Anyone like old Mac computers?

skate323k137 · Jan 26, 2018

Backstory:

I grew up with DoS at home, and eventually windows 3.1 on up, but our schools always had macs. So I got to mess with apple II's, quadra, performa, power macs, basically everything leading up to OSX and all the 68K / PPC stuff.

About 12 years ago when I left my parents house at their "request" they eventually sold off a lot of my stuff including all my macs. I lost a really nice power mac with S-video input and tons of other upgrades.

Fast forward to present:

A couple days ago at work, a co-worker that knew this backstory, hands me a power mac 7500 with a G3 slotted processor upgrade already in it. "it's yours, just don't sell it."

I'll be damned if the thing didn't boot right up to OS 9.1 after a good cleaning out. It's got a sonnet crescendo 333 in it, and I found a 500mhz card that's on the way.

At this point I have some ADB peripherals on the way too, and I'm considering trying to SCSI2SD it. My thoughts there are a live boot PPC linux to just copy the block device, replaced the drive, and DD it back. I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work but if you do... let me know lol.

Any of you guys still mess with classic macs? Any favorite games? I know I gotta get Escape Velocity back at the least.

Marek · Jan 26, 2018

Alpha centauri

RAZO · Jan 26, 2018

skate323k137 said:
Backstory:

I grew up with DoS at home, and eventually windows 3.1 on up, but our schools always had macs. So I got to mess with apple II's, quadra, performa, power macs, basically everything leading up to OSX and all the 68K / PPC stuff.

About 12 years ago when I left my parents house at their "request" they eventually sold off a lot of my stuff including all my macs. I lost a really nice power mac with S-video input and tons of other upgrades.

Fast forward to present:

A couple days ago at work, a co-worker that knew this backstory, hands me a power mac 7500 with a G3 slotted processor upgrade already in it. "it's yours, just don't sell it."

I'll be damned if the thing didn't boot right up to OS 9.1 after a good cleaning out. It's got a sonnet crescendo 333 in it, and I found a 500mhz card that's on the way.

At this point I have some ADB peripherals on the way too, and I'm considering trying to SCSI2SD it. My thoughts there are a live boot PPC linux to just copy the block device, replaced the drive, and DD it back. I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work but if you do... let me know lol.

Any of you guys still mess with classic macs? Any favorite games? I know I gotta get Escape Velocity back at the least.

When I was a kid, my school used Mac's as well. The Macintosh Plus was the first mac computer I messed with. My very first computer was a IBM PC XT, operating system was Dos and sounded like a Airplane taking off every time you started it up. Not into any of that really old pc mac stuff. Things got a little more interesting when Windows came out, especially Windows 95.

skate323k137 · Jan 26, 2018

RAZO said:
When I was a kid, my school used Mac's as well. The Macintosh Plus was the first mac computer I messed with. My very first computer was a IBM PC XT, operating system was Dos and sounded like a Airplane taking off every time you started it up. Not into any of that really old pc mac stuff. Things got a little more interesting when Windows came out, especially Windows 95.

Nice. My first PC that was my own was a 486 with the 33/66 turbo button, but we had family computers going back many years before that.

I gamed my ass off on DOS and early windows games for sure. Thankfully those seem to still be very well remembered and represented for the most part.

NeoSneth · Jan 26, 2018

I had Indigo Imac DV almost all through college. It was a great machine, but i recently had to discard it. The plastics for some of of the shell had turned into brittle. The entire bezel was crumbling by just touching it. The thing still fired up, but the sound was fading. I copied the entire 10GB hard drive to a USB drive, and sad my goodbyes.

I still have a fully loaded G3 Pismo Powerbook to play games from that erea. Just in case I get nostalgic for my old college Mac. It has OS 9 and OS X.

I also have an original 233 mhz Imac G3. First edition 233mhz. This was given to me by someone that worked at a church. I may sell it off due to space, but it also fires right up.

Lastly, I have boxed complete Emate. I don't plan on keeping it. Quite the novelty. it's partially the inspiration for the design of the iBooks.

The original transition to OS:X was one of the reasons I left apple. For the first two years, the API changed without notice from them. Even if you programmed for Cocoa, your shit could break at any moment. I was constantly dual booting to get certain programs to work. In the end, i would have been better off sticking with OS 9 for a few years until OS:X finally settled down.

PCMR all day now.

Dr Shroom · Jan 26, 2018

got a 1998 bondi blue imac g3 here and a later indigo slot loading one with upgraded RAM and HDD and 500MHz.

fake · Jan 26, 2018

We had Mac Color Classics in grade school. Our middle school had way older Apples. I don't remember what model they were, but they had the green-tinted CRT, 5.25" floppy drives, etc. We had to use this hilarious program called Paws the Typing Cat, which taught you how to touch type. I hated it at the time, but it definitely helped; I became the second fastest typist in my class and can still type nearly as fast as someone can talk.

When I was 19 or so, there was a store that had a ton of Apple computers for sale - everything up to G5 towers. I bought a PowerMac G3 Attache with OS 9 and got it running. I ended up trading it for a bunch of games. I'd still love to get a G5 tower, though. Or one of those tiny PowerBooks.

Funny enough, a few days ago my friend was taking her kid for a walk and saw a sign and some boxes on the side of the road. It said "Free Mac and Printer - works fine" so she grabbed them. It was a dead mint Mac Color Classic which instantly booted and some sort of Apple printer - even the packaging was mint.

skate323k137 · Jan 26, 2018

NeoSneth said:
I had Indigo Imac DV almost all through college. It was a great machine, but i recently had to discard it. The plastics for some of of the shell had turned into brittle. The entire bezel was crumbling by just touching it. The thing still fired up, but the sound was fading. I copied the entire 10GB hard drive to a USB drive, and sad my goodbyes.

I still have a fully loaded G3 Pismo Powerbook to play games from that erea. Just in case I get nostalgic for my old college Mac. It has OS 9 and OS X.

I also have an original 233 mhz Imac G3. First edition 233mhz. This was given to me by someone that worked at a church. I may sell it off due to space, but it also fires right up.

Lastly, I have boxed complete Emate. I don't plan on keeping it. Quite the novelty. it's partially the inspiration for the design of the iBooks.

The original transition to OS:X was one of the reasons I left apple. For the first two years, the API changed without notice from them. Even if you programmed for Cocoa, your shit could break at any moment. I was constantly dual booting to get certain programs to work. In the end, i would have been better off sticking with OS 9 for a few years until OS:X finally settled down.

PCMR all day now.

I was eyeballing pismo powerbooks for sure. If I spend money on a system that's near the top of the list. Do you know the details of dual booting that generation hardware? I honestly don't really "need" osx but if it's easy to run and I can still run 9.x natively I don't see why not. It might even be almost usable with the 500mhz card lol.

There is definitely a few places where the plastic is getting brittle but it still has some life in it. Thankfully the case itself is still very sturdy and supports the 20" sony CRT I set on top of it.

FakeX, holy shit man... grail tier finds. I hope your friend appreciates them!

HeavyMachineGoob · Jan 26, 2018

I love my classic PowerPC Mac stuff. I have a couple eMac units, a couple iBook G3s and a PowerBook G3, with various versions of Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X installed. There weren't as many games as on Windows, but what was available sure was great.

Cylotron · Jan 26, 2018

Not really. Although when the Apple IIe first came out, I was taken to some after school class where us kids were taught how to use them. I have fond memories of this as I was regularly taken to Play Co Toys afterwards as a reward for taking the class.

skate323k137 · Jan 26, 2018

HeavyMachineGun said:
I love my classic PowerPC Mac stuff. I have a couple eMac units, a couple iBook G3s and a PowerBook G3, with various versions of Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X installed. There weren't as many games as on Windows, but what was available sure was great.

Hell yeah man. What are your favorite games??

Dochartaigh · Jan 26, 2018

I grew up with DOS at home (then Windows 3.1 I think), and Mac's at school as well (think first I used was in 1988?). I do like the old mac's but they're useless to me right now besides intriguing discussion pieces.

I have an old tiny and cool Macintosh SE I keep next to the iconic iMac G4. Even have an extra G4 (totally busted beyond repair) I'm going to turn into a lamp!

Outside of that I had a bunch of PowerPC's (which the first of those is even 24 years old at this point), but even my newer PowerPC's have become pretty much useless since they can't even browse the web if websites use things like modern versions of Flash, HTML 5 support, Silverlight, etc. etc. etc. (and I never gamed on them...so no use even for the old games). Really stinks when you have the beautifully made and designed Power Mac G5's and nothing for them to do...

NeoSneth · Jan 26, 2018

Dual booting on G3 era stuff is seamless. I prefer to stay in OS9 most of the time anyways.
The Pismo handles pretty much anything from that era. You want to keep an eye out for notebook IDE SSD's. I have a few lying around because they are so hard to find. RAM and everything else is pretty cheap.

I had a G5 tower, but they are pretty much useless. They are huge, heavy, power hungry, and run hot. There's nothing interesting to do on them that you can't do on something smaller. The coolant systems need rebuilding over time. You can get the fan based ones, but they are LOUD without mods. I got rid of it because all it did was sit there taking up space while looking.

There are lists of universal binary games. Those are some of the last gen PPC games to browse.

Tripredacus · Jan 26, 2018

I have a Performa but I don't know if it works.

fake · Jan 26, 2018

Dochartaigh said:
I grew up with DOS at home (then Windows 3.1 I think), and Mac's at school as well (think first I used was in 1988?). I do like the old mac's but they're useless to me right now besides intriguing discussion pieces.

I have an old tiny and cool Macintosh SE I keep next to the iconic iMac G4. Even have an extra G4 (totally busted beyond repair) I'm going to turn into a lamp!

Outside of that I had a bunch of PowerPC's (which the first of those is even 24 years old at this point), but even my newer PowerPC's have become pretty much useless since they can't even browse the web if websites use things like modern versions of Flash, HTML 5 support, Silverlight, etc. etc. etc. (and I never gamed on them...so no use even for the old games). Really stinks when you have the beautifully made and designed Power Mac G5's and nothing for them to do...

The lamp G4 is beautiful. I'd love to have one just for decoration. Same with the Cube. We have a Mac Pro in my studio, and it looks cool, but it's nowhere near as cool as the mid 2000s stuff.

@NeoSneth: Yeah, I guess I don't really need a G5 anymore. I used to want one to run PPC Final Cut. But now that Premiere is stable I don't even use FCP anymore. I just leave it on my iMac just in case I get a file in from a client that I need to export to XML. (Export to XML was Apple's final gift to the editing world before it decided to pack its shit and leave, IMO. Adobe all the way now.)

RAZO · Jan 26, 2018

skate323k137 said:
Nice. My first PC that was my own was a 486 with the 33/66 turbo button, but we had family computers going back many years before that.

I gamed my ass off on DOS and early windows games for sure. Thankfully those seem to still be very well remembered and represented for the most part.

I remember those. Some even had the digital display that showed the speed. Those were the Shadow Warrior Joints. You get to blow them up in the game and they displayed some crazy shit like 700mhz .

skate323k137 · Jan 26, 2018

RAZO said:
I remember those. Some even had the digital display that showed the speed. Those were the Shadow Warrior Joints. You get to blow them up in the game and they displayed some crazy shit like 700mhz .

I totally had the display with the clock speed.

NeoSneth · Jan 26, 2018

Many people didn't realize the Turbo button on the old 486 PC's actually slowed the computer down to be compatible with older games.
I think 99% of people didn't know that back then. I know I ran with the Turbo button on for quite a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button

ChopstickSamurai · Jan 26, 2018

My senior year of high school the school finally upgraded from Apple II's to the first LC. Lots of nostalgia for Shufflepuck Cafe.

SpamYouToDeath · Jan 26, 2018

Pre-Darwin Macs are garbage. It was 1999 and they didn't even have protected memory, FFS.

-SD- · Jan 26, 2018

My first mac was a second hand G4 Quicksilver tower that I repaired and cleaned up. I’m currently looking to upgrade my late 2012 Mac Mini and I’m considering another project system. Potentially a used 12-Core 2012 Mac Pro with a 1080ti, as and when GPU prices come back to normal, and at least 32GB memory.

HeavyMachineGoob · Jan 26, 2018

skate323k137 said:
Hell yeah man. What are your favorite games??

As a kid I greatly enjoyed the vast educational software catalog of the PowerPC Mac, the Schoolhouse Rock games were badass. The MECC/Learning Company and Broderbund games were great too. Over the years after that I've liked the various PC ports (LucasArts, Age of Empires, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, SimCity, etc) along with the Mac exclusives. The Mac shareware scene was great in its own right, like the games from Pangea and the numerous smaller developers.

This doesn't really count but I also got to know console and old computer emulators on the PowerPC Mac. RockNES, Sixtyforce, SNES9X, Genesis Plus, ViBE, GeoMAME, Mini vMac and all those other great emulators. To this day I'm still amazed how many emulators were released for the PowerPC Mac. All those lived on in the Gamecube and Wii homebrew scene.

I guess you could say, PowerPC powered my childhood.

Dochartaigh · Jan 26, 2018

NeoSneth said:
I had a G5 tower, but they are pretty much useless. They are huge, heavy, power hungry, and run hot. There's nothing interesting to do on them that you can't do on something smaller. The coolant systems need rebuilding over time. You can get the fan based ones, but they are LOUD without mods. I got rid of it because all it did was sit there taking up space while looking.

I ran one or two G5's for years (want to say 2004 to 2009?). We always had the dual core models towards the end (2.0GHz? non-water cooled ones). Never had a problem with an office full of them and I don't remember them being obnoxiously loud (I did keep it under my desk though).

fakeXsound said:
The lamp G4 is beautiful. I'd love to have one just for decoration. Same with the Cube. We have a Mac Pro in my studio, and it looks cool, but it's nowhere near as cool as the mid 2000s stuff.

I have the black cylinder-type Late 2013 Mac Pro now. It's literally named "MacTrashCan" as its system name lol. I don't think they even updated that one from 2013 - it's pretty long in the tooth now. I'm waiting for the new one to come out before I have work buy me a new one (which I have a feeling it's going to be some stupid price like the $5K they charge for the iMac pro).

fake · Jan 26, 2018

Yeah, I'm assuming it will be more expensive than the iMac Pro, tbh. But I think it will be overkill for most cases. My Mac Pro is overkill itself; I only "need" it when I'm doing 8k (or VR 4k) work. That said, flies through 1080p renders like crazy, which saves me time and money. Mine is maxed out - got it for half off - so even though it's old, it's still super powerful. They're underrated machines, in my experience. Even iMacs are underrated. The only time my 2011 iMac chugs is when I am at home at have to work in 4k. And I only have an Intel Iris GPU. The ATi ones must be nuts. I'm definitely going for one of those when I do upgrade.

GregN · Jan 26, 2018

The iMac I'm using is 10 years old lol

Anyone like old Mac computers?

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