Classic machines, their Mac OS X support, and Mac OS 9 support
This guide that was archived on the webarchive gives a clue on what Mac OS 9 installers shipped with what Mac. During the 2002-2003 transition, all models eventually lost the ability to boot Mac OS 9 with new releases, and that is covered later.
Your serial number, which you should not post here is structured, xxABCyyyyy, where XX is the code of the city of manufacturer, A is the last digit of the year, and BC is the week of the year. Y is a unique identifier for each Mac. IJ207jdkjfk3536 - a serial number that wouldn't exist, but would give you the clue it was manufactured in the 7th week of 2002. The serial number code for Macs at some point did change, but it was after PowerPC Macs, which could run Mac OS 9 were no longer sold by Apple
Newer serial numbers can be looked up at http://checkcoverage.apple.com/
If you can boot the Mac, the System Profiler application, or System Report available through Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info shows the serial number in the hardware section. Apple menu -> About This Mac often showed it if you clicked the version number. The serial number was often found in the battery bay, or the foot of the computer in the case of an iMac, or its rear if it was a tower. Mac Minis were the bottom.
Starting with Macs that shipped with 9.2.1, you could no longer boot off a retail Mac OS 9 CD that looked like:
Those Macs shipped with a system specific 9, and the 9.2.1 non-upgrade, non-OEM disc with the label above could not boot the Mac with the Option key. Some optical drives would not boot if the PRAM/CMOS battery (not the battery that is used to power the machine while off the mains) was older than 4 years old. See an authorized service provider to make sure the battery is current.
The 9.2.1 disc that had the computer's model name only worked with the model that shipped with that disc, as is labelled in the guide at the beginning of this type. Once 9.2.2 was released, it was no longer included as a system specific disc, but rather an additional software installer in July 2002. You could still use the Disk Utility on the included installation disc, to enable Mac OS 9 drivers on Macs that supported it to allow for Mac OS 9 booting. Mac OS 9 booting though continued support with the following:
- The G4 towers that lacked a Firewire 800 port on the rear shown here:
2. The iBook G3. The iBook G4 no longer supported it.
3.The iMac G4 with 800 Mhz and a DVD Burner. The one with a combo drive did not support Mac OS 9 booting, and the faster Ghz models did not.
4.The Powerbook G4 with rear USB ports. The side USB port models introduced in 2003 no longer supported it.
5.eMac computers that were rated in 800 Mhz could all boot Mac OS 9, and:
1 Ghz eMacs with the model # M8950LL/A (able to boot into 10.5)
eMac 1 Ghz with no Superdrive released May 2003 and earlier (able to boot into 10.5). Later eMacs,
with the model # M8951LL/A, M9252LL/A, and M8951LL/B, could not boot Mac OS 9.
6.No Mac Mini supported Mac OS 9 booting.
7.No G5 supported Mac OS 9 booting, and no Intel Mac supported Classic.
All G3 Macs except the original 250 Mhz Kanga Powerbook G3 based on the Powerbook 3400c (identifiable by the retractable rear legs) could run up to Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X 10.2.8, that model was limited to Mac OS 9.1. A few SCSI USB Powerbook G3/333 Mhz and G3/400 Mhz models also had a CPU issue running up to 10.3.9 and were limited to 9.1.
All models with USB built-in could run up to Mac OS X 10.3.9
All models with Firewire built-in could run up to Mac OS X 10.4.11. 10.4.11 came in two release versions, one with all CDs and one with a single DVD in the retail release for models that did not have a built-in DVD drive.
867 Mhz G4 built is the starting point for Mac OS X 10.5 support. Ghz is faster.
10.5 allowed dual booting with Mac OS 9 on the few machines that supported Mac OS 9 booting, but did not support the Classic environment within Mac OS X.
10.5.8 is the newest operating system that can run on Classic Macs.