What is an iMac G3 good for?

Question

What is an iMac G3 good for?

My first iMac was the graphite iMac G3. It has been sitting in a closet for the last 3 years. I still think it is a design classic.

What could I use it for?

Will it run OS X Tiger and Leopard when it comes out?

iMac G3 Graphite, Mac OS 9.2.x

Posted on Sep 9, 2007 8:05 PM

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Answer 1

britny

Level 1

130 points

Sep 9, 2007 9:56 PM in response to AmbroseStafford

hopefully it will still do everything it could do 3 years ago. a few games, surfing the net, looking at digital photos, some itunes, a few letters, and i use it to keep my company's payroll on. where most people run into problems is by trying to use the LATEST software and peripherals (ipods) on these older machines. while you can usually gain functionality by upgrading the os a notch or two beyond what came with the machine originally there will come a time when further upgrades will stifle the machine. what do you want to do with it? i love it in my office, it's dead quiet and a more classic design you'll never find.

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Answer 2

Sep 10, 2007 4:51 AM in response to AmbroseStafford

Hi Ambrose

As it's a graphite it should be reasonably rapid (in iMac G3 terms) and so it should run Tiger without too much hassle. The first thing I would do is increase the RAM by as much as you can (stick a 512MB in there and it will be a happy mac.

You can fit an airport card (from ebay) as long as you can find the card adaptor.

One thing though, I have seen a fair number of graphites in the last year with failed/failing HDs or very iffy video.

The video is one thing, if you have it (or the machine is showing signs of it) then it's probably not worth fixing, but replacing the HD is both easy and cheap to do.

Good luck
Donna

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Answer 3

Sep 10, 2007 12:40 PM in response to AmbroseStafford

You could use it as your "Mac OS 9" machine. Since the new Intel Macs cannot run Classic (Mac OS 9 and earlier) programs at all (unless you count "SheepShaver" as a workable solution), it might be useful to have around for your old programs and data. You might even find inexpensive copies of old "pro" programs for Mac OS 9, and do stuff you can't afford to do on the latest hardware/software.

You can run Tiger with at least 256mb of RAM (512mb or more is much better) and sufficient free space on your hard drive. <edited by host>

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Answer 4

Sep 10, 2007 11:49 AM in response to AmbroseStafford

If your iMac has been in a closet for three years, its internal battery is probably dead or close to it. It has been keeping the clock going and retaining PRAM settings while unplugged. It will likely have startup issues or will soon. I would just replace it.

Cheers!
DALE

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Answer 5

Sep 10, 2007 1:53 PM in response to AmbroseStafford

Check this site for battery part numbers and sources.
Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 6

Sep 10, 2007 4:09 PM in response to AmbroseStafford

Thanks everyone. I love these discussion boards.

I have 512MB RAM in the machine. Tiger installed no problem. Here are some of the ideas I'm going to try. I also had the old airport card already. Internal battery seems to be fine,but, if there was a problem I'd have no clue how to deal with it. So far so good

(1) set it up as a video baby monitor in our kitchen using a wired or wireless network camera. I have had terrible problems with a D-Link wireless webcam so I will probably need to go with a wired setup

(2) use it as a radio to stream stations from iTunes.

(3) set it up to show a slide show of our favorite photos. Maybe I could combine this with (2)

Thanks again

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