mac 7500

[Floid]

LowEndMac has the goods.

Might be good enough for YellowDog Linux or NetBSD, but you may need a new CPU card.  Would be worth seeing if one's installed, as they open easily; it's up to you to figure out how to identify it (Apple System Profiler might work if it boots, and runs a System including such).

RAM is confusing to find but probably cheap if you patiently stalk eBay.  (These take 5V FPM DIMMs, I think, with EDO probably 'good enough' if you can find it in 5V?  Don't trust me on this.)

Depends what you want to do with it.  If you want a cheap PowerPC box, probably destined for Linux or BSD, sure (but do note the CPU upgrade + RAM costs).  People *have* wedged OS X onto these (also with CPU upgrade + RAM), but if you actually want to run OS X, an iMac of any flavor will be cheaper and faster.

[Floid]

Again for the 9500, LowEndMac has the goods.  Probably a better deal; definitely uses FPM/EDO DIMMs (**NOT** SDRAM).

18004memory.com had some cheap EDO DIMMs that may/may not have worked a while back; dunno about the voltage.  Depending what UK shops get for them, airmail might still make it cheaper.  (Was something like $5/stick for 128MB or somesuch.)

Um,
More info on the 9500's memory.

The Beige G3 is simply called the "Beige G3" (The 'Gossamer' and 'Artemis(??not sure)', also found as the pre-iMac All-In-One); none of the numbered desktops shipped with a G3/G4 originally as far as I know.  In the case of the Beige G3's board, it came with a power-supply select jumper for "PS <-> Mac," the former position being used in the tower versions, and *appearing* to be a standard ATX supply.  (However, as both it and the desktop supplies must've used the same ATX-style connector, this is no guarantee that it *is* ATX or that ATX would work even on that particular machine.  I'm not going to worry about it until the supply dies.)

Some nice 9500 info.

Some nice 7500 info.

9500s don't use standard ATX supplies.

Here's the tutorial that includes instructions on converting an ATX supply/to an ATX case.

Okay, the *Beige G3* is indeed ATX-capable.

[Floid]

-D- wrote:
From what I understand the 7500's can be
completely upgraded with decently fast
G4's and good video cards. I'm not sure how
they would run OSX...but with a fast
accelerator and video (along with drives/etc),
they should run nicely. If I recall, you can
upgrade the "backside" cahce that among other
things may help for better speed with OSX etc...
but I'm not sure on those details.

You can certainly use any PCI video card available in a Mac edition (or flashable to same in a PC; dunno which you can do that to, or if you strictly need the 'Mac Edition' ROMs; probably don't with Linux?), and you can certainly add a better processor.  Thing is, OS X doesn't have support for the floppy, and has or had weird/twisted issues with things like the internal SCSI or IDE controllers on some models (I forget which; the Beige G3 is the only one 'supposed' to be supported, but apparently it actually fares worse in compatibility than some other models?  And nobody seems to keep track of what archaic support issues have been fixed in 10.1/10.2..)  Then you've got to wonder about issues specific to certain models- e.g., some Beige G3s couldn't handle a master/slave configuration on the IDE chains, which was fixed in a later ROM revision, but the ROM may or may not have been covering for a data-corruption bug in the earlier mainboard revision... and OS X may or may not 'patch over' such ROM bugs anyway, but you may still run into trouble during the boot process (if you want to boot from a device the ROM can't see at boot)...

Contrast this to an iMac or a Blue-and-White tower, where you can *probably* use standard generic 256MB SDRAM DIMMs*, and OS X will just plug'n'play, maybe even with Quartz Extreme accelleration.

I'm certainly not one to cry out against tinkering, but it depends- if you want a stable system that's guaranteed to work with it, curse Jobs and buy a supported model; if you want to tinker (or run Linux/a real BSD ), or just run Classic, and possible OS X support would just be a bonus, get something with a PCI cage for the same money.

(On eBay, iMacs are finally undercutting used Beige G3s in price, the difference being that Beige G3s were the A4000 of the Apple scene, while iMacs were, of course, the A500s/A600s of the current generation.  Most teaching institutions are still using their Beige G3s, especially since Quark still hasn't released for X- but once that happens, and/or they ship a 970-based machine, Beiges will probably once again be the cheapest G3 you can own.)

That said, there's not a 'lot' of difference between the G3 and 604e; some info is buried here.