What can I do with os9.2?

Hi Djstylus;

Since you seem more interested in Linux, I would suggest you go to the web site

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ

Allan

I use my Mac OS 9 machine to digitize my analog (cassette tape and vinyl) music collection. There's a great freeware application for doing it called Coaster.

http://www.visualclick.de/products/coaster/index.html

The advantage is that even with a fast Mac OS X machine, you want to leave it alone and not do other tasks while it is recording. So using my old Mac allows my everyday Mac to NOT be tied up doing tedious tasks, such as digitizing sound input.

There are great Mac OS 9 word processing programs, including the freeware Word Perfect 3.5. So if you want to +compose words+ without the distraction of the Internet, it would be ideal. This site has links to Word Perfect for Mac and other free software.

http://main.system7today.com/

Although that site is geared toward the even older System 7.6, most of those older programs work fine with Mac OS 9.

Also, Mac OS 9 software that used to cost hundreds (even thousands) of dollars can be bought used on eBay for very little. So you could use formerly "pro" level apps on a limited budget.

If you want a Mac OS 9 browser for accessing a few sites and downloading software, I recommend WaMCom (a special build of Mozilla 1.3.1).

http://www.wamcom.org/

I'll chip in my 2 cents, I suppose.

I use OS 9.2.2 on my clamshell iBook G3. This iBook also has OS X 10.4.11 installed, and it boots/runs fine, but OS 9 is so much faster on this machine. Keep in mind, OS 9 has its limitations, and is now celebrating it's 10th birthday. But for many tasks, where there's a will there's a way.

For word processing/spreadsheet/drawing purposes I would recommend AppleWorks 6.2.4. It's not free software, but it's fantastic and gets the job done nicely. It even imports/converts Microsoft office files (only up to version 2000, but usually that works and translates properly between platforms just fine.)

If you plan to go wireless on your iMac, bear in mind that only WEP encryption is supported. WPA encryption is not supported under OS 9 at all, as that type of encryption of wireless security came out well after OS 9's support ended.

If you plan to integrate your system with Apple devices such as iPods, iPhones, Apple TV's, and the like, keep this in mind: Only the original iPods with firewire are supported by OS 9. And I'm not even 100% sure your iMac has a firewire port. So, it's likely there is just about 0 compatibility with iPods and OS 9. I've heard some people say that the iPod is recognized as a flash drive if it's placed in Disk mode, but I have not tried that myself, as I only have an iPod Touch, and cannot put it in disk mode... For the most part today's iPods and Apple TV's require OS 10.4.11 or greater to sync with your computer.

One of the biggest limitations of OS 9 is the web browsing capability, and things related to it. I second the recommendation of WaMCom Mozilla. It gets the job done about 80% of the time for me without any major hiccups and rendering issues.

You can of course use it to check multiple email accounts. I use WaMCom Mozilla's mail client to check 4 different email accounts (Gmail, sbcglobal, School IMAP, and MobileMe.) Sometimes attachments just don't show up, and I have to log in to my webmail to get them, but that's my only complaint.

iTunes 2.0.4 is an elegant, rock-solid music player. Keep in mind -- no iTunes store! If you're lucky enough to have an still use one of the original iPods, and you have Firewire, go for it, and sync away! Othewise, I enjoy using iTunes just to play my content, and get the visualizer going for a psychadellic screen saver 🙂 iTunes will import audio CD's and burn them, if you have a CD burner, which you may not if you have the original iMac, but who knows, maybe you can upgrade the drive??

There's fantastic professional level software out there. Some free, most costs money, but cheap now that it's obsolete. I found some graphical editing software that was freeware, called Expression 3, developed my Microsoft, that is Photoshop-esque. Works great.

One of the members above mentioned that they use OS 9 for tape dumps -- funny you should mention that, because that's exactly what I did with my computer! Only, I already have all of the files, and I'm using OS 9 to chop these large wave files into tracks, and import them into iTunes. I use Audacity to chop the files into tracks.

There's tons of free games out there for OS 9, that are loads of fun. My favorites are Marathon Infinity, Maelstrom, Solitaire, MacChess, just to name a few.

Using Goliath 1.0, I can connect to my MobileMe iDisk to copy/move files on my iDisk.

Just about the only feature of my Mobileme account that I can't access in OS 9 to save my life is my web gallery. Viewing a web gallery and adding photos to your web gallery requires a compatible browser, and OS 9 just doesn't have a current enough version of flash and Java to support doing that. I have to boot to Tiger to do anything with my MobileMe web gallery.

But not to say that you can't manage and edit photos like a Pro in OS 9. I use Graphic Converter Classic to view, organize, and edit photos on my computer. It's fantastic software, and I'm thinking about purchasing a license soon.

You can also install AIM 4.7 to chat away with your friends.

That's about most of what I do with it. I'm very satisfied with it, and as long as my iBook is ticking away, I intend to keep using it.

That Mac can run 10.2 with Apple's blessing, and 10.3 or 10.4 with XPostFacto. It will never edit videos or play web videos or do garageband.

I beg to differ on the playing videos bit --

You can install QuickTime version 6, which will play most native QuickTime movie files. Low-level simple QuickTime movies will play in OS 9 just fine, namely MPEG files. Now, I know this to be true on my iBook G3 300 MHz. I don't know how much less performance you'll see on a 233 MHz iMac, but I imagine that some movies will play fine.

It can do anything you want it to do that was not too demanding in 1998.

It'll run any sort of simple database engine, giving you a terminal for querying whatever sort of data you may want to query, DVD library, recipes, address book, tv guides. You're only limited by your imagination and having it positioned somewhere convenient that would save you a walk through the house back to your main computer.

I have one too, the first iMac. (The first Mac pre-dates this by 14 years, I used to have one of those too - they really were useless, overheating all the time), but I only use my old iMac for a bit of retro gaming every so often. I found that if I used it as a database engine, or even just a web front end onto a database engine hosted on a mean fast mac pro machine, I would always want to end up "processing" that data in some way, which is where the G3 would fall down.

But as you mention Linux, my G3 iMac (identical to yours) did run openBSD v3 pretty ****** fast when I tried it on it many years ago. Current versions of Linux may be too much for it.

Recently I tried to answer this same question for an original bondi blue iMac. The only function I could find that I would actually want to use it for is to play emulated video games, I'm partial to old Nintendo and Sega Genesis classics. There are random projects you could try simply for the sake of doing it (like using the computer as a router), or it can be useful as an educational tool to get technical experience working in OS 9; but aside from gaming, I couldn't find any function that would make me want to use my iMac on a regular basis.

Kenichi Watanabe wrote:
I use my Mac OS 9 machine to digitize my analog (cassette tape and vinyl) music collection. There's a great freeware application for doing it called Coaster.

http://www.visualclick.de/products/coaster/index.html

I've been wanting to do this for quite sometime.

What are you using for a 'Sound Input Device capable of asynchronous operation' and where did you get it? Are you plugging it into your OS 9 machine through the USB port or the external microphone jack?

Thanks.

just a rambling joe

Check out HyperCard. Only the players are available on the web, so check eBay and see what's there.