Re: Advice Needed on Optimum Version

Henry Flam <hflam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1iv0pxg.1bneey51hu66bcN%dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Empson) wrote:

To find out which model he has, go into "About This Mac" under the Apple
menu, then click the "More Info" button. This will run the System
Profiler applciation.

I asked him to do that. This is what he sent me:

Machine Model: Power Macintosh G3 Series
CPU Type: PowerPC 750 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 300 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 320 MB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 1.1.1f4

The combination of details (specifically the Bus Speed of 100 MHz)
identify it as a "Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White)". This was the
first Mac to include built-in Firewire, and is the oldest model
officially supported by Mac OS X 10.4.

The Model Identifier should be shown somewhere in System Profiler (it
might be in a more obscure place in 10.3). It will be "PowerMac1,1".

Memory is sufficient, though on the low side. The Blue & White G3 takes
PC-100 SDRAM DIMMs and has four slots, with a maximum of 1 GB total
(presumably limited to 256 MB per slot, though that isn't clear from the
information I have handy - anyone else know if a 512 MB DIMM will work
in a B&W G3?).

PC-133 memory should work but won't give a speed advantage.

320 MB must be made up of 256 + 64, or possibly 128 + 128 + 64, so
upgrading it to its maximum supported memory would involve buying three
or four 256 MB PC-100 or PC-133 DIMMs, or two 512 MBs if they are
compatible with that model.

No information about hard drive space, but it is easy to replace the
hard drive in a B&W G3, if it comes to that. The maximum size supported
is 128 GB, and it takes one or two ATA (EIDE) hard drives. In principle
you could add a third party SATA/PATA PCI card and install much larger
hard drives connected to that.

I kept the disks for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger that I bought at the time,
will that work on his machine? If it does, I'll send the disks to him.

If you bought the retail edition of Tiger (US$129 at the time, or US$199
for the family pack), then your DVD will support that model, except that
the entry level 300 MHz B&W G3 model probably only has a CD-ROM drive.
(See other sub-thread for some discussion about options there.)

If you are still using that installation of Tiger yourself, then doing
this will violate your licence agreement (it is only allowed to be
installed on one computer, or five in one household if you had the
family pack), but if you upgraded your computer to Leopard then you are
fine.

--
David Empson
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.