Will iMac g3 64mb memory work with os x cheetah?

[JCLrox]

I'm thinking of purchasing an old iMac g3. I plan on getting one with os 9 and then upgrading to os x 10.0 (better known as cheetah), and perhaps to 10.1. However, most of the iMacs with reasonable prices have 64mb memory, and from what I hear you need a 128mb memory for 10.0. Is this true, or is the 64mb memory good enough?

 

[velocityg4]

It would be painfully slow if it did work at all. I don't recall if the installer disc checks the RAM. You'd be page filing constantly. I wouldn't do any version of OS X with less than 192MB RAM using basic old software.

By the way 10.0 was a very inefficient, slow and limited version of OS X. 10.1 was more streamlined, faster and efficient. 10.2 was even faster on the same computer than 10.1 or 10.0. There was also very little software made that is 10.0 compatible. Most of the older programs require Mac OS 9, 10.1 or 10.2. 10.0 was more like a second public beta and was largely ignored by software publishers. It wasn't until 10.3 that Apple started adding a lot more bloat which became quite noticeable with 10.4 and beyond.

I just looked and am shocked that so many people want outrageous prices for the iMacs and that so many have so little ram. I'd think most collectors would have stockpiles of old memory sitting about. Mine has 512MB all of it free. Stuff I picked up from friends and family tossing old computers or leftover parts from long dead computers of mine. I'd always scrounge the useful parts.

There do seem to be a few reasonable deals on eBay with 256MB RAM or greater though.

 

[sim667]

I run 10.1 on the same processor and with 384 mb of ram. Was fine.

 

[JCLrox]

Thanks for your quick responses! I will definitely look for an iMac with more RAM. As a matter of fact, I think I may have already found one on eBay with quite a big amount of RAM- 768mb!