iMac G3 OS

[paulwilco]

Hi everyone,

I am pretty ignorant when it come to Macs so i do apologize!

I have recently acquired an iMac G3, its a very early one, it says 1998 on the information label. It is currently running Mac OS 8.1. I would like to upgrade it to OSX 10.4 which it think is the latest OS compatible with the G3. My question is how?! i have done some research but haven't come across anything conclusive/I understand. Is it a case of just waiting on eBay until an original CD comes up? I know files can be transferred over firewire to the mac but i don't have the facilities to do that, can you upgrade from a usb drive?

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks very much.

 

[bobesch]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

Could You post more details about the iMac?
- Color
- optical drive in working condition? (Tray-Loader or Slot-Loader?)
- how much RAM and size of the HDD?
- FireWire400-socket?
USB on the iMacG3 is USB1, so speed is abysmal for hooking up a USB-optica-drive for installation (and I don't even know, if the will work at all). If you owe any other intel/PPC-Mac with FireWire you might start that in TargetDisk-mode and access it (and it's optical-drive) through FireWire.
You may find Tiger here. It could be installed onto the same partition like os8/9 and you can choose on startup wether to boot from os8/9 or Tiger.

You may also first upgrade the iMac to os9.22 and check out os9 capabilities and performance.
Here's my list of favourite Apps for os9-productivity software: #9
After upgrading to os9 first go for installation of Classilla-browser. Then You can access MacintoshGarden in order to download more software. You'll need StuffIt-Expander (which is included in the os9 installation) and Toast5 (which You can get from MacintoshGarden) to extract archives and mount image-files.

You can also look for more information at the The G3 Workstation Wiki!

Cheers, Bob

PS: there's a larger audience at the PowerPC Macs subforum, if You're looking for more help ...

 

[paulwilco]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your reply, i do apologise i have only just seen it!

The Mac is a Bondi Blue, its dated August 1998
Its a tray loading drive which works but is a bit slow to eject. I don't have any compatible CD-Roms to test it.
It has two USB ports but no firewire.
Not sure about memory and HDD, i don't have it set up at the moment but i will find out.
I suppose if it doesn't have fire wire my only option is to upgrade from a CD?

 

[bobesch]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your reply, i do apologise i have only just seen it!

No bother at all ...

The Mac is a Bondi Blue, its dated August 1998
Its a tray loading drive which works but is a bit slow to eject. I don't have any compatible CD-Roms to test it.
It has two USB ports but no firewire.
Not sure about memory and HDD, i don't have it set up at the moment but i will find out.
I suppose if it doesn't have fire wire my only option is to upgrade from a CD?

Oh, great, it the original Bondi!
BTW: Did it come with the original keyboard and the hockey-puck-mouse (without the deepening at the mouse button, which was added to the following iMac-versions for better haptic)

But You may only install Panther onto the original Bondi.
My only reason for Tiger on an iMac is the option to run the "OpenXMLConverter" to convert docx/xlsx files to doc/xls.

 

[bunnspecial]

First of all, you will need a set of 10.4 CDs. Note that the original retail disk was a DVD. For those who needed CDs, the DVD could be exchanged(the original Tiger CDs I have, aside from my retail boxed copy of 10.4 server, are plain white CD-Rs that I'm guessing were probably burned in store as needed).

With that said, both the CD and DVD images are out there on the web. I don't think we're allowed to give specifics on here, but they can be found with some search.

As mentioned, the non-Firewire iMacs can only run 10.3 officially at maximum. 10.4 works well but you will need to use Xpostfacto to install https://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto.html

All of that said, the first gen Bondi iMacs were honestly not great computers. They had relatively slow CPUs, slow RAM, and couldn't hold that much of it. I THINK that they're capped at 384mb(newer tray load iMacs can take 512mb and slot loaders can take 1gb). I have a couple of Bondi machines and I actually run OS 8.1 on them as it's light and feels fast. You can easily go up to OS 9.2.2 for better software support and not too much of a performance hit. OS 8.6 is a nice middle ground with some really handy improvements(like support for USB mass storage-in OS 8.1 USB is pretty much just for peripherals) and somewhat better software support but still very light.

The may be unpopular, but as someone who has plenty of old Macs to play around with, I really don't run OS X on G3s and consider that more the domain of G4 and G5s.

 

[paulwilco]

No bother at all ...

Oh, great, it the original Bondi!
BTW: Did it come with the original keyboard and the hockey-puck-mouse (without the deepening at the mouse button, which was added to the following iMac-versions for better haptic)

But You may only install Panther onto the original Bondi.
My only reason for Tiger on an iMac is the option to run the "OpenXMLConverter" to convert docx/xlsx files to doc/xls.

It didn't come with anything, it was sitting outside a museum for free, it had a label on saying it didn't switch on. My sons would not let us go home without taking it!

When i got it home and tested it it switched on and booted up straight away. I found an original bondi blue mouse and keyboard on ebay. I dont really have any experience of macs so im not really sure what to do with it! my first instinct was to try and upgrade the OS.

First of all, you will need a set of 10.4 CDs. Note that the original retail disk was a DVD. For those who needed CDs, the DVD could be exchanged(the original Tiger CDs I have, aside from my retail boxed copy of 10.4 server, are plain white CD-Rs that I'm guessing were probably burned in store as needed).

With that said, both the CD and DVD images are out there on the web. I don't think we're allowed to give specifics on here, but they can be found with some search.

As mentioned, the non-Firewire iMacs can only run 10.3 officially at maximum. 10.4 works well but you will need to use Xpostfacto to install https://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto.html

All of that said, the first gen Bondi iMacs were honestly not great computers. They had relatively slow CPUs, slow RAM, and couldn't hold that much of it. I THINK that they're capped at 384mb(newer tray load iMacs can take 512mb and slot loaders can take 1gb). I have a couple of Bondi machines and I actually run OS 8.1 on them as it's light and feels fast. You can easily go up to OS 9.2.2 for better software support and not too much of a performance hit. OS 8.6 is a nice middle ground with some really handy improvements(like support for USB mass storage-in OS 8.1 USB is pretty much just for peripherals) and somewhat better software support but still very light.

The may be unpopular, but as someone who has plenty of old Macs to play around with, I really don't run OS X on G3s and consider that more the domain of G4 and G5s.

If i manage to find an image of an OS online can i burn it to a CD using a PC?

Ive read about how the original Bondi Blue Macs are pretty weak and Apple quickly improved them. It look nice though!

 

[bunnspecial]

If i manage to find an image of an OS online can i burn it to a CD using a PC?

Ive read about how the original Bondi Blue Macs are pretty weak and Apple quickly improved them. It look nice though!

Most likely the image you find will be a .dmg, which is an Apple disk image. These are simple and convenient to handle in OS X. A quick Google search tells me that there are PC programs that can handle .dmg . If you turn it up as a .iso file, you should be fine. Sometimes you'll find disk images as a .toast file, in which case you need the burning program Toast to mount/burn it. I'm honestly not sure if Toast is cross platform or not, but Toast files often turn up on archive sites for OS 9 and earlier programs.

And check your PMs...

 

[bobesch]

The may be unpopular, but as someone who has plenty of old Macs to play around with, I really don't run OS X on G3s and consider that more the domain of G4 and G5s.

Yep! Best fun is to run os8/9 on the Bondi!
And get connected to more capable machines. 😍

 

[bobesch]

It didn't come with anything, it was sitting outside a museum for free, it had a label on saying it didn't switch on. My sons would not let us go home without taking it!

When i got it home and tested it it switched on and booted up straight away. I found an original bondi blue mouse and keyboard on ebay. I dont really have any experience of macs so im not really sure what to do with it! my first instinct was to try and upgrade the OS.

If i manage to find an image of an OS online can i burn it to a CD using a PC?

Ive read about how the original Bondi Blue Macs are pretty weak and Apple quickly improved them. It look nice though!

Oh, lucky You: that very special moment of picking up such a find together with Your boys is priceless.
Having the fitting Bondi KB&Mouse is also something special. I like that color most, when it comes to the G3-iMacs.
I would stay with os8/9 and put effort into networking, Screen&FileSharing. That's good fun and won't overstrech the Power of this first iMacG3 model.
The "Missing Manual for macOS9" from David Pogue is a good companion.
For WLAN a (Vonets) WLAN-Ethernet-Bridge is the best option, if the next ethernet-socket is out of reach, but You have to sacrify the second USB-socket or use a USB-charger to power the WLAN-Ethernet Bridge.
You can find all versions of os9 at MacintoshGarden. Unfortunately a working internal CD-drive is mission-critical!
Have much fun!!!

 

[bunnspecial]

I would stay with os8/9 and put effort into networking, Screen&FileSharing. That's good fun and won't overstrech the Power of this first iMacG3 model.

One of the things I love about the Bondi iMacs is that they have IrDA support built in to them.

Admittedly I've mostly used IrDA with my PowerBook 2400c, for which I don't have a CD or floppy drive, but it's present on quite a few Apple PowerBooks up through the TiBooks. If you have any 90s era PDAs(including the Newton) or some other devices along those lines, it can be just the ticket to use those. It's also on some PC laptops(I have a Compaq Armada 4130T that has it).

It's a slow piece of legacy technology, but still to me fun and interesting and is super simple to use in OS 8/9.

I found a few articles on using it in OS X, but my recollection of using it is that it's simple and "just works" in OS 9 and earlier, and OS X is a fair bit more involved.

 

[paulwilco]

Yeah it was great to see them excited about it! Older technology is much more interesting to look at than yet another iPhone or pc, the Bondi blue iMac is pretty iconic.

Thanks for all the info, it's going to take a bit of time to get my head around it. I'm a volunteer in a vintage computer room at my local museum, my next task is to get an g4 iMac working so I'll probably be posting about that next!

Thanks again.