I'm going to buy an old G4 iMac that will probably have an early version of OS X installed. My plan is to start the computer on my OS 9 installation disk, erase the internal drive, and install OS 9. Am I likely to encounter some OS X "feature" that will prevent me from doing that?
iMac, Mac OS 9.2.x
Only the very first of these G4 iMacs, issued in January 2002 (15 inch) or July 2002 (17 inch) can boot into OS9. All later models can only boot into OSX 10.2, 10.3 or 10.4, or 10.5 if it's the 6,4 model issued in 2003, the 1GHz or faster models only. (They can run OS9 but only in emulation mode within OSX).
These systems are no longer available from Apple: it's possibly you might find install disks from other sources, but be careful because the machine-specific disks issued with the Macs are useless to you - you need the 'Retail' version. Tiger 10.4.11 would be your most useful system, it's stable and fairly well featured for its age: but none of these will be able to cope with many modern web sites.
You may find it very difficult to obtain these systems, so if you are going only to be able to install OS9 you need to be quite sure you have one of these first-issue models or you will be wasting your money.
To identify the issue date, select 'About This Mac' from the Apple menu then click 'More info...'
Only the very first of these G4 iMacs, issued in January 2002 (15 inch) or July 2002 (17 inch) can boot into OS9. All later models can only boot into OSX 10.2, 10.3 or 10.4, or 10.5 if it's the 6,4 model issued in 2003, the 1GHz or faster models only. (They can run OS9 but only in emulation mode within OSX).
These systems are no longer available from Apple: it's possibly you might find install disks from other sources, but be careful because the machine-specific disks issued with the Macs are useless to you - you need the 'Retail' version. Tiger 10.4.11 would be your most useful system, it's stable and fairly well featured for its age: but none of these will be able to cope with many modern web sites.
You may find it very difficult to obtain these systems, so if you are going only to be able to install OS9 you need to be quite sure you have one of these first-issue models or you will be wasting your money.
To identify the issue date, select 'About This Mac' from the Apple menu then click 'More info...'
Frontiersman wrote:
Will OS X, having been on the computer, leave some kind of "trap" on the internal drive, or elsewhere, that will prevent me from erasing the drive and installing OS 9?
No: it's just a matter of making sure that you have one of the early models that can boot from OS9 because the later ones can't, so you obviously can't install it. The later ones, when running OSX, do allow you to run OS9 under emulation, which looks and feels very like actually being in OS9 and should allow you to do anything you can do when booted. The problem there is getting the install disks.
Thank you for your reply.
I don't intend to install OS X on the computer. OS X doesn't give me ANY ADVANTAGE AT ALL if I'm not using the internet. For my work as a writer, OS 9 provides EVERY CAPABILITY that I need. Authors used to write on typewriters. OS 9 is ENTIRELY sufficient. In addition, OS 9 provides a better user interface than does OS X. Happy to get that cleared up.
Now, what I'm trying to discover is this. Will OS X, having been on the computer, leave some kind of "trap" on the internal drive, or elsewhere, that will prevent me from erasing the drive and installing OS 9?
OS 9 Installation
