I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
can get it real cheap.

They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
processor.

I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

Thanks for any input.

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:

> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?
>
> Thanks for any input.

Panther should run OK. I am assuming you are looking at the blue and
whites or the G4s.

--
Cheers,

Bob S

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:

> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?
>
> Thanks for any input.

Why? WHat are you planning to do with it?

In general, I'd spend $575 on a Mini before buying a used tower. The
used tower (especially after you upgrade it and pay for software) will
end up costing you nearly as much, but will be slower and not have a
warranty.

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:

> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?
>
> Thanks for any input.

I have a G4/450MHz PowerMac with 1.5GB memory and a 7200RPM 8MB cache
disk (actually I have 3 such disks totaling 210GB storage).

I use this system as my workstation at work (I lugged it into work so I
didn't have to use a Windows box :-)

It is running Panther, and I generally have about a dozen work
applications open at any given time (iTunes, iChat, Thunderbird,
Firefox, Mozilla (as a web page editor), NeoOffice/J, Preview, Terminal,
X11, iTerm (running under terminal so that ssh -X has a display to
forward to a remote test system), DragThing, Meteorologist, etc...

I does the job, but there are days that I really want to run out to the
nearest Apple store and get a Dual G5 PowerMac. This afternoon was one
of them :-)

Because I have a lot of apps open and some of them love memory, it helps
to have 1.5GB of memory, as that cuts down on my paging and swapping.
Makes switching between apps faster, and any single app that consumes a
lot of memory does not page itself to death.

But I got the system from my nephew (who abandoned it at his Mom's), and
he got it from my brother after he got something better. So I didn't
pay anything for the system, and my only investment has been to add the
1GB of extra memory, and a 120GB Seagate disks for $40 after rebate.

I would not spend a lot of money on a 450GHz Mac. As someone else
mentioned, if it is even remotely close to the cost of a Mac mini, I
would get the Mac mini. The Mac mini will give you a much faster CPU,
faster memory bus, better graphics chip, more graphics memory, etc...
The only down side to the Mac mini is that it has a slower disk drive in
it, and you only get one memory slot that can be increased to only 1GB
after you remove the existing memory card. But it should do much better
than a 450GHz PowerMac.

So if you get it for cheap, and if you are just going to do typical
email, web browsing, news group reading, maybe edit a picture now and
then, then a cheap 450MHz PowerMac should be OK. But I do mean cheap,
otherwise you can get a lot more with a Mac mini.

Bob Harris

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:
> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

I've got an old 450 MHz blue-and-white G3 with some weird amount of RAM
(something like 600 MB) sitting unused in my office. Your post reminded
me that I'm curious about this, too, so I'll install Tiger on it today
and see what it is like.

--
--Tim Smith

Appreciate everyone's comments. yes, this machine would be gotten for
like $100. Probably will need to install a HDD but I have plenty of
them laying around. Apparently it uses standard ATA/66 drives.

On Wed, 11 May 2005 14:53:17 GMT, Tim Smith
<reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:
>> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
>> can get it real cheap.
>>
>> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
>> processor.
>>
>> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
>> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
>> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?
>
>I've got an old 450 MHz blue-and-white G3 with some weird amount of RAM
>(something like 600 MB) sitting unused in my office. Your post reminded
>me that I'm curious about this, too, so I'll install Tiger on it today
>and see what it is like.
>
>--
>--Tim Smith

Hi!

> than a 450GHz PowerMac.

Holy WOW! A 450GHz Power Mac! I think that would blow a Mac Mini out of the
water!

Where can I get one? :-)

William

In article <reply_in_group-23680F.07531711052005@news1.west.earthlink.net>,
Tim Smith wrote:
> I've got an old 450 MHz blue-and-white G3 with some weird amount of RAM
> (something like 600 MB) sitting unused in my office. Your post reminded
> me that I'm curious about this, too, so I'll install Tiger on it today and
> see what it is like.

OK, it does seem faster than 10.1 or 10.2 (I didn't note which was on there
before I installed Tiger). However, it is still not what I would call
tolerable.

--
--Tim Smith

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:

> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

The problem is that you do not give any hardware details. If it is a G4,
with at least 256 MB memory, 8-10 GB harddrive, then it would be OK on Mac
OS 10.3. SCSI does not work so well with Mac OS X, one has to restart to
get it to find a newly started harddisk. But if you have a Firewire port,
you might be able to buy an external hard drive and put the system on that
one.

--
Hans Aberg

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:

> I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> can get it real cheap.
>
> They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> processor.
>
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

My parents have a G4 Cube that's 450Mhtz. It has 256MB RAM and it runs
Panther just fine for their needs, which are modest.

In article <haberg-1205052224370001@c83-250-195-154.bredband.comhem.se>,
haberg@math.su.se (Hans Aberg) wrote:

> In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:
>
> > I am considering picking up a used Mac from an auction place, probably
> > can get it real cheap.
> >
> > They have several, but the fastest are PowerMacs with a 450Mhz
> > processor.
> >
> > I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> > with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> > from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

I should have said that Mac OS 10.3 will run on a G3, and it might be run
with only 128 MB, and a 5-6 GB harddisk might be sufficient if you do not
install BSD UNIX and X-Windows (X11). But if you buy a computer, that is
not recommended.

--
Hans Aberg

In article <42810ce0.446390203@news.west.earthlink.net>,
onelargetoe********.com (SepticTank) wrote:
> I am wondering how bad would OS/X perform if I loaded that system up
> with plenty of memory (like ~512MB) and a fast hard drive. Did Macs
> from that era use standard IDE hard drives?

Otherwise, also the EPROM's of old Mac's can be updated for Mac OS X:

Search for "firmware update" at: www.apple.com/support/downloads

--
Hans Aberg