Old-Mac Question

zoro

Hey everyone.

As I'm not a mac-head at all, I've no idea as to the relative power of this old mac powerpc compared to a general pentium/athlon machine.

Could someone give me a quick comparison of it please?
Also, what's "Mac OS 7.6.1" like? as in, will it be equal to Windows 95/98, Windows 2000?

Thanks
Daniel

heggie

impossible to compare to a pc, but.. if ya have to, thats kinda like a pre pentium - 486 with win 3.1. Dont get anything now that wont run osx, look for atleast a decent g3 processor.

zoro

Nono, i'm not buying it I found it in my uncles place, just collecting dust ... and ALOT of it

I was told it was comparable to a P2 500mhz, or thereabouts, but I was obviously misinformed
Thanks

Daniel

ZENER

heggie wrote:

impossible to compare to a pc, but.. if ya have to, thats kinda like a pre pentium - 486 with win 3.1. Dont get anything now that wont run osx, look for atleast a decent g3 processor.

Not true !! The 604e was the first generation PowerPC and the forerunner to the G3 and G4 range. I would put them closer to a pentium 2 of equivelant speed but with a better cache arrangement I think. These machines are upgradable to G3 and G4 CPU's and are capable of OSX with said upgrades. Powerlogix and Sonnet make CPU cards for them.

ZEN

zoro

Very interesting ... I was looking at prices, and for about 400/500 american dollars i can upgrade this to a beast of a mac? That's disconcerting considering it's age

CPU: G4, 244
GFX: PCI Radeon 9200, 120
Ram: 256MB, 70

Hard drive would be separate, but my god ... that'd run OSX??

Maoltuile

zoro wrote:

Very interesting ... I was looking at prices, and for about 400/500 american dollars i can upgrade this to a beast of a mac? That's disconcerting considering it's age

CPU: G4, 244
GFX: PCI Radeon 9200, 120
Ram: 256MB, 70

Hard drive would be separate, but my god ... that'd run OSX??

And slap in a Superdrive (aka any Pioneer DVD-R, I'm sure there's a few on Boards) and you're *really* in business ;-)

zoro

wanna do it for me?

jimi_t

Don't even consider updating that powermac for that kind of money! For one, it won't even run OSX with the updates. A pre-requisite of OSX is built in USB, something that your Mac lacks. To even *boot* OSX it'll require a hack called XPostFacto and even with the Sonnet and what not in it, it will be slow and buggy.
Your best hope, if you're seriously considering spending that amount of money on a mac to run OSX, is to buy one of these. It will run OSX out of the box and is easily updatable to a decent standard - the side of the case even flips down on a hinge!

However, don't let me dissuade you. If you're a closet mac enthusiast then you'll have a lot of fun tinkering around with your 8600 - as long as you understand its limitations. That in mind, your first port of call should be applefritter. The single best mac community/forums on the web, these guys have done some amazing hacks and modifications over the years.

RicardoSmith

heggie wrote:

impossible to compare to a pc, but.. if ya have to, thats kinda like a pre pentium - 486 with win 3.1. Dont get anything now that wont run osx, look for atleast a decent g3 processor.

Why make stuff up if you haven't a clue????

Its a PII 500 class machine.
http://my.execpc.com/~yadilos/ics/processors.html

Using OS 7, 8 or 9 is like using windows 98 only nicer in my opinion. But it is different. If you want to play around with it do. I had a 9500 for a while, but I couldn't find anything useful to do with it. I still have some Old Mac software around somewhere if you are looking for something.

http://www.lowendmac.com/ have some good mailing list for PowerMacs. Later Macs are known as G3's or G4's etc.

Heres more links
http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/8600.shtml
http://www.lowendmac.com/evan/04/1124.html

ZENER

Maoltuile wrote:

And slap in a Superdrive (aka any Pioneer DVD-R, I'm sure there's a few on Boards) and you're *really* in business ;-)

Seems I'm wrong about it running OSX although I thought I read somewhere of someone succeeding in doing it. As for the DVD, I could be wrong again,, but didn't this family and generation of Macs all use SCSI devices ?! Is there such a thing as a SCSI Pioneer DVDRW drive ?

Racardosmith wrote:

Why make stuff up if you haven't a clue????

Sorry . . . I've been doing it since I was knee high to a buck-toothed grasshopper !!!

ZEN

RicardoSmith

ZENER wrote:

...Is there such a thing as a SCSI Pioneer DVDRW drive ?
...

Why do you need a SCSI one? IDE is more cost effective.

You can get an IDE drive, or a Sonnet Trio Firewire/USB2 and ATA133 all on the same card. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_trio.html They have a PCI SATA card now aswell.

Because these old machines have loads of PCI and RAM slots, theres very little you can't do with them. If you have one stuffed with ram and some legacy apps or hardware then sometime it a good idea to hold on to them, or use as a Apple Server or Linux etc.

You can run Yellow Dog Linux on them too. I have an old copy of v2.3 somewhere. Installed fine on a 9500/200(64mb ram) I had for a while. But quite slow. http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/hardware/others.shtml

However its not cost effective to buy one then upgrade it when you can buy a G3 imac or Blue & White PCI mac for about the same as the upgrades for the PowerMac (8600 etc).


But if you get it free, (as in this case) then its a nice toy to play with.

zoro - if you decide you want rid of it, I might be interested. I have some older Mac which I have as toys, mainly because I always wanted them, even though I don;t use them for anything useful.

Maoltuile

ZENER wrote:

Seems I'm wrong about it running OSX although I thought I read somewhere of someone succeeding in doing it. As for the DVD, I could be wrong again,, but didn't this family and generation of Macs all use SCSI devices ?! Is there such a thing as a SCSI Pioneer DVDRW drive ?

Never heard of one. You're right, I had forgotten about the SCSI (before my time, being a Switcher ;-) but OWC etc. do add-in cards at a good price (even with the VAT).

OTOH, I believe that G4 iMacs are going on Buyandsell.ie for under €700...

Hugh_C

zoro wrote:

Also, what's "Mac OS 7.6.1" like? as in, will it be equal to Windows 95/98, Windows 2000?

Thanks
Daniel

OS 7.6.1 is, in short, a dog. There has been OS 8, 9 and three revisions of OS X since then. OS X is the only way to go, and it seems your box would be seriously difficult to instal X on. Don't do it.

H

RicardoSmith

hughchal wrote:

OS 7.6.1 is, in short, a dog. There has been OS 8, 9 and three revisions of OS X since then. OS X is the only way to go, and it seems your box would be seriously difficult to instal X on. Don't do it.

H

Usually when you say "a dog" its taken to mean it will run very slow. Whereas I've always found that the older Mac OS run a lot faster (on older hardware) than the newer one. So in this case OS 9 would run a lot better than OS X on this machine. 8 and 7 would be faster, but the extra functionality in 9 is worth the penalty.

Heres an article you might find interesting.
http://www.kuckuk.com/public/tn/tn0015.html