Getting a Mac G3

[The Mac]

I know this computer is pretty old but im buying it for 25 bucks and it looks pretty cool. I never use/have a mac before. Dose this support like all new programs? Or will i have to buy an upgrade? Can i add a cd burner to it some how?

Sorry if my questions are stupid. Im a total noob on macs. I have vista.

Its 233mhz and 160mb RAM.

[eric2006]

I'm guessing you have this:
http://lowendmac.com/imacs/rev-a-imac-g3-233-mhz.html
(recommend you read that article)

This is a great computer to see if you would enjoy the mac experience. However, it's ten years old. I don't know what you mean by "all those new programs", but I wouldn't expect a gaming machine. It'd be a great internet terminal, along with the other basic Apple apps. Probably not enough hard drive space for iTunes and iMovie.

I'm assuming you want to upgrade to OS X. It probably has OS 9 on it, which is nice, but probably not what you had in mind. You can run up to OS X 10.3 (Panther) on that mac, which you can buy online from people like OWC. Before you install that, you'll need to install some firmware updates:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
You can get a mac-compatible cd burner to attach, or look for an internal one. I don't think that the internal version is being made anymore, but you may be able to get one secondhand.
10.3 is two versions behind the latest, 10.5, so you can't run everything, but it's still pretty compatible. Think Windows 2000. You won't be able to install 10.4 or 10.5 on that machine.

If you want a machine that can do more, and run the latest OS, etc, a budget option would be the G4 towers. You can get these on eBay or Craigslist for under $100. You'll need 867mhz + to run Leopard. If you have a PC, you can buy a KVM and hook the tower right up. G5 towers are even faster, at a higher price. If you really want to switch, you can get a new, intel mac (which runs vista), or a refurbished intel mac if you want to save 20-30% (avalible at the online Apple Store).

[The Mac]

So iMac G3 can't run itunes?

[eric2006]

You can run iTunes, just not the latest. The problem with iTunes is that you have a very small (4 gb?) hard drive, so there's not a whole lot of space for music. Also, you have USB 1.1 ports, so while you can hook up an external drive, it may not work with rich files.

[The Mac]

is there a limit to how big the external drive is?

[The Mac]

Also will most new USB devices will work for it?

[nixgeek]

It all depends on the specifications of that particular iMac. There were many iterations of the iMac G3, ranging from the original one that only had USB 1.1 to the last ones that included Firewire. The other consideration is the version of Mac OS X that is installed. I believe that if you run 10.3.x on it (aka "Panther"), you can still use the latest version of iTunes on it. You could always bump up the RAM as much as you can to have Mac OS X 10.3 or greater run decently.

You're only bottleneck would be the speed of the CPU. If it's the 233 MHz version, then your experience will be quite slow even with a lot of RAM. Also consider that the video graphics chipset on it is VERY old and would not support Core Image which helps speed things along on the video side. So in essence, the CPU would also be doing a lot of the video processing through software rendering.

Another thing to consider is that if you're going to install Mac OS X on it, it has to be on the first 7.5 GB of space on the hard drive, otherwise it will not run. This was a limitation in the iMac when introduced in 1997, YEARS before Mac OS X was released or even preinstalled on all Macs.

Think of it as trying to run Vista or even XP SP2 on a 233 MHz Pentium II with only 160 MB RAM and an 8 MB video card of the time. It would be near impossible to expect the feature set of a modern computer out of something that old with Vista. You could probably run XP on it, but the experience would most likely be a slow one, just as Panther would be on that iMac. It's amazing enough that Panther would even be able to run on a Mac of that age at all.

[The Mac]

So newer 2.0 usb devices won't work for mac G3s'?