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Mac OS 9.1 (OSX 9.1?)

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Shelnutt2

Overclockers Team Content Editor
Joined
Jun 17, 2005
Location
/home/
OK guys a couple things today. I've just brought home a mac computer that runs the Mac OS 9.1 Thats what it says on start up. The last time I touched a Mac was back in 5th grade cause thats what the school computer lab was. I really am just guessing on how to use it. My friend reminded me that the power button is on the keyboard. This is a mac with a tower and monitor not an all in one unit.

So I want to know a few things.

1) How can I retrieve the specs? I don't assuming CPU-Z works on macs?
2) I know its an old power PC mac, but is there anyway I could gets windows 98 running through an emulator?
3) This is going to be used in a pre-K class so they can use games on it, I'm assuming that this is going to be better than the PII 300Mhz they have right now?
4) What about Folding on it. Is it worth it?
5) Anything else I should do or know about that Mac?
 
I would run yellow dog Linux on it myself :D

Small fast and up to date applications, its the best case senario imho
 
UnseenMenace said:
I would run yellow dog Linux on it myself :D

Small fast and up to date applications, its the best case senario imho

But can linux run games like School house rock. Jumpstart and other educational software? I know that some of the games will run on the Mac OS, but I'm not sure about all of them.
 
Shelnutt2 said:
1) How can I retrieve the specs? I don't assuming CPU-Z works on macs?
If you go to the Apple menu (the menu that looks like an Apple, top left of the screen) and click About this Mac (this is all from memory) it will show you the speed and the RAM and some other stuff.

Shelnutt2 said:
2) I know its an old power PC mac, but is there anyway I could gets windows 98 running through an emulator?
Yes, but don't bother. The most CPU intensive applications you can run would be Office applications.

Shelnutt2 said:
3) This is going to be used in a pre-K class so they can use games on it, I'm assuming that this is going to be better than the PII 300Mhz they have right now?
Depends on the specs of the Mac.

Shelnutt2 said:
4) What about Folding on it. Is it worth it?
Probably not.

Shelnutt2 said:
5) Anything else I should do or know about that Mac?
Put OS X on it if possible. OS 9.1 is not "OS X 9.1". OS X refers to the XNU/OpenSTEP/FreeBSD combo that has been around since 2001. OS 9 was the last "classic" Mac OS based on the original Mac operating systems.
 
Last edited:
1) to find out the specs of the Mac go to the Apple menu and look for Apple System Profiler. That program will tell you a few things like the processor speed, disk info, network (if applicable), and loads of info about your system.

You can also look up the serial number on Apple's website. Go to apple.com and click on specifications. That will tell you the model number and take you to a spec page giving some detailed information.

3) I would place any G3 as faster then a PII-300. If it has one of the later PowerPC 604e chips then it might be able to hang with an early PII.

4) G4s make for okay folders but the G3 lacks Altivec so it'll take a performance hit. Anything earlier then a G3 is completely not worth it.

5) If you are content sticking with OS 9 on that machine I suggest finding a disc of OS 9.2.2 if possible, it is more stable then 9.1. 9.2.2 will require a G3 though, as will OS X. If your Mac has a 66 MHz FSB and/or lacks AGP then OS X will feel really slow, especially Jaguar (10.2) and later. If your video card is based on the ATi Rage chipset and you are using OS X then lower your video depth to Thousands of colors as it will speed up the display considerably.
 
Well to my disapointment its a PowerPC 603rev 180Mhz, with 136 Memory (8 onboard with 2X64MB sticks).

So I'm guessing this is no better maybe even worse than the PII-300?

I guess this rules out pretty much an upgrade to OSX, I'll see what they think of edubuntu. The only thing is I put the live CD in the cd drive, but it still starts the MAC OS up. How do I go into what ever version of a bios it has and tell it to boot from CD first?
 
Captain Newbie said:
It completely rules out an upgrade to OSX...as a PowerPC 750 (G3) is required for OS X.

Press and hold C to force a CD-ROM boot attempt.

<-- Stupid Mac Guy. :)


Pressed and held C but it still loaded the Mac OS. I've treid several times.
 
According to that edubuntu link that UnseenMenance posted the live CD requires at least a G3 processor. Depending on the model you may be able to get a G3 upgrade processor for it but I greatly recommend against it. Some enthusiast websites like lowendmac.com will post articles showing the "amazing" modern things you can do on an old Mac like that. Yeah you can use it for "amazing" things like e-mail and web browsing if you want to use incredibly old versions of Mozilla and IE, or iCab (the only classic OS browser still in development, but it is VERY very slow and VERY incompatible with many websites). Other distros of Linux have PPC versions that should work on an old PowerPC Mac like that, but I haven't tried so I can't make any guarantees.

[my opinion]I like Macs, but anything older then a G3 should be thrown away.[/my opinion]
 
benbaked said:
[my opinion]I like Macs, but anything older then a G3 should be thrown away.[/my opinion]

Well I'm not going to throw it away because it work. I'm sure that manny of the older games that work on the P-II 300 will also work on this Mac. A lot of the educational games, jumpstart and such work on both Mac and Windows. That is true becuae most schools back in the 90's and still some today use to have macs.
 
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