Got an old PowerMac G3


Recommended Posts

My school was giving away free Powermac G3's since they upgraded their mac lab and had no storage space, so I picked one up. The specs are:

PowerPC G3 233Mhz

32MB RAM

4GB Hard Drive

Mac OS 9.1

I was hoping to fit OS X on it, but I would probably at least need to throw some more memory in there. I was curious about a few things:

1) Is there any way for me to wipe the hard drive clean, but keep OS 9.1 intact? I heard there was a way to do this with Apples. They didn't include the OS 9 CD.

2) How much does memory for these older ones typically run, and how much can they handle?

3) Is there any chance of me running OS X (10.2 or 10.3) on this thing anytime before Hell freezes over? :D

Thanks in advance for any help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) Can't format and leave the OS, you could just delete everything except the System folder and possibly be fine, but don't take my word for it, never used OS 9 extensively.

2) Click here for specs on that specific Mac.

3)

Mac OS X Version 10.3 requires a Macintosh with a PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor, built-in USB; at least 128MB of physical RAM and a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer.

Yeah, it seems you can, but it sounds like it would be very slow. Bump up the RAM as much as you can and maybe it would be usable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depending on what type of PowerMac G3 it is, you might need to get a copy of XPostFacto to get OS X to install. Is it a beige or a blue&white? I've run 10.2 on a 233Mhz Wallstreet PowerBook before, and while it was a little slow, it was useable for most tasks.

You should be able to pick up an old copy of 9.1 on eBay pretty cheap, or you can find it in the Mac newsgroups and on BitTorrent sites all the time (which technically wouldn't be warez in your case since you are simply replacing missing install media).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's beige unfortunately. A friend of mine has a friend who used to work for Apple, and he says Panther (10.3) won't work on the beige boxes because they have no USB, but 10.2 should run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still, you should check into XPostFacto, I am not certain, but I believe the author of it has made it possible to run Panther on the beige machines. I stopped keeping up with the program's progress after I upgraded from a Wallstreet (non-USB) PowerBook to a Pismo (which has USB).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah the author of Xpostfacto is working on full beige support for OS X 10.3, but hasn't got the internal video working yet. If it has another video card then theres a good chance it'll work. Otherwise, I run OS 10.2 and it's fairly decent (with more than 256 MB of RAM) :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yeah i have a beige g3 like this also. got 10.1.5 running on it as i dont have 10.2, 10.3 wont install w/o xpostfacto, look into getting acheap usb firewire card and as much pc100 ram as you can (256 max each slot though. is it tower or desktop?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine recently gave some of us in the Networking classes some older monitors. I got first pick and got a sweet Dell Trinitron 19" flat CRT. :woot:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.