10 replies to this topic

[bangarang]

Besides some sort of Linux distro, would it even be worth anything as just an OS X machine?

[eep357]

You couldn't even do that. Not an intel CPU but an old PPC,  so no Linux, no Windows, no OSX that is not 10 years old, no Fun Don't be somebody's e-waste recycler.

[bangarang]

eep357, on 24 July 2012 - 07:38 AM, said:

You couldn't even do that. Not an intel CPU but an old PPC,  so no Linux, no Windows, no OSX that is not 10 years old, no Fun Don't be somebody's e-waste recycler.

I know there are PPC distros of 'nix, but they are all garbage that I've seen

[Riley Freeman]

Depending on the model it should run up to Tiger. I had a 800Mhz G3 with 640MB RAM running 10.4.11 up until late 2009 when I eventually went Intel. It wasn't fast but it got things done. Plus you can boot into OS 9 for real speed. I tried Kubuntu a couple of times and it was rubbish. Linux Mint has a PPC release that might work OK. At least it'll be an up-to-date distro.

[eep357]

Unless your doing it for the retro nestalgia, it just seems more trouble than it's worth when you have other computers you can use. Trying to use it for 99% of what you do now on a computer, will just frustrate you.

[gygabyte666]

You could always donate it to me. I'm in need of an OS 9 guinea pig after all. ;p

And yeah they're right. As an OS X machine it would be...painful to say the least.

[JamesLittler]

You could use this for loads of things...
Paper weight
A hammer
A bad-ass frisbee
Wear it as a hat (possibly not as practical as tin foil)
Use it to prop up that wobbly coffee table
Use it AS a coffee table
Use it as some sort of tea strainer
A ramp for toy cars
Put some wheels on it and it could be a toy car
Use it as a futuristic battlefield for toy army men
...
I'm sure there are loads more

[verdant]

@ bangarang

What you can do with a G3 iBook depends very much on which actual model it is! This know from experience using different speed G3 laptops ..........see my profile for further details.

If it is a G3 500MHz or faster model, then OS X Tiger 10.4.11 is still very usable on it as described here........you can run Camino or TenFourFox on it........

If it is a slower G3, then install MintPPC on it..........

[kNewton]

i just got half a dozen G4s, an eMac 1.42? and a G3 for driving across town.

Turns out the G3 is faster than the G4s, as it has a 'Sonet' ( I think that is what it says, the font makes it difficult to read) 500mghz upgrade. It is listed in About this computer as 'unknown' processor. The G4s are 400mghz

Someone put some money into it; 50 gb hard drive, 5 usb pci card, ati rage vga/ dvi video card, 1 gb of ram.
I wanted a G4 to go with my G4 monitor, same with the G3 and G3 monitor.

[TheBradster]

I can think of a lot of things you can do with it:

• Light e-mail /web browsing
  
• Print server
  
• Attach a large external drive to it and make it host a centralized backup for all your other systems
  
• "Combat Computer" - use it when you need to do something like take notes in an environment that's risky (we use them for that in our lab -  if they get busted we're out what??? 40 bucks?)
  
• Kids computer
  
• Relive the days on non-software bloat
  
• DVD player on trips, if so equipped.

I can always find a use for my ancient stuff. Or you could sell it on eBay and get 30 bucks for it.

[Maxim1203]

From what I recall, the first OSX came with a pretty nice version of Chess! I think TheBradster covered the useful bits.