My first Mac! (A classic).

[danamania]

From memory the 6100 is one of those beige macs that needs a powertoggle to get started when the internal battery is flat.

Turn it on for about 10 seconds, with its black screen and non-booting, then turn it off/on quickly. If all goes well, it should boot up with a display.

[tokyoracer]

From memory the 6100 is one of those beige macs that needs a powertoggle to get started when the internal battery is flat.

Turn it on for about 10 seconds, with its black screen and non-booting, then turn it off/on quickly. If all goes well, it should boot up with a display.

She boots! Thanks danamania!

EDIT: So far as I can tell it runs pretty smooth and quick. Il still be hunting for upgrades though (if any).

[smerf]

Hi,

@tokyoracer

Hey man, Wayne is totally right, I shouldn't have down played your MAC, I hate apple computers for several different reasons, none of which have to do with computing, just personnal reasons of some of the people who owned them in the past. I really know jack about any apple product. Anyhow I have a whole bunch of vintige computers that I pick up cheap at flea markets, or yard sales. I recently bought a 233 mhz toshiba laptop and a 450 mhz micronpc transport lite II, both for $30.

Enjoy your MAC and don't let anyone ride you (like me) for buying vintige computers. I have more fun with the vintige stuff than I do with my quadcore super gamming computer. It is a lot of fun looking for software, tips on using your model of computer etc.

I sort of used your post to troll for the mac fans, I forgot that Wayne owned a MAC.

Sorry Wayne (still friends I hope)

Hey enjoy your computer, have fun with it, it will be a new experience finding things out about it. Maybe someday I will buy an old mac just to see what it can do, but right now I am having fun with two ancient laptops. Once again sorry, sometimes I get carried away and insert foot into mouth and forget that computer where meant to be fun.

smerf

[Floid]

No there is RAM located in the 2 slots in the middle of the motherboard (both are used) and there is 2 slots on the left hand side of the motherboard (of which 1 is free).
As for the Command-Opt-P-R trick", sorry if im being a bit thick here but if thats a keyboard input then im not sure were them keys are.

Forgot all about the 'breaking glass' (no RAM/hardware fault) vs. 'happy ding' sound - again, how much did that add to the cost back when singing greeting cards cost $20?  That power toggle trick was a similar concept.  A little Googling confirms the battery is a replaceable lithium, so you won't have to worry about leaks but might want to find a replacement if it forces you to do this dance every time you want to boot it.

Now that you've proved it wasn't gutted, you probably want to see if you can find the Apple System Profiler somewhere on it and check whether it's bone stock or already has some sort of CPU upgrade.  Though that might be hard to miss on those models, if you've opened it to check the RAM.

[amigadave]

She boots! Thanks danamania!

EDIT: So far as I can tell it runs pretty smooth and quick. Il still be hunting for upgrades though (if any).

Good call danamania!  Congrats tokyoracer, enjoy your new toy.

[adolescent]

I had great fun with my Beige G3 but I ended up giving it away to a friend because it wasn't used as much as my PC.  

My advice: I woudln't try to make your old Mac anything it isn't.  It is far cheaper to just buy a newer Mac to run newer Mac software.  But, if you want to run software from the mid 90's then you have the right hardware.

[inquisitiv]

yeah, that is why I have the 7200/120, a long time ago I purchased a synthesizer that came with some mac midi software that only runs in the older computers (upgrading the software to the new versions is costly) - I had the Amiga gear for midi but it was overkill for my purposes so that was sold a while back.

Good luck with your purchase.

[tokyoracer]

Hi,

@tokyoracer

Hey man, Wayne is totally right, I shouldn't have down played your MAC, I hate apple computers for several different reasons, none of which have to do with computing, just personnal reasons of some of the people who owned them in the past. I really know jack about any apple product. Anyhow I have a whole bunch of vintige computers that I pick up cheap at flea markets, or yard sales. I recently bought a 233 mhz toshiba laptop and a 450 mhz micronpc transport lite II, both for $30.

Enjoy your MAC and don't let anyone ride you (like me) for buying vintige computers. I have more fun with the vintige stuff than I do with my quadcore super gamming computer. It is a lot of fun looking for software, tips on using your model of computer etc.

I sort of used your post to troll for the mac fans, I forgot that Wayne owned a MAC.

Sorry Wayne (still friends I hope)

Hey enjoy your computer, have fun with it, it will be a new experience finding things out about it. Maybe someday I will buy an old mac just to see what it can do, but right now I am having fun with two ancient laptops. Once again sorry, sometimes I get carried away and insert foot into mouth and forget that computer where meant to be fun.

smerf

Dont worry about it smerf, im not well up on this and you (and others) have pointed out this one was a bit of a basic model. Though it is not my intentions to keep it like that. Your totally forgiven.

Forgot all about the 'breaking glass' (no RAM/hardware fault) vs. 'happy ding' sound - again, how much did that add to the cost back when singing greeting cards cost $20?  That power toggle trick was a similar concept.  A little Googling confirms the battery is a replaceable lithium, so you won't have to worry about leaks but might want to find a replacement if it forces you to do this dance every time you want to boot it.

Now that you've proved it wasn't gutted, you probably want to see if you can find the Apple System Profiler somewhere on it and check whether it's bone stock or already has some sort of CPU upgrade.  Though that might be hard to miss on those models, if you've opened it to check the RAM.

Well I know it has 16Mb of SIMM RAM but as that sort of RAM is dirt cheap I may aswell get 32Mb worth of the same make (the maximum). I will look on the Profiler and let you know the spec...
[EDIT] I cant find that "Apple System Profiler" software anywhere on the system. The only hardware spec I know is that it's a 60Hz PPC and has 16Mb of RAM.

[danamania]

If it's a version of the OS that has Apple System Profiler, it'll be under the Apple menu. As for RAM, they take a good deal more than Apple 'officially' supported. When later 128MB SIMMs appeared, they worked fine, for up to 256MB (I have that configuration in one of my 6100/66s)

Standard, they have some pretty slow graphics, and perhaps the best upgrade for them if you're able to find one cheap, is one of Apple's PDS graphics cards. The PDS (processor direct slot) is the one on the far left of the machine, and needs a riser card to fit the graphics card. You can also get NuBus adaptors that turn the PDS into a NuBus slot, and use a higher performance NuBus graphics card in them - both options are way quicker than the standard graphics. Best option all up would be one of the G3 accelerator cards built as a riser card - it's about 1.5inches high, 8 inches long, and some models allow you to use both higher performance graphics along with the G3.

They're not really a well-collectable machine, though I love the large pizzabox shape!. If you want specs, peek on http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ - and for a bunch of useful folk 68kmla.net has plenty of beige mac addicts who may be useful for sourcing parts

[Daedalus]

It's a while since I powered my one on, but it might not be called "System Profiler"... I think mine just has "About this Mac..." in the Apple menu, and from there you can click more info or something along those lines.

[recidivist]

You really want to get hold of  a later ,more standard model for ease of finding "kit";the  7200 was my first PowerMac but the 7500 or 7600 are better since they can  take more upgrading,and there are Beige G3s that should still be very cheap yet when stuffed with RAM,and a CPU upgrade are pretty powerful.And they will use your current keyboard,mouse and monitor.Plus you can network Macs easily and upgrading the OS to System 7.5.5 is free.I don't know how much shipping is to jolly ol England but perhaps a better PowerMac could find its way to you for the cost of shipping and packing

Some people forget that the older computer can still do everything it did when it was the neweset,latest,and greatest machine!Some old computers made by a company called Commodore  come to mind.

The  biggest stumbling block is that current websites often demand current versions of web browsers which demand current cpus and current OS----if not for that I would likely still be using my Mac IIci
 as it did everything I thought I wanted...especially since I wasn't concerned with  megapixel photos and full-screen streaming videos!(Actually  at 1.2 to 1.5 M DSL ,I still don't do  much video,but 14.4 dial-up  did surprisingly well in a TINY Quicktime window.Ahhhh,progress.)

[Floid]

You really want to get hold of  a later ,more standard model for ease of finding "kit";the  7200 was my first PowerMac but the 7500 or 7600 are better since they can  take more upgrading,and there are Beige G3s that should still be very cheap yet when stuffed with RAM,and a CPU upgrade are pretty powerful.And they will use your current keyboard,mouse and monitor.Plus you can network Macs easily and upgrading the OS to System 7.5.5 is free.I don't know how much shipping is to jolly ol England but perhaps a better PowerMac could find its way to you for the cost of shipping and packing

Some people forget that the older computer can still do everything it did when it was the neweset,latest,and greatest machine!Some old computers made by a company called Commodore  come to mind.

The  biggest stumbling block is that current websites often demand current versions of web browsers which demand current cpus and current OS----if not for that I would likely still be using my Mac IIci
 as it did everything I thought I wanted...especially since I wasn't concerned with  megapixel photos and full-screen streaming videos!(Actually  at 1.2 to 1.5 M DSL ,I still don't do  much video,but 14.4 dial-up  did surprisingly well in a TINY Quicktime window.Ahhhh,progress.)

It's worth noting that the early New World machines are pretty much cheap-to-free now (including all those discarded iMacs) and a bit less of a dog to cram OS X (and PowerPC flavors of Linux) onto.  Unless I'm unaware of a world of PPC software that doesn't run under OS8/OS9, those are probably the most versatile (and least-slow) ones to try to score.  If going that route, do keep track of whichever hardware was the cutoff for OS9 support, if the point is to poke around the classic OS.

[Daedalus]

Even if you do have post-OS9 hardware, if it has OSX on it you can still boot classic mode, and many machines from that time will have it seeing as most of the software already available was for classic.

[gertsy]

I had a power mac, left it by the kerb side hoping somebody would take it, no one did, so I left it by an OP-shop after they closed....

Ya wally persia. They probably had to pay to get rid of it...

[recidivist]

Around here G3 (CRT) iMac can be had for $20 and up;a  graphics company is selling their old 700 MHz  ones for $75  with Mac OSX4.11 installed;those will also run older MAC OS.
 The CRT reall adds weight,i.e. costs more to ship.
 For the "classic" Mac hobyist want ing  a neat modern Mac,the  eMac  CRT  sold in a 17 inch screen with 1.25 GHz PPC,and is a great Mac for $100 to $150.(But IBM leavings are even cheaper;got another  2.4 GHz Celeron  tower WITH valid XP license,512 ram,harddrive,wireless card for $15 at the thrift store last week.)Hobby computing doesn't have to be expensive(so says the guy who has spent  $1000 on Amiga stuff this year-it's an addiction!)

 For those who find the Mac discussion distasteful,remember the ads in the British AMIGA mags  that encouraged users to move to Mac after the various bankruptcies since no new Amiga models or stock was forthcoming? Some Mac models promoted as Amiga replacements were  even pre-PPC!

 I STILL want AOS or MorphOS or Amiga Forever (Mac) !!!

[tokyoracer]

Finally got picures of it!

The Unit - http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Solvalu/IMG_3107.jpg

The Monitor - http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Solvalu/IMG_3109.jpg