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Although we have both G4 and G5 dual processor machines that are our mainstays, we still have an old PowerMac 8600 300Mhz machine that remains a very solid old workhorse.
It has been running OS9 for years and has 1Gb of RAM on board. I guess it has remained in service with us because it has proven to be so damn reliable plus it has hookups for our SCSI scanner. It is also the only Mac we have that can read a floppy or a ZIP disc (although it can only work with the 100Mb ZIPs). While this all may seem like a moot point, we do still on rare occasion have the odd client that might have some text or a minimal graphic available only a floppy so it does still come in handy.
About three years ago, I added a USB/Firewire PCI card to it which allows it to host even more peripherals, one of which is a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 slide scanner which utilizes Firewire. For some reason, I can't get any of the OS-X equipment to recognize the scanner hardware even though they do recognize its software drivers.
Without question, it does not have the speed or the storage capacity of a G5 nor is it anywhere nearly as sexy, but it certainly carries on as a benchmark of reliability and stability. All of which is not bad for an eight year old computer, by any measure.
Anyone else have any similar experiences with older Macs?
It has been running OS9 for years and has 1Gb of RAM on board. I guess it has remained in service with us because it has proven to be so damn reliable plus it has hookups for our SCSI scanner. It is also the only Mac we have that can read a floppy or a ZIP disc (although it can only work with the 100Mb ZIPs). While this all may seem like a moot point, we do still on rare occasion have the odd client that might have some text or a minimal graphic available only a floppy so it does still come in handy.
About three years ago, I added a USB/Firewire PCI card to it which allows it to host even more peripherals, one of which is a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 slide scanner which utilizes Firewire. For some reason, I can't get any of the OS-X equipment to recognize the scanner hardware even though they do recognize its software drivers.
Without question, it does not have the speed or the storage capacity of a G5 nor is it anywhere nearly as sexy, but it certainly carries on as a benchmark of reliability and stability. All of which is not bad for an eight year old computer, by any measure.
Anyone else have any similar experiences with older Macs?
Originally Posted by Visconti
One of the best topics I've seen on an internet forum was about a year ago...someone asked"When did computers get "fast enough'?"
ie- for almost all your basic daily needs, excluding hard-core shit like video editing or heavy softsynth use,etc.
Everybody basically agreed it was the G3 era. Me too.Nice machines.
My old Beige G3 is quite pleasant to be in the same room with for recording /mixing compared to the G4 because it's so quiet.Runs all the old shit, plus can run soft samplers and load 500 MB pianos if it has to. After throwing some expansion cards and a 500 Mhz upgrade into it, it was/still is quite a capable audio machine.
Those old Macs were built like tanks,too. They just keep on chugging. I also have an old Centris hanging around but it seems to be more of a nostalgia item these days. But it's a nice reminder of the days when you could run the OS and Photoshop with 8 Megs of RAM and still have some left over. :eek:
Ok, it has 56 Megs now, courtesy of an old Performa someone gave me which was only useful for parts. I'm sure Apple and everyone who had one would like to forget about those.
ie- for almost all your basic daily needs, excluding hard-core shit like video editing or heavy softsynth use,etc.
Everybody basically agreed it was the G3 era. Me too.Nice machines.
My old Beige G3 is quite pleasant to be in the same room with for recording /mixing compared to the G4 because it's so quiet.Runs all the old shit, plus can run soft samplers and load 500 MB pianos if it has to. After throwing some expansion cards and a 500 Mhz upgrade into it, it was/still is quite a capable audio machine.
Those old Macs were built like tanks,too. They just keep on chugging. I also have an old Centris hanging around but it seems to be more of a nostalgia item these days. But it's a nice reminder of the days when you could run the OS and Photoshop with 8 Megs of RAM and still have some left over. :eek:
Ok, it has 56 Megs now, courtesy of an old Performa someone gave me which was only useful for parts. I'm sure Apple and everyone who had one would like to forget about those.
I just reverted my wife's old original Tangerine iBook back to OS9.2.2 for use with some older 9-only software apps that I have and still use.
It's got 288M RAM and a lowly 3G hard drive but that's plenty for what we're using it for.
I still chug along with a Quicksilver Dual Processor 800 G4 as my main machine. It's plenty fast enough for all that I'm doing (ProTools/Nuendo/etc) and 1G RAM and 240G of storage is enough speed and space...for now.
I'd think that anything back to a beige G3 is still worth using and even a couple of the pre-G3 machines can still be of value to many folks.
It's got 288M RAM and a lowly 3G hard drive but that's plenty for what we're using it for.
I still chug along with a Quicksilver Dual Processor 800 G4 as my main machine. It's plenty fast enough for all that I'm doing (ProTools/Nuendo/etc) and 1G RAM and 240G of storage is enough speed and space...for now.
I'd think that anything back to a beige G3 is still worth using and even a couple of the pre-G3 machines can still be of value to many folks.
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