*Have* a G3 Powerbook...

[odin]

I'm looking into buying a secondhand PowerBook (WallStreet). I was wondering if anyone here has experienced using such a machine and how usable they still are in this day and age for some webbrowsing, typing and MP3 playing using OS X. Are they dog slow or is it still quite pleasant to use one of these beasts?

[Karlos]

I dunno how they compare in hardware terms but OSX (10.2) was a total pain on the old 400MHz G3 iMac thing I had to use at work before.

[odin]

Hmmm, but aren't you a bit prejudiced being the world's biggest mac-hater? ;-).

Seriously though, was this MHz related or more a matter of (RAM)size?

[Karlos]

odin wrote:
Hmmm, but aren't you a bit prejudiced being the world's biggest mac-hater? ;-).

Seems to be a reputation I'm getting :lol:

Seriously though, was this MHz related or more a matter of (RAM)size?

I reckon the RAM size personally, 128MB only. A quick look at top in the bash console showed the system was hitting the VM a lot once you start doing anything.

However, the user interface was quite heavy going on that machine, which didn't have the greatest GPU / VRAM resources ever. Seeing 10.3 on a G4 with a 32MB video card was startling in comparison.

[adz]

One of the guys at work still uses an old G3 350 iBook with 384MB RAM, running OS 10.3 it seems quite pleasant to use.

edit...Sorry, make that 320MB RAM, either way, its still quite pleasant to use.

[odin]

Is OS X very tweakable in the sense that graphical hoohaa can be turned off to make is speedier/less hungry for memory?

On another note...how crap is OS 9.x exactly?

[adz]

odin wrote:

Is OS X very tweakable in the sense that graphical hoohaa can be turned off to make is speedier/less hungry for memory?

You best wait for Karlos to respond to that one :lol:

On another note...how crap is OS 9.x exactly?

Very!!!

[Cyberus]

I installed MacOS 9 over the weekend on my PowerWave. It seemed pretty useable, but amazingly similar to Windows
/ducks
I'm trying to install Fedora Core 4 PPC on it at the moment

I would def consider a nice more generic PPC OS, rather than Mac OS. There are 15 linux distros available for PPC (according to linux.org), including SuSE, YDL, Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian... they should run nicely on a G3

[adz]

Cyberus wrote:
I installed MacOS 9 over the weekend on my PowerWave. It seemed pretty useable, but amazingly similar to Windows
/ducks
I'm trying to install Fedora Core 4 PPC on it at the moment

I would def consider a nice more generic PPC OS, rather than Mac OS. There are 15 linux distros available for PPC (according to linux.org), including SuSE, YDL, Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian... they should run nicely on a G3

Funny you should mention Linux, on the above G3 iBook, we tried both Debian and Ubuntu on it and OS X performed better than them both, just a thought.

[TjLaZer]

I've actually got into Macs recently. It all started when I got two PowerBook G3 Lombard's for $10 each!  They have PPC G3 333MHz, one 384MB, 256MB on the other.   Mac OS X on one and I installed Mac OS 9.2.2 on the other.  X runs pretty good, but I am very partial to 9!  I just like it.  The 1024X768 screens on these are awesome!  I liked the Macs so much I just bought a new PowerBook G4 15" 1.67GHz with Superdrive.  

With the Wallstreet you can install both 9 and X.  Get a nice 10GB+ HD and you are all set.

[bloodline]

odin wrote:
I'm looking into buying a secondhand PowerBook (WallStreet). I was wondering if anyone here has experienced using such a machine and how usable they still are in this day and age for some webbrowsing, typing and MP3 playing using OS X. Are they dog slow or is it still quite pleasant to use one of these beasts?

I would say my only concern with any mac is lack of CPU grunt. I would personally avoid a G3... I have a Via C3 800Mhz (mini-itx) which runs photoshop faster than my cousins G3 iMac.

If you just want to do day to day stuff though... I'll bet the G3 will cope.

On another note...how crap is OS 9.x exactly?

Until MacOS X 1.4 (AKA Tiger),  MacOS was not as useful as WindowsXP for me.

OS 9 is worse than AmigaOS 3.1 :-D

[odin]

My only concern is the lack of USB on these ancient G3 Powerbooks, but I guess that can easily be solved with some elcheapo PCMCIA card....or not?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

odin wrote:
My only concern is the lack of USB on these ancient G3 Powerbooks, but I guess that can easily be solved with some elcheapo PCMCIA card....or not?

I guess so, I got a usb2 pcmcia card on my old pentium 233 laptop, wich works very nice :-)

[NoFastMem]

I've been considering getting an old G3 to stream audio to from my PowerBook. Seems better than spending money on an airport base when I already have a perfectly adequate internet router.

I wouldn't mind knowing where on Earth people are finding these machines for $10 each. ;-) eBay prices are at least 10 times that...

[bloodline]

NoFastMem wrote:
I've been considering getting an old G3 to stream audio to from my PowerBook. Seems better than spending money on an airport base when I already have a perfectly adequate internet router.

I wouldn't mind knowing where on Earth people are finding these machines for $10 each. ;-) eBay prices are at least 10 times that...

This is pretty chep... but then I wouldn't want it :-D
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4606&item=5223687863&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4606&item=5223774352&rd=1