What a bunch of wet blankets. If you're pretty much happy with what you've got, want to learn OS X in preparation for the future, why do so many suggest you dump Old Reliable in favor of an iMac, iBooks, etc.?
I'm assuming you have a reason for wanting to upgrade what you have. Maybe you can't afford $600-1,000 for a nice used blue and white G3. Maybe you have some SCSI peripherals, serial devices, or an ADB sketch tablet you don't want to replace. Whatever, you have your reason for wanting to go this route.
First, upgrade the CPU. There are lots of options with G3 and even G4 ZIF upgrades for under $100. Sure, you can run OS X on a G3/266, but you will find it sluggish. And after you get the faster CPU, experiment with overclocking. A lot of G3s can be pushed to 66 MHz faster, and almost all can go at least 33 MHz faster than rated. Details on overclocking on lowendmac.com among other places.
Second, buy two or three 256 MB sticks of memory. Under $30 each -- check ramseeker.com. This will make the biggest difference of all.
Third, if you still have the stock Apple hard drive, by all means get something faster. The bus in only 16.67 MB/sec., so no need to get the latest and greatest, but the stock Apple drive only uses about 2/3 of the busses potential.
If you buy a drive larger than 8 GB (hard to avoid these days!), YOU WILL HAVE TO PARTITION IT. The first partition must be 8 GB or smaller, and that's the only place you'll be able to install OS X. A bit of a nuisance, but you're trying to avoid the expense of a newer Mac. Drive should be under $60.
Shop around for a copy of Jaguar (OS X 10.2). You can often get it for under $100.
Bear in mind that the beige G3 apparently will not be supported when Panther ships. An unsupported install may be possible, but 10.2 may be the end of the OS road for your vintage G3.
For about $300-350 you can turn your old beige G3 into a faster machine that will perform decently under OS X.
Future upgrades you may want to consider -- but try living with this setup first:
1. A Radeon 7000 video card, about $70. No Quartz Extreme, but far better than what's on the motherboard.
2. A USB/FireWire card. $30 or so -- they are getting cheap.
3. A faster ATA controller. Anything over Ultra66 is overkill on this machine. About $60.
If you plan on going this far, then the others are right. Stop right now and look into at least a blue and white G3 -- faster system bus, Ultra33 drive bus, much better video, includes USB -- or one of the older G4s. $300-350 to get a decent OS X machine isn't unreasonable, but $500 in upgrades and software would be.
I wrote an article about a *three* screen PowerBook G4 back in November. It actually ran a real operating system with real apps -- okay, it was completely fictional, but that's beside the point.
Anne Onymus, Rumor Monger
I found one piece of prior art that predates the ICQ filing by five years: Broadcast 2.1, a shareware program for the Mac that let users instantly communicate with one or more other active Broadcast users in one or more zones of an AppleTalk network. Being a 2.1 release, I'm sure there were earlier ones....
I beg to differ. Mac multitasking may not be as buzzword compliant as preemptive multitasking, but rest assured that it worked, continues to work in the classic Mac OS, and generally works very well. It does the important thing: lets users have several programs up and running concurrently and switch among them, thereby letting them be productive.
Sure, preemptive multitasking is nicer when you run into a poorly behaved application, but that doesn't mean that concurrent multitasking sucks.
Macs have had multitasking since System 6 and Multifinder, and the reason for such comprehensive APIs is so that every programmer doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.
The Mac has supported multiple monitors since 1987 -- as many as six on a single machine -- and OS X definitely supports multiple monitors. The complaint is that Apple has written the drivers to prevent multiple monitor support on the iBook, not that OS X doesn't support multiple monitors.
Get on the clue train before you comment on things you don't understand. That's just sad.
Looking at maybe $20-25 (Canadian!) per month for a decently fast 24/7 connection with limited bandwidth, $45 or so for typical service, and maybe $80 for a fatter pipe and unlimited use -- it sounds reasonable to me.
I'd gladly pay AT&T Broadband US$50-100 per month for a range of static IPs, unlimited bandwidth use, and a fairly fat pipe (at least 256k), and the right to run servers from home.
No, the problem with P2P isn't as much freeloaders as it is people who post junk content -- like the MP3s with deliberately added noise, wrong labels, etc. The Napster model is free distribution, so the problem comes when people freely distribute bad files.
No, Open Standards don't always win. Granted, the Mac OS has a very small share of the market -- somewhere around that of Linux and other Unix variants combined. Open Standard Linux and BSD have not made a significant dent in the Closed (and Highly Protected) Standard world owned by Microsoft. Apple remains a significant force in the personal computer industry. Without them,who would Microsoft, Dell, Compaq, et al get their new ideas from.;-)
My Power Macintosh G4 Cube is about as quiet as they come. My PowerBook G4 is also quiet most of the time -- unless the cooling fan kicks in (rare). The iMac is also silent.
Or are you only looking at generic Wintel hardware?:-)
I've just received an email from Dan Knight at Low End Mac -- http://lowendmac.com/. He's suggesting webmasters (1) write the bozo at Express.com to express their disappointment with how Express.com fulfills contractual obligations and then (2) tell Express.com we're all ready to get out of their affiliate program (since we can't trust them to pay) and instead push Amazon.com, buy.com, and anyone else who doesn't screw sites. I expect this could be far more effective than whining.:-)
This is about as wrong-headed a move as I can imagine. After all, the leading rumor sources (other than nonsense like my Rumor Mill columns) are Web sites which don't have print editions and don't sell ads to Apple. Not that they wouldn't sell banners to Apple, but Apple doesn't seem to think putting ads on Mac sites would do them any good. So who is going to lose income over this? In the end, Apple and Chiat/Day end up with egg on their collective faces -- and not one rumor monger will stop posting.
Good afternoon, Slashdot, and thanks for liking to my delightful PowerPC G5 rumor hoax. If you'd read the whole article, seen my other articles, and read the Rumor Mill about page, maybe you wouldn't have linked. OTOH, as my publisher notes, it's remarkably easy to create a plausible rumor with absolutely no basis in reality. I've loved your discussion, though, especially the 666 observations. I'll have to put in for a bonus after getting Slashdotted.;-)
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What a bunch of wet blankets. If you're pretty much happy with what you've got, want to learn OS X in preparation for the future, why do so many suggest you dump Old Reliable in favor of an iMac, iBooks, etc.?
I'm assuming you have a reason for wanting to upgrade what you have. Maybe you can't afford $600-1,000 for a nice used blue and white G3. Maybe you have some SCSI peripherals, serial devices, or an ADB sketch tablet you don't want to replace. Whatever, you have your reason for wanting to go this route.
First, upgrade the CPU. There are lots of options with G3 and even G4 ZIF upgrades for under $100. Sure, you can run OS X on a G3/266, but you will find it sluggish. And after you get the faster CPU, experiment with overclocking. A lot of G3s can be pushed to 66 MHz faster, and almost all can go at least 33 MHz faster than rated. Details on overclocking on lowendmac.com among other places.
Second, buy two or three 256 MB sticks of memory. Under $30 each -- check ramseeker.com. This will make the biggest difference of all.
Third, if you still have the stock Apple hard drive, by all means get something faster. The bus in only 16.67 MB/sec., so no need to get the latest and greatest, but the stock Apple drive only uses about 2/3 of the busses potential.
If you buy a drive larger than 8 GB (hard to avoid these days!), YOU WILL HAVE TO PARTITION IT. The first partition must be 8 GB or smaller, and that's the only place you'll be able to install OS X. A bit of a nuisance, but you're trying to avoid the expense of a newer Mac. Drive should be under $60.
Shop around for a copy of Jaguar (OS X 10.2). You can often get it for under $100.
Bear in mind that the beige G3 apparently will not be supported when Panther ships. An unsupported install may be possible, but 10.2 may be the end of the OS road for your vintage G3.
For about $300-350 you can turn your old beige G3 into a faster machine that will perform decently under OS X.
Future upgrades you may want to consider -- but try living with this setup first:
1. A Radeon 7000 video card, about $70. No Quartz Extreme, but far better than what's on the motherboard.
2. A USB/FireWire card. $30 or so -- they are getting cheap.
3. A faster ATA controller. Anything over Ultra66 is overkill on this machine. About $60.
If you plan on going this far, then the others are right. Stop right now and look into at least a blue and white G3 -- faster system bus, Ultra33 drive bus, much better video, includes USB -- or one of the older G4s. $300-350 to get a decent OS X machine isn't unreasonable, but $500 in upgrades and software would be.
Best of luck with your project.
I wrote an article about a *three* screen PowerBook G4 back in November. It actually ran a real operating system with real apps -- okay, it was completely fictional, but that's beside the point. Anne Onymus, Rumor Monger
I found one piece of prior art that predates the ICQ filing by five years: Broadcast 2.1, a shareware program for the Mac that let users instantly communicate with one or more other active Broadcast users in one or more zones of an AppleTalk network. Being a 2.1 release, I'm sure there were earlier ones....
I beg to differ. Mac multitasking may not be as buzzword compliant as preemptive multitasking, but rest assured that it worked, continues to work in the classic Mac OS, and generally works very well. It does the important thing: lets users have several programs up and running concurrently and switch among them, thereby letting them be productive.
Sure, preemptive multitasking is nicer when you run into a poorly behaved application, but that doesn't mean that concurrent multitasking sucks.
Anne
Macs have had multitasking since System 6 and Multifinder, and the reason for such comprehensive APIs is so that every programmer doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.
The Mac has supported multiple monitors since 1987 -- as many as six on a single machine -- and OS X definitely supports multiple monitors. The complaint is that Apple has written the drivers to prevent multiple monitor support on the iBook, not that OS X doesn't support multiple monitors.
Get on the clue train before you comment on things you don't understand. That's just sad.
Anne Onymus, rumor monger
Looking at maybe $20-25 (Canadian!) per month for a decently fast 24/7 connection with limited bandwidth, $45 or so for typical service, and maybe $80 for a fatter pipe and unlimited use -- it sounds reasonable to me.
I'd gladly pay AT&T Broadband US$50-100 per month for a range of static IPs, unlimited bandwidth use, and a fairly fat pipe (at least 256k), and the right to run servers from home.
No, the problem with P2P isn't as much freeloaders as it is people who post junk content -- like the MP3s with deliberately added noise, wrong labels, etc. The Napster model is free distribution, so the problem comes when people freely distribute bad files.
No, Open Standards don't always win. Granted, the Mac OS has a very small share of the market -- somewhere around that of Linux and other Unix variants combined. Open Standard Linux and BSD have not made a significant dent in the Closed (and Highly Protected) Standard world owned by Microsoft. Apple remains a significant force in the personal computer industry. Without them,who would Microsoft, Dell, Compaq, et al get their new ideas from. ;-)
Anne
My Power Macintosh G4 Cube is about as quiet as they come. My PowerBook G4 is also quiet most of the time -- unless the cooling fan kicks in (rare). The iMac is also silent.
:-)
Or are you only looking at generic Wintel hardware?
I've just received an email from Dan Knight at Low End Mac -- http://lowendmac.com/. He's suggesting webmasters (1) write the bozo at Express.com to express their disappointment with how Express.com fulfills contractual obligations and then (2) tell Express.com we're all ready to get out of their affiliate program (since we can't trust them to pay) and instead push Amazon.com, buy.com, and anyone else who doesn't screw sites. I expect this could be far more effective than whining. :-)
This is about as wrong-headed a move as I can imagine. After all, the leading rumor sources (other than nonsense like my Rumor Mill columns) are Web sites which don't have print editions and don't sell ads to Apple. Not that they wouldn't sell banners to Apple, but Apple doesn't seem to think putting ads on Mac sites would do them any good. So who is going to lose income over this? In the end, Apple and Chiat/Day end up with egg on their collective faces -- and not one rumor monger will stop posting.
Count on a lot of the performance hit being due to debugging code. Apple needs to build that extra stuff in to see where things crash.
Good afternoon, Slashdot, and thanks for liking to my delightful PowerPC G5 rumor hoax. If you'd read the whole article, seen my other articles, and read the Rumor Mill about page, maybe you wouldn't have linked. OTOH, as my publisher notes, it's remarkably easy to create a plausible rumor with absolutely no basis in reality. I've loved your discussion, though, especially the 666 observations. I'll have to put in for a bonus after getting Slashdotted. ;-)