well since i have alot of $ sitting around, id see at getting me a nice G3 mac to see how the mac world works! i just have a few questions..

is there PCI slots?

is there USB ports (for external WiFi (can i just buy any one)
i have an extra 60GB HD, can i just stick it in?

Can i upgrade from OS 9.2 or whatever to OSX

How much ram should i get?

how do the mouse and stuff hook up?

is it even worth it?

When you say 3G you mean G3 iMac's i assume? The '3rd Generation' iMac's are actually the G5 model.

Personally i'd say they aren't really powerful enough to give you a good impression of what Mac OS X really is...

yeah G3(like 333MHz or somthing) sorry, im a newb to macs!!! (my ipod is inspiring)

Cool to hear that, i am sure you are not alone their neither, especially the marketing Apple used on the current iMacs. 'From the makers of...'

anyone else?

Hey there;

A 333Mhz iMac should give you at least a glimpse into the Mac world... just don't expect blazing performance and you won't be disappointed.

- There are 2 USB-1 ports on that generation of iMac.

- There are NO PCI slots.

- You CAN replace the iMacs current HardDrive with your 60GB one yes, but you can't use both.

- You can use Mac OS 10.3 'Panther' no problem, and thats what I'd recommend as it's supposed to be quite nippy on G3's compared to how 10.1 and 10.2 were.

- You need at LEAST 512MB of ram, any less and your going to run into problems especially on a G3 machine.

- The mouse and keyboard are both USB, the mouse plugs into the keyboard and the keyboard into the iMac.

Remember, this iMac does NOT have any FireWire ports (so your not going to be able to hook your iPod into the iMac) and NO it won't work over USB-1.

It might be worth it yeah, but it depends on how much your paying for it?

i'm lookin about $100 ish

and can i just plug any wifi USB into the thing?

the snow white imac we have at school has firewire

The snow iMac is alot newer and faster than the 333MHz iMac Caveman is talking about though...

Yep Steve-o is right, the iMac didn't get Firewire until the iMac DV (which were 350Mhz if memory serves me right)

It also got Airport (802.11b).

aye, it's also got a slot-load DVD drive and is convection cooled = no fan!

I doubt you could find one of those for $100, but you never know.

And you can as long as it has OS X support, otherwise not.

400MHz is the lowest speed iMac with FireWire.
The 350MHz one has the controller, etc onboard, but the connectors are not there. You can add them on the first version of the 350 (the one with the Airport slot), not sure about the later one.

Note that the original iMac (tray loader, 233 - 333MHz) which we are talking about here can only take a maximum of 512MB (and not all do).
OSX also has to be installed to a partition totally within the first 8GB of the hard drive.