I decided to turn on my old PPC G4 to see if I could use it for my writing. It does not have WiFi capabilities. Is there any way to add WiFi to this old thing? I'm running 10.2.8. If I can't, is there a way to wipe the hard drive clean and reboot without any software CDs? I'd really like to use this computer just for the nostalgia aspect.
Earlier Mac models
stojef2014 wrote:
If I can't, is there a way to wipe the hard drive clean and reboot without any software CDs?
If you do not have recovery discs, or other bootable discs – aside from the internal one – wiping the internal hard drive clean is the last thing you want to do.
These machines predate Internet Recovery by many years. You would be turning the machine into a brick!
The normal way of wiping these machines clean would be to boot off the appropriate recovery disc (holding down the 'C' key while starting up the iMac to get it to boot from the optical disc), and erase the iMac, and reinstall Mac OS X, from there.
stojef2014 wrote:
If I can't, is there a way to wipe the hard drive clean and reboot without any software CDs?
If you do not have recovery discs, or other bootable discs – aside from the internal one – wiping the internal hard drive clean is the last thing you want to do.
These machines predate Internet Recovery by many years. You would be turning the machine into a brick!
The normal way of wiping these machines clean would be to boot off the appropriate recovery disc (holding down the 'C' key while starting up the iMac to get it to boot from the optical disc), and erase the iMac, and reinstall Mac OS X, from there.
stojef2014 wrote:
I found a copy of Jaguar on eBay. Is this what I need?
Jaguar is Mac OS X 10.2. The screen shot that you posted shows that you're already running the final release of Jaguar, Mac OS X 10.2.8.
The post by Jan Hedlund quotes an old Apple Support article as saying that you need Mac OS X 10.3 or later to use WPA. If your iMac is one of the three that I think it must be, it can run Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger – 10.4.11 being the end of line.
Note that even if you found a working AirPort card and an original copy of Panther or Tiger, we would be talking about the original form of WPA. Modern Wi-Fi routers run WPA 2 and/or WPA 3 – and would probably shut out WPA/TKIP clients, intentionally, for security reasons.
Some iMacs had slots for Wi-Fi cards.
"800 MHz PowerPC G4" seems to match
Those AirPort cards are long discontinued. They are old enough that they predate WPA 2 and WPA 3, and while I'd have to fire up my iMac G4/800 to check, there's a chance they might not even support WPA 1.
Even if you could find one of these cards, and you set up security on your Wi-Fi router to be weak enough to allow them to connect, any version of Mac OS X that's old enough to run on a PowerPC-based Mac would be too old to have the changes needed to deal with modern https security.
All three of these Macs came with
Also, using an external wireless Ethernet bridge (or Wi-Fi range extender with similar capabilities) would not normally require drivers (as with USB Wi-Fi adapters), nor a minimum Macintosh model or operating system version (as long as Ethernet and TCP/IP can be handled).
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Otherwise, in case of an AirPort card, from an old Apple article (HT2594, May 17, 2013):
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Requirements for WPA
To join a WPA network, a Macintosh computer must have:
/.../
The easiest way would be to wire an external Wi-Fi range extender with wireless Ethernet bridge capabilities (an Edimax EW-7438RPn Mini operating in a client/adapter/bridge mode is just one example) with a short cable to the Ethernet port of the PowerPC G4. This would allow you to connect the Mac wirelessly to your Wi-Fi router.
However, a Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar Mac can only be expected to work with the few plain http web sites (such as knubbelmac.de) on the Internet. Web browsers compatible with that old Mac OS X version cannot handle modern (secure, https) web pages.
Servant of Cats wrote:
/.../
Those AirPort cards are long discontinued. They are old enough that they predate WPA 2 and WPA 3, and while I'd have to fire up my iMac G4/800 to check, there's a chance they might not even support WPA 1.
/.../
This is the reason why I normally suggest using an external wireless Ethernet bridge connected to the Ethernet port of an old Mac (at least a desktop model). For instance, a Wi-Fi range extender capable of operating in a bridge mode, such as the one mentioned in my above reply. A solution like that would allow modern wireless security to be used.
I found a copy of Jaguar on eBay. Is this what I need?
How do I add WiFi to a PowerPc G4
