PowerMac G3 DVD drive and front panel

As to the drive, sometimes you just have to try it and see. Only models similar to the original are offically supported but other brands may (or may not) work for booting. I think I used to have a TEAC in a G3 and it booted.

My G3 is in the basement behind some boxes at the moment, but if I recall correctly the panels came off the front with a bit of gentle prying.

As to selling, at least where I live I don't think you could expect to get a lot for a G3. Perhaps parting it out might get you more. I simply gave away a spare G3 for free since I doubt I could have gotten more than $20 for it, and only then after having put in an hour's labor and $5 parts. In that regard you might want to keep more than one so you have a source of parts.

Don't forget you need to use XPostFacto to get OSX onto a beige.

Message was edited by: Limnos

On the desktop model G3 (as shown in your photo), the outer plastic bezel for the optical drive has an opening on the underside in the center, into which you insert your index finger and gently pull down to un-snap it. The internal metal EMI shield (if present) across the drive bay has tabs along the top that you pull up/back on to unsnap, and then tilt the shield back until it comes loose across the bottom for removal. Be sure that the DVD drive's configuration jumper is set to master and not cable select. The Teac Dual-Layer drive may or not may not be bootable, as the manufacture of DVD burners is sometimes outsourced by the company distributing it - even different models having the same brand name on them. As for installing OS 10.2, use the Jaguar universal/retail installer disk and not a machine-specific restore disk. You'll also need to have enough memory installed, as well as adequate hard drive space. You'll only need XPostFacto, if you're attempting to install Panther or Tiger, as Jaguar is natively supported. In the US, one would have a difficult time getting much (if any) money for a 1997-1998 vintage computer, whereas you may be able to do so in other countries. I think that the decreasing number of topics posted about the beige and Blue & White G3s here on the Forums is an indicator of their dwindling usage. The same thing happened with the PCI Power Macs (7500, 8500, 8600, 9600, etc.) a few years ago, and before long, the G4s will probably be no different.

vkor wrote:

Thanks for your replies.

Unfortunately, when I pull the cover, it doesn't snap off, but my finger hurts :/

How hard should i pull it?

Also, it has AFAIK about 86MB of RAM. Will that be enough for 10.2/Adium/a little Safari?

Or I should better stick to OS9?

And yes: may I use a 120GB IDE hard drive as the main one?

Pretty hard if I remember correctly.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.2#System_requirements 128 MB is the minimum, but in reality (like most versions of OSX) you really need more for smooth operation. There's 3 RAM slots that take a low-profile chip, up to a maxmimum of 768MB total.

Some of this depends upon the speed of the machine. I remember trying to install and run Panther on my 266MHz G3 and I never really got it to work well. Jaguar may be different if it was designed to run on a G3 too, but then that would probably be the more G4-ish B&W G3. Your G3 might be a 233 MHz which would have slow response and really be hapier with OS9.

You also mention Safari. Even once you get this running, you may find web browsing a bit difficult, especially if you want to do anything with video, and forget about anything with Flash which many, many web sites use these days. My main reason for finally giving up on my G3 5 years ago was it was becoming increasing difficult to do anything on the web.

Yes, a 120 GB will work. In fact you can't go any larger on the native IDE controller in a G3, or even some G4s for that matter.

Good luck! G3s were really solid machines and with OS9 I could run software spanning 15 years. Browse this site for discussions on the best browsers to run under OS9. Safari probably isn't the best and I've seen other recommended recently that work better with new sites although Flash will always be an issue.