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The what I did with my classic today thread™

Man, this thread has me wanting to buy another classic Mac! The closest thing I've had to a classic Mac was my old PowerBook G3 "Lombard" 333. I sold it a while back, though. I'd really like to get an old desktop like a Quadra or a pre-G3 Power Mac, but I don't have the room for one. I think I may end up just buying another old PowerBook, since they don't take up much space. I'd like to get one that'll support wireless networking. I'd like to give System 7 a try. I've used OS 8.6 and 9, but I don't think I've tried 7.

What PowerBook do you guys recommend? I'd like one that's capable of running System 7, preferably PowerPC, and it must be capable of wireless networking. What wireless card do you recommend for an older PowerBook? I had a Sonnet Aria Extreme in my Lombard, but it wasn't compatible with anything below OS X, as far as I know.
 
Every PowerPC PowerBook ever made is compatible with the Lucent WaveLAN / Proxim Orinoco 802.11b cards, which were 16-bit PCMCIA cards, and also happened to be what the original Airport was based on. You can find those all over the place for practically nothing.

The fastest PowerPC PowerBook that can run System 7 is the 3400c/240. The 1400 series can be upgraded with G3 processors (and G3 upgrades will still run fine under System 7) as can the 2400 PowerBooks.

Stay away from the 5300 and Duo 2300.
 
dpaanlka said:
Every PowerPC PowerBook ever made is compatible with the Lucent WaveLAN / Proxim Orinoco 802.11b cards, which were 16-bit PCMCIA cards, and also happened to be what the original Airport was based on. You can find those all over the place for practically nothing.

The fastest PowerPC PowerBook that can run System 7 is the 3400c/240. The 1400 series can be upgraded with G3 processors (and G3 upgrades will still run fine under System 7) as can the 2400 PowerBooks.

Stay away from the 5300 and Duo 2300.
Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks for the reply! I will most likely be getting one of these older PowerBooks within a month or two. Like someone else mentioned, I think it would be cool carrying around a classic Mac and using wireless internet and everything with it. There's just something really appealing to me about that.

Oh yeah, one more question - How hard is it to get wireless working with one of these cards in System 7?
 
My collection

I have a collection of macs, always on and used by various members of my house for various reasons.

imac- My mom has a Powerbook G4 for a laptop, but in her room she has a G3 bondi imac. She uses it to connect to our music server and use the internet and e-mail. (she keeps her powerbook off the internet the majority of the time to keep her self ontrack)

graphite clamshell- After my mbp was stolen and because im awaiting the announcement of new mbps this is my primary computer. Unlike my other laptops this 99' piece of machinery gets a distant wireless signal anywhere in my highschool, i havent been able to connect with before. Unfortunately the sound is broken, though both the speaker port, (i think a 20$ part fixes it) i use a imic when watching dvds or downloaded content.

power macintosh 6500-My home desktop, Used for playing in OS 9 and showing off the amazing internal speaker. I think the thing has a built in subwoofer its sickk.

powerbook g3 pismo-sisters laptop, has the occasional wireless card when she steals it from the clamshell, otherwise its her desktop.

I love my classic macs, and they're a blast to upgrade.
 
Have an opportunity to grab the following Macs:

1) IIcx, 14" monitor, keyboard and mouse
2) Macintosh II, keyboard and mouse
3) PPC 7100, keyboard and mouse
4) Beige G3, keyboard and mouse
5) unknown PC, unknown monitors (2), various boxes of old
networking technology and hardware
6) G3/600 iMac, White, CD-ROM, 192MB RAM

We closed an office down recently and found these units in the storage room collecting dust. I put into service at our home office:

1) 2 G3/500 imacs, DVD-ROM, 128MB RAM
2) G4/450, w/NEC 19" monitor, 80GB HD, 512MB RAM, DVD-ROM, Built-in
100MB ZIP
3) LaCie Firewire CD burner
4) 2004 DELL Dimension 4600, w/intergrated video, 80GB HD, 512MB RAM,
17" Flat screen, XP Pro
5) 100MB Ext USB ZIP

The hardest part about the whole process was the DELL, networking on a PC is not like an Mac. Had to call our 'PC guy' to set it up. Something about the firewall was blocking the network and got it on the network. The Macs our running various versions of OS 9, no X on any of them. But right now our company is so busy we can't make another trip for a couple of weeks. The old stuff is cool, brings back memories if you know what I mean.
 
here is my friends 6500

http://chasergame.org/psilocybindreams.com//mymac/

a few weeks ago we put OS X 10.2.8 on it and seems to be running great minus the G3 500mhz cpu working cause of lack of drivers for the l2 cache card in OS X. it took a long time installing but it all panned out and OS X runs great besides the finder lagging some times. but it has yet to crash

the screen shot on that site above is OS 9.2.2 useing a theme that he custom made.

there is also a few more pic's of it here and what he has done with it

http://www.applefritter.com/node/18510
 
I finally found a legit copy of BeOS 5 professional and if I can ever get my mother to ship my 9600/350 to me, like she said she would do months ago, I plan to install it. I love that operating system. I used to use 4.5 frequently with my Dell Inspiron years ago.
 
aquajet said:
I finally found a legit copy of BeOS 5 professional and if I can ever get my mother to ship my 9600/350 to me, like she said she would do months ago, I plan to install it. I love that operating system. I used to use 4.5 frequently with my Dell Inspiron years ago.
Click to expand...

Oh! Oh! Give!
 
Hmm...I have had many Macs, but most of them are gone now...:(...I actually threw some of them away, and sold the rest for $20...

I currently have:

•PB G4 12', 1.3Ghz
•PB G3 Lombard
•PB 190cs (broken Power supply)
•PowerMac G3 (beige, used daily)
•Mac Classic II (In my closet, works well)
•PowerMac 6500 (In garage, works well)

Macs I have had:

•Newton 120
•LC 540
•PowerMac 6100
•Quadra 605
•Mac IIsi
•Mac IIci
•Mac IIfx
•Mac //gs
•Apple //e
•Mac Classic
•Apple //c+
•Strawberry iMac
•PowerMac 5100 (stupid ****ing grandma threw it away)
 
powermac g3 (blue and white). i don't use it for much besides browsing the internet since my athlon64 is much faster at everything else.
 
My old genaric Windows 98 finally gave out, so now I'm using my Rev. A bondi blue iMac and my laptop to do everything.(Mostly using iMac) Well actually, Mac Rumors is one of the few things it can do with only OS 8.6 and 32 megs of RAM...
 
i just picked up a power macintosh 6400/200. why? i don't know...
 
jhu said:
i just picked up a power macintosh 6400/200. why? i don't know...
Click to expand...


So you can play songs with bangin' bass and kill the hard-drive with the built in subwoofer in no time at all :p
 
dpaanlka said:
Those are fun!
Click to expand...

if by "fun", you mean "good for those who are masochistic" then yes they are!

Cassie said:
Yes, Powermacs are nearly irresistable, aren't they? ;)
Click to expand...

i suppose. it was $20 for the computer, 15" monitor, keyboard and mouse. who wouldn't say no? unfortunately, my attempts to put netbsd on this thing are thwarted by the fact that the on-board video does not work correctly with open firmware. grrrr...

so the question is: will the ati rage 128 video card from a blue and white g3 work in a powermac 6400? if so, then i can get a radeon 7000 for my blue and white and recycle the rage 128. if not, well, this computer goes back on craigslist
 
turns out it does work. now off to get a radeon for the other computer...
 
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