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I use my iMac during weekend because I leave my laptop (for work and school) in Bratislava. I noticed that sometimes it needs more RAM - especially during browsing and listening to music, reading e-mails, etc. So I have bought another 512 MB SDRAM module for my iMac G3. Now I have 2 x 512 MB SDRAM Kingston modules inside. After few hourse of using full capacity of RAM I can say it is a bit helpful. Geekbench score is higher about 6 points - 266 . Dashboard is still off because it needs a big amount of RAM and I don't need it, but with 1 GB RAM it can be turned on without a significant lack of RAM. iMac is now almost in its full potential (no Wi-Fi card). It makes a good service for me. For easy browsing, listening, reading, watching - it is a truly good machine.

Since I have bought my iMac I knew that it is not a very fast version. But because of availability of 350 MHz G3 CPU's I decided to buy this one and see how does it work. After a while there was one thing I didn't like. No FireWire means no Mac OS X Tiger. I used XPostFacto, but still it was not something I like. I looked for many sites how to upgrade your old iMac. CPU upgrade is not reasonable these days - it is very expensive, you can buy a better machine for that price. So only option for me was to find a cheap logic board and replace the old one. I knew about the issues with incompatibility but I risked it. I found one logicboard in NYC. But after a few days, it was only 400 MHz instead of 600 Mhz and I didn't want so little increase of power. Then I found 500 Mhz G3 on eBay in Canada only for 35$. My friend in the USA bought it for me and I waited until Christmas for this delivery. I was not sure if it will work but I wanted to risk it. The most import...

So my goal to install Mac OS X Tiger has come true. Firstly I needed Tiger on CD's and that was a big problem because you can buy Tiger mostly on DVD although there are also some CD versions but very expensive. But I was lucky because friend of my friend, Neuromanc, lent me this very rare 4-CD version. So thanks again :-). My iMac is not officially supported because it has no FireWire. But you can override this with software XPostFacto . I downloaded and installed the latest version so I could use it with Mac OS X 10.3 (the previous versions worked only with OS 9). I erased HDD entirely before the installation just to be sure. After first restart the installation continued from other CD's. The installation process took approximately one hour and ran without problem. After registration the update process started-up and took another hour or more. It was repeated several times ma inly due to Java updates. Then finally I could download software and this time the latest versions. I ...

Software for Mac OS X 10.3.9 is usually old and not supported. That was the first thing I noticed. Another reason to go for Tiger. I had to search old releases and sometimes I found only Windows versions. And sometimes I had to experiment - will it work or not? Internet Of course I tried Safari in latest version for Mac OS X 10.3.9. The speed was accepatble but untill I visited pages with Flash (ver 9 for Panther) or JavaScript. I can say that the Safari was unusable. I had to wait too long. My next steps were of course for Firefox. Unfortunately I couldn't download latest version for Panther, only version 2. This version was slower than current version that I have on Windows, so I didn't dowload this old release. To the contrary, I could download the latest Opera browser. It worked well but still slow with Flash and JavaScript. I searched again and I found Camino . It is something like Firefox but only for Macs. I could download the latest version again, what was great. I vi...

Today is one week since I have bought my iMac G3. I tried to work with Mac OS 9 a little bit and I thought this system fits on old iMacs perfectly and also that it is the fastest option. After one day of using Mac OS X I can say that I was completely wrong. I didn't like Mac OS 9. The main reason was that it was not an UNIX-like system. I didn't know that before and I looked for terminal and there was nothing. Although OS 9 was fast, web browsing was awful. Only one good web browser I had was Internet Explorer and the formatting was ... Well, current web or web 2.0 is something else than 10 years ago. Before buying iMac I was decided that I want Mac OS X. I didn't know which version but I was aware that my iMac is really old machine and I didn't expect smoothness and speed. According to Apple, only 10.3 Panther is officially supported on my iMac. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger runs also on G3 but it needs FireWire and usually it is on DVD. So I looked for some Mac OS X versions on...

RAM upgrade After Mac OS 9 updates I started to use this system. But after a short while I realized that I really need more RAM. It was almost impossible to work with more than one application. Therefore I was decided to buy 512 MB RAM. I knew about one small shop with old computers on Favoritenstrasse (U6: between Taubstummengasse and Südtiroler Platz). I went there and asked about SDRAM PC100. Old but nice guy showed me some 512 MB modules for about 30 €. I didn't have so much money with me at that moment and I also wanted to visit that Mac shop once more. So I left the shop and forgot my umbrella there. That Mac shop offered me the same kind of RAM for about 45-50 €. Hmm, .... No thanks. I went to my room and picked some money from bankomat. I returned to the computer shop and the seller offered me (except my umbrella - for free of course) one module for 24 €. It has not been tested yet. I have bought it and put in my iMac - and nothing happened. Bad, but I had to go to the scho...

Why have I for God's sake bought an old slow iMac G3? 10 years old machine, small amount of RAM, CPU with insufficient speed, .... Well, because it's Mac. I made some hackintosh experiments with Mac OS X on my laptop, it worked but it was not Mac. At that time I started to like Apple. I have found this iMac on Austrian eBay . But before that I had found a Mac shop with all kind of Macs and spare parts. The prices there were astronomical. My iMac costed 50 € and a week ago iMac 600 was sold for 74 €. The prices in that shop were approximately 200 € and more. I had to wait more than one week but I have read some articles about iMac G3 during that time. Great website for every owner of old and/or low end Mac: http://lowendmac.com/ So, what's the configuration of my iMac? CPU - Power G3 350 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, 7 GB HDD, Slot loading CD ROM D1-5.5.1 - more info on this Apple's page . And it's blue. Body, keyboard and mouse look very nice, without scratches or visible damag...