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Got an iMac as a gift

TangoJuliet

TangoJuliet

Diamond Member
I was over at my sister in law's house today helping them install a wireless printer and configure a brand new imac and macbook pro. I spent a couple hours doing updates and stuff and they bought me pizza.

Also as a token of their appreciation my brother in law gave me his old G3 imac. I'm guessing that is what it is....I've only gotten into apple computers the past 3 years or so. Its a blue CRT all in one.

I want to format it and install from scratch but I don't have any of the disks that came with it. Is it possible to upgrade to Leopard as I have a copy of that. Not sure if power PCs will work with Leopard.

I'm probably going to play around with it and then sell it as I don't really have a need for it. I'd love to trade it for a macbook + some cash or something but I have no idea how much its worth or what I can get for it.
 
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
I was over at my sister in law's house today helping them install a wireless printer and configure a brand new imac and macbook pro. I spent a couple hours doing updates and stuff and they bought me pizza.

Also as a token of their appreciation my brother in law gave me his old G3 imac. I'm guessing that is what it is....I've only gotten into apple computers the past 3 years or so. Its a blue CRT all in one.

I want to format it and install from scratch but I don't have any of the disks that came with it. Is it possible to upgrade to Leopard as I have a copy of that. Not sure if power PCs will work with Leopard.

I'm probably going to play around with it and then sell it as I don't really have a need for it. I'd love to trade it for a macbook + some cash or something but I have no idea how much its worth or what I can get for it.
Click to expand...

It is maybe worth $100, and although Leopard can be installed on PowerPC systems, there is no what that will run it, Panther, or perhaps Tiger is the highest you could go.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
I was over at my sister in law's house today helping them install a wireless printer and configure a brand new imac and macbook pro. I spent a couple hours doing updates and stuff and they bought me pizza.

Also as a token of their appreciation my brother in law gave me his old G3 imac. I'm guessing that is what it is....I've only gotten into apple computers the past 3 years or so. Its a blue CRT all in one.

I want to format it and install from scratch but I don't have any of the disks that came with it. Is it possible to upgrade to Leopard as I have a copy of that. Not sure if power PCs will work with Leopard.

I'm probably going to play around with it and then sell it as I don't really have a need for it. I'd love to trade it for a macbook + some cash or something but I have no idea how much its worth or what I can get for it.
Click to expand...

It is maybe worth $100, and although Leopard can be installed on PowerPC systems, there is no what that will run it, Panther, or perhaps Tiger is the highest you could go.
Click to expand...

Which is the better OS - Tiger or Panther? I'm guessing Tiger since it was released after Panther.
 
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
I was over at my sister in law's house today helping them install a wireless printer and configure a brand new imac and macbook pro. I spent a couple hours doing updates and stuff and they bought me pizza.

Also as a token of their appreciation my brother in law gave me his old G3 imac. I'm guessing that is what it is....I've only gotten into apple computers the past 3 years or so. Its a blue CRT all in one.

I want to format it and install from scratch but I don't have any of the disks that came with it. Is it possible to upgrade to Leopard as I have a copy of that. Not sure if power PCs will work with Leopard.

I'm probably going to play around with it and then sell it as I don't really have a need for it. I'd love to trade it for a macbook + some cash or something but I have no idea how much its worth or what I can get for it.
Click to expand...

It is maybe worth $100, and although Leopard can be installed on PowerPC systems, there is no what that will run it, Panther, or perhaps Tiger is the highest you could go.
Click to expand...

Which is the better OS - Tiger or Panther? I'm guessing Tiger since it was released after Panther.
Click to expand...

Tiger, in addition to all the usual security and other small patches, mainly brought spotlight and dashboard to the table. On top of that, if there is software out there that supports stuff older than Leopard, it will almost never support stuff older than Tiger.

Tiger is the oldest Apple OS out there that I would consider using... however... if the iMac does not have firewire then you will not be installing Tiger (not easily anyway), this is admittedly an artificial limitation, but it does help to essentially draw the line between what can run it, and what can't (much like PowerPC's exclusion from Snow Leopard).

I would first see how much memory the system has, and how much it can take. If it is less than 512MB, I would be hesitant to put Tiger on there.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
I was over at my sister in law's house today helping them install a wireless printer and configure a brand new imac and macbook pro. I spent a couple hours doing updates and stuff and they bought me pizza.

Also as a token of their appreciation my brother in law gave me his old G3 imac. I'm guessing that is what it is....I've only gotten into apple computers the past 3 years or so. Its a blue CRT all in one.

I want to format it and install from scratch but I don't have any of the disks that came with it. Is it possible to upgrade to Leopard as I have a copy of that. Not sure if power PCs will work with Leopard.

I'm probably going to play around with it and then sell it as I don't really have a need for it. I'd love to trade it for a macbook + some cash or something but I have no idea how much its worth or what I can get for it.
Click to expand...

It is maybe worth $100, and although Leopard can be installed on PowerPC systems, there is no what that will run it, Panther, or perhaps Tiger is the highest you could go.
Click to expand...

Which is the better OS - Tiger or Panther? I'm guessing Tiger since it was released after Panther.
Click to expand...

Tiger, in addition to all the usual security and other small patches, mainly brought spotlight and dashboard to the table. On top of that, if there is software out there that supports stuff older than Leopard, it will almost never support stuff older than Tiger.

Tiger is the oldest Apple OS out there that I would consider using... however... if the iMac does not have firewire then you will not be installing Tiger (not easily anyway), this is admittedly an artificial limitation, but it does help to essentially draw the line between what can run it, and what can't (much like PowerPC's exclusion from Snow Leopard).

I would first see how much memory the system has, and how much it can take. If it is less than 512MB, I would be hesitant to put Tiger on there.
Click to expand...

Well, it has 2 firewire ports on the side. It is currently running OSX 10.2.8 which I am guessing is Jaguar. It has a PPC 500mhz cpu and only 128mb of RAM. It has a 30GB hdd. Its pretty snappy for a 7 year old computer running at 500mhz. Not sure what my best course of action is right now.
 
yeah, you are better off running tiger. although ive seen people install leopard on it, but its not that fast to be honest. can you upgrade the hard drive and ram possibly?
 
How hard is it to upgrade both? Is there a link on apple's site for doing that? I have a 7200rpm drive laying around but would need to find RAM. What type of RAM does it use?
 
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
How hard is it to upgrade both? Is there a link on apple's site for doing that? I have a 7200rpm drive laying around but would need to find RAM. What type of RAM does it use?
Click to expand...

It is probably using an IDE drive, most likely a DMA100 interface, and SDRAM, maybe PC100.

As for the difficulty... you may want to look up a guide on teh intarwebz.
 
You might want to check out lowendmac.com to find out more about the hardware. Although there are several G3 500 Mhz iMac models:
http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/index.shtml

If you put some more RAM in it, Tiger (10.4) would probably be best but check out the type of optical drive it has. Some did not come with drives that can read DVDs and I believe retail Tiger discs all came on DVD. If I recall correctly, Apple had a program where you could exchange the DVD for CDs but of course, that is no longer available. If you have a firewire external drive, you could copy the Tiger install to that, then boot from there to install it. Unfortunately, I don't think that iMac will boot from a USB device.

-KeithP
 
I'm constantly amazed by people trying to get $100+ for these things on Craigslist.

MAYBE a 'Flower Power' or 'Blue Dalmatian' model, since less of those were produced/sold. Personally I don't think *any* G3 is worth over $100.
 
Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
Well, it has 2 firewire ports on the side. It is currently running OSX 10.2.8 which I am guessing is Jaguar. It has a PPC 500mhz cpu and only 128mb of RAM. It has a 30GB hdd. Its pretty snappy for a 7 year old computer running at 500mhz. Not sure what my best course of action is right now.
Click to expand...
No way that system should ever be described as snappy. 😛

If you have some SDRAM lying around, it's definitely worth trying. A higher-capacity ATA hard disk drive helps a bit too but 30GB is fine. Tiger is highly recommended but I wouldn't go out and buy new RAM just to get this project up to par.
 
You might be able to get 2x 512MB modules for $25.00 or so. PC133 is okay, but you'll need Low Density (chips on both sides) and most likely Low-Profile modules. I got a great price (my offer) and excellent, fast service from geek_noize on eBay. If you can't use the G3 iMac, maybe you have a family member or friend who can? You could also donate it.

I'm only at 400MHz, although a G4, maximum 1GB of RAM, & 20GB hard drive. It may not be "snappy" but Tiger 10.4.11 is running fine. My dial-up internet is the slowest part, but it works. Have fun!

Russell

 
Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Sounds like someone just used you as their personal electronics recycling facility.
Click to expand...

yeah i'm starting to think that is the case.

ok guys I am having some trouble. I was able to get a copy of both Jaguar and Tiger. When I try to install it from within the OS it says I have to reboot. After the reboot nothing happens. I have tried to boot from the CD but cant seem to get that to work at all. I have pressed the option key on startup and I can only get the hdd to show up in the options to boot from.

I have also pressed option/shift/delete with nothing as well as the c key. I want to wipe the hdd clean as there is a lot of junk on there from the previous owner. Help?
 
Originally posted by: Tyranicus
Sounds like you have a bad optical drive.
Click to expand...

no, i don't think so. when I am in OSX it reads from the disk. for some strange reason I cannot boot to the cd-rom drive.
 
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