Perfect boxed iMac G3 I got for free, Part 4/4

Now we'll demonstrate a piece of Macintosh software I have on CD-ROM, boot into Mac OS 9, screw around with the text-to-speech software built into Mac OS 9, and I even give a little critique on an MTV program.

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[rkmugen]

Sheepshaver, a PPC emulator, which runs on Windows PC's, Intel Macs... and on PPC Macs (OS X only... it won't work on any PPC version of Linux), is another alternative to "Classic", but you'd need access to a Mac Rom, which might be more trouble than its worth to set up and extract... plus, if you don't have the full 1GB of RAM installed, it will really bog everything down. (i thought it's still worth mentioning...)

[themaritimeman]

@rkmugen Ah yes, I used to play with SheepShaver on Windows. I don't see the point of SheepShaver on a G3 Mac when I can use Classic, though...

[rkmugen]

@themaritimeman Well... Sheepshaver on a G3 Mac, under OSX could be a decent alternative if you didn't *initially* install OS9 and then have upgraded to either Panther or Tiger (on top of OS9). From my understanding, Classic would only be useable if you already have a working OS9 folder on the same drive or on a totally separate partition. If you only have one partition (for OSX), and Classic asks you to install OS9... the OS9 installer won't let you install on that OSX partition.

[themaritimeman]

@rkmugen Ah, I didn't know that! In that case, I suppose I'll slap OS 9 itself back on this thing! I liked to play with it once in a while, anyway.

[rkmugen]

Try GIMP for graphics, Inkscape for vector graphics, and LibreOffice for word-processing/spreadsheets..­. in place of Photoshop/Illustrator/MS Office respectively. Best part, they're free, they're constantly kept up to date (as of 2012) and work pretty solid on Tiger. But given the age of the G3, expect them to start up rather slow... but after the initial loading time for those apps, they work fine.

You might consider installing Classic to "get at" your OS9 apps without needing to reboot...

[themaritimeman]

@rkmugen I have Microsoft Office 2008 installed now, it seems to run pretty good. I have Classic installed, I just wanted to demonstrate OS 9. OS X is the sole OS on this machine now.

[rkmugen]

While the obvious out-of-date nature of Flash for PPC (on OS X or even Linux for PPC) is an inescapable issue, I'd still like to recommend TenFourFox as a solid browser alternative to the out-dated version of Safari, and also because the official Firefox is no longer being made for OSX/PPC.

Classilla is made by the same folks that made TenFourFox, and will do a HELL of a lot better job than iCab. It's only a tad faster than iCab however, from personal experience... and I have the same iMac...

[IBMThinkPadR51]

@themaritimeman I read an article on Low End Mac where you can download a utility called 'LeopardAssist'. What it does is fake out the CPU clock speed to 867 MHz on any machine below 867 MHz and that allows the installer to run. When finished installing, the speed returns to normal and works fine. My eMac should run it fine, although I might bump up the RAM a bit. The sleep and screen saver issues were with I think Power Mac G4s and G4 Cubes. I'm not sure though.

[themaritimeman]

@crogeek The Rage 128 Pro was sold all over the world where ATI retailed their products, was also both 2D and 3D accelerated, and also had SDRAM.

The GPU in this is called a Rage 128 Ultra, which I can find no information on by Googling. It appears to have all the same specs as the Rage 128 Pro, so I'm wondering if it is the same chip, renamed for the Macintosh market or something.

[crogeek]

ATI rage pro was made in Canada - this graph. card is actually 2d/3d one with I believe SD-RAM on it.