Have an old G3 iMac? Got Kids?

[fastbilly1]

So I know I posted about this in the past but I finally got off my ass and finished the project.

I dont have kids, but I have two nieces who turn three this year. They both have high levels of comprehension and one can already operate a mouse (albeit very poorly). So I had this old iMac G3 that I was going to use in my studio part of my home office as a radio but thought of a better use. Why not put linux on it and have it boot into ScummVM with all those educational games installed. Well I did half that, I finally broke down and installed OSX on it since I couldnt get a gui version of linux with the right libraries to install. But it does boot into ScummVM. So what I ended up with after all this is:
233mhz
256megs of ram
6 gig harddrive
15 games installed - Putt Putt series, Winnie the Pooh, Blues ABC, and a couple I cant remember.
All for a total of $15 (Not counting the game shown, he cost $50 back 92...I bought the games and OS at Goodwill for about $10 and the iMac for $5).

In the near future it begins its life at my parents house as an interactive toy. And you better believe, as soon as they can understand whats going on in the game, they are going to get Monkey Island and Indy.



I have another one coming to me in near future - orange with a dvd drive and a 750mhz processor, so I may have one of these for myself.

And now we play the game of who can name what is on that table and in the background... The radio doesnt count - thats too easy, and sadly that is a case mod that still hasnt happened...

[racketboy]

Wow -- those are some awesome prices and a great little project -- thanks for sharing.
I would love to find a classic iMac on the cheap. Those are fun little machines -- other than the quirks or OS 8/9/whatever those came with.

[Koopin_Krackerz]

$5??? Good find. Is it slot loading or tray drive? I really want a red G3. They are very cool looking computers and I used to love to type papers on them. They always get my imagination going more than usual for some reason. I'm sure your nieces will love playing with it and get their imagination going too!

[SpaceBooger]

We have a bunch of these that we are about to get rid of at school (Im a teacher not student) I think I may get one or more of these if they are going to go into the dumpster. This is a cool project.

[RCBH928]

macs live for a very long time.
are you serious? $5 imacs?

[Dylan]

Ugh, I still have nightmares of those things and their dreaded OS4. The unreliable performance of them made my Windows 98 look like an immovable fortress of battle hardened steel perched on a tall jagged mountain and surrounded by an immeasurable ocean of stability.

[AARST]

The iMac is the only computer that won't get thrown away after 10 years, it just looks to nice so it feels like it deserves a new home rather than a dumpster burial.

If I find one of these for cheap I am definitely doing the exact same thing.

[fastbilly1]

Its funny, I had to do more repairs on this than my 600mhz k6 from the same era that I nicked out of someones trash, and I paid for this one. I got lucky and got it at a Goodwill that didnt know it was a computer and put it with the CRT monitors. If they knew it was a computer it would have been $50.

If I was really crazy I would get one per major Scumm title and case mod them...but I think I am going to look into PC all in ones instead - cheaper and I know I can make them run alot easier. But there is no question, the G3 iMac is the prettiest.

Dylan, I think you are mistaken, G3 iMacs launched with OS8, OS4 was in the early 90s.

[Dylan]

Dylan, I think you are mistaken, G3 iMacs launched with OS8, OS4 was in the early 90s.

Hm, you're right, but I swear that the computers looked exactly like that. Did OS8 suck? Maybe it was just a bad configuration on our school's server? The only thing that I remember was the server crashing about 40 times a day. I also remember getting a bizzare error message that informed of an error, and reassured me that it wasn't the computer's fault. Does anyone remember any of this?

[racketboy]

Dylan, I think you are mistaken, G3 iMacs launched with OS8, OS4 was in the early 90s.

Hm, you're right, but I swear that the computers looked exactly like that. Did OS8 suck? Maybe it was just a bad configuration on our school's server? The only thing that I remember was the server crashing about 40 times a day. I also remember getting a bizzare error message that informed of an error, and reassured me that it wasn't the computer's fault. Does anyone remember any of this?

No, OS8 sucked.
And the Mac server software was even worse. We used the iMacs in college for our graphic design labs. The things froze up all the time. Terrible with multitasking and if anything hiccuped on the server, the whole place went into chaos.