to mention, my hinges are stronger than everyone's :cool:
 
One of my finest moments was sitting my Late 2001 600Mhz iBook G3 (with only 640 MB of ram) down next to a group of friends in class. Not to mention, they both had their brand new 2013 Retina Macbook Pros out. The look of shock on one of my friends faces put a smile on mine, and the demonstration of PowerPC usability in this age motivated another one of my friends to get an iBook G4 for himself.

Not to mention, my hinges are stronger than everyone's :cool:
My 17"s still get looks at Starbucks, hehehe. Particularly when I pull BOTH of them out of the bag. :D
 
My brother has the original Snow iBook G3, 500 MHz with a CD drive and airport (which he didn't know was coming with it). The only things that would keep it from being used more is the fact that the airport card doesn't work with my router no matter what, and I would want to upgrade the CD drive to at least of combo drive. Other than that, it has no GPU issues at all, it hardly gets warm, and it's pretty snappy although it's only 500 MHz.

Original Airport cards only support up to WPA, not WPA2 and no AES encryption. It doesn't always work but you may try not using AES encryption on a router, it's something that has allowed me to connect to them in the past. You're right though, these computers are great heat wise, I used to use my iBook just on my lap to write papers for hours without having my privates melt - something I couldn't try with my MacBook Pro.
 
There are opposite examples as well. I spend many of my days around people who value recycling and sustainable things (design school FTW). We were once sitting in our workspace, briefly discussing computers and one person literally told me "it's amazing that you're still using a laptop that old – I genuinely respect you for that." That was about my Early 2008 MacBook Pro but people have generally been very curious and positive toward my 12" PowerBook as well.

I did try pulling out a BlackBook I got recently and it was quite a shocker for some...

One of my finest moments was sitting my Late 2001 600Mhz iBook G3 (with only 640 MB of ram) down next to a group of friends in class. Not to mention, they both had their brand new 2013 Retina Macbook Pros out. The look of shock on one of my friends faces put a smile on mine, and the demonstration of PowerPC usability in this age motivated another one of my friends to get an iBook G4 for himself.

Not to mention, my hinges are stronger than everyone's :cool:

As much as I like the MacBook Pro and rMBP, I do enjoy seeing the older white MacBooks and iBooks!

My 17"s still get looks at Starbucks, hehehe. Particularly when I pull BOTH of them out of the bag. :D

Why not just bring your iMac G5 to Starbucks? I have seen someone bring a full PC setup including CRT, mid tower, printer, keyboard, mouse, power strip, and external hard drives to Panera!
 
Why not just bring your iMac G5 to Starbucks? I have seen someone bring a full PC setup including CRT, mid tower, printer, keyboard, mouse, power strip, and external hard drives to Panera!
LOL, because that would make me one of those people everyone gets annoyed with. :D

Not to mention trying to fit the G5, my daughter's iBook and my son's TiBook in the same space. :)
 
LOL, because that would make me one of those people everyone gets annoyed with. :D

Not to mention trying to fit the G5, my daughter's iBook and my son's TiBook in the same space. :)

Then again, I think you said you have a Civic. That may be a little cramped in the back unless you fit it all in the trunk. Imagine bringing a 27" iMac to Panera, or even a Mac Pro and dual Thunderbolt Displays.
 
Then again, I think you said you have a Civic. That may be a little cramped in the back unless you fit it all in the trunk. Imagine bringing a 27" iMac to Panera, or even a Mac Pro and dual Thunderbolt Displays.
Nope, an Accord. :D

It'd fit, I'd just rather not be getting THAT kind of look, hehehe. :D
 
Then again, I think you said you have a Civic. That may be a little cramped in the back unless you fit it all in the trunk. Imagine bringing a 27" iMac to Panera, or even a Mac Pro and dual Thunderbolt Displays.

That would take me two trips with my Miata.
 
I'd like to get this 900MHz G3 model myself one day as a OS 9 gaming machine. Maybe converted to a box, if the Display is bad.
A note to what I said there:
I was offered a 900MHz model with only 256MB RAM a 40GB HDD with Airport and combo drive for 45,-EUR (about 60USD?) including shipping, has "Normal use including scratches and scuffs". I am hestitant on saying yes. One reason is I always think, I might get one with a defective screen one day and make a box with external display out of it...
 
One of my finest moments was sitting my Late 2001 600Mhz iBook G3 (with only 640 MB of ram) down next to a group of friends in class. Not to mention, they both had their brand new 2013 Retina Macbook Pros out. The look of shock on one of my friends faces put a smile on mine, and the demonstration of PowerPC usability in this age motivated another one of my friends to get an iBook G4 for himself.

Not to mention, my hinges are stronger than everyone's :cool:

Speaking of strong hinges.. my PB hinges have seemingly randomly tightened by themselves. When you press the latch they 'jump' up as if eager to see me again..
Closing it also seems to need more pressure. Weird.
 
Speaking of strong hinges.. my PB hinges have seemingly randomly tightened by themselves. When you press the latch they 'jump' up as if eager to see me again..
Closing it also seems to need more pressure. Weird.

If there is one thing that is a testament to Apple's outstanding build quality, it's its backwards-aging hinges.
 
I'll just say here (as I have a few times) that the hinges on my old TiBook/400 are pretty near indestructable.

The case on that TiBook broke around the hinges. Not one single problem with those hinges, and guess what? My son's TiBook DVI 1.0Ghz needed an LCD when I bought it for him. Those hinges got transplanted with the LCD and are still going strong.

The LCD itself is a testament to Apple design because that LCD is 13 years old and still being used.

In a sense, that old TiBook of mine continues to live.
 
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