Author Topic: "Early" iMac buying advice. Help, please (Read 3191 times)

RHPConsult · « **on:** March 30, 2003, 12:12:00 PM »

It's time to get my youngest grandson his first Mac. After all, he is going to be 4 in May.

Since I'm not buying new Macs for Grandma or yers truly (at least recently) there are no trickle down Macs for the young man to enjoy.

However, the catch is that he already has a number of educational games that he enjoys when he's here that are 9 but not X savvy.

Accordingly, I want a new(ish) Mac on which I can install X and 9.2.2. on separate partitions. The post-1/1/03's leave us out in the cold with respect to that preference.

Today, however, I just learned of a national purveyor (I'll disclose the name as soon as I place the order!) who has 4 G3/600 Snow iMacs back on the back shelf in the warehouse.

What's the opinion out there about these boxes? At 800 bucks? Any downsides to that model that I should be aware of? I didn't pay much/any attention when they came out.

Many thanks for any advice, encouraging or the converse.

Highmac · « **Reply #1 on:** March 30, 2003, 01:42:00 PM »

Hi Dick - you can never start 'em too young . What a wonderful grandad he's got. This iMac is the G3 400 model and has proven (touch wood!) very reliable after an initial hiccup (that needed a new motherboard under warranty). It's not very expandable - really just the memory. As you (all!) know, I'm not much of a techie, but found this much simpler to sort out than the old IICX we had before.
I'm sure the young man will enjoy his gift - oh, and make sure he signs up to TS.... like I said, you can never start 'em too young.
Edit to add... for idle curiosity, I did a search on one of the leading UK dealers and came up with this list of snow iMacs. Just interesting to compare prices. For rule of thumb call GBP=$1.6.

[ 03-30-2003, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: Highmac ]

kps · « **Reply #2 on:** March 30, 2003, 01:49:00 PM »

Have you tried these games in "classic" on a fast G4?

I'd have some concerns about the G3 600 handling OS X 10.2.x.

Mrious_be · « **Reply #3 on:** March 30, 2003, 02:29:00 PM »

quote:
Originally posted by kps:
I'd have some concerns about the G3 600 handling OS X 10.2.x.

Don't worry about that, i'm sure it will run great (maybe not as smooth as a double G4, but still).
I'm on G3 400 DVSE keeping up with the latest OsX.number.
It runs great, and i don't feel any hicups at all
Sure, it's stuffed with 640Mb Ram, but than again... it's not that expensive so it's worth thinking about.
The 600 Mhz would be even more smooth i guess.
Also... wouldn't it be great if they will release a new iMac Classic with the new 800Mhz G3... that would be great huh
Than again, i read somewhere that Apple stopped (or will stop) producing those nice little iMacs... sigh).

Anyway, go for it (i would say)

Mrious_be · « **Reply #4 on:** March 30, 2003, 02:31:00 PM »

Oooops, forgotten to say...
Think about a bigger harddisk to

RHPConsult · « **Reply #5 on:** March 30, 2003, 03:49:00 PM »

Thanks guys.

Sociological observation: Look who answered - Canada, Belgium, UK - apparently the NCAA isn't too big of a distraction "over/up there"

kps

I think it will be awhile before he tests the limits of 10. He plays some of his games on Classic on Grandma's G4, but I don't know what the limitations therein might be on the range of discs we have collected over the years . . . this is grandchild Nr 4 of 5. Nr. "One' is now shopping for a Mac with which to enroll in college this autumn!

HighMac

Thanks for that reassurance.

Marcel

Ditto

[ 03-30-2003, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: RHPConsult ]

swhitset · « **Reply #6 on:** March 30, 2003, 04:35:00 PM »

I'm running Jaguar on a 333 MHz G3 imac with 288MB ram. It's slower than my 800Mhz G4, but still very useable.

I'm quite sure a 600mhz G3 with adequate ram (read at least 256MB) should do fine.

Steve

Bernie · « **Reply #7 on:** March 30, 2003, 08:53:00 PM »

I know this has nothing what so ever to do with the topic . A bit of levity always helps
http://www.macboy.com/cartoons/bigandsmall/
I lye dis playss

RHPConsult · « **Reply #8 on:** March 30, 2003, 10:01:00 PM »

Steve

Thank you. Good data

Bernie

That new avatar is

However, though my grandson at 4 has 3 frequent flyer accounts and a passport, I don't think he's ready for an iBook, irrespective of size . . .

sluggo · « **Reply #9 on:** March 30, 2003, 10:42:00 PM »

I've got an iMac 600 Dalmation (I know, but it was a good deal from Small Dog at the time) that I bought new in December 2001. It ran X just fine with the 256 MB of RAM that came with the machine. It now runs Jag flawlessly, but the memory has been bumped up to 640. I had a power switch problem when the machine was about a month old, but an Apple repair place fixed that for me and here we are over a year later with no problems whatsoever.

Highmac · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2003, 12:29:00 AM »

Dick - 'scuse my ignorance... but NCAA
(Bet I'll be when you tell me!)

kps · « **Reply #11 on:** March 31, 2003, 09:43:00 AM »

Dick is probably only on his first cup of coffee just about now, so I'll answer...

NCAA=National Collegiate Athletic Association

College sportst is big in the US, you should see the action at the sport books in Vegas....

kelly · « **Reply #12 on:** March 31, 2003, 10:27:00 AM »

Highmac. More specifically. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

They start with 64 teams. They're now down to the prestigous "Final Four".

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketbal...urney/brackets/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketbal...3/ncaa_tourney/

Best sports event there is IMO.

Way better than the Superbowl or World Series.

Seems like a pretty nice machine Richard.

Though I'd prefer a Graphite 700 for $819.

http://www.megamacs.com/v1/?action=view&pi...0&criteria=imac

http://www.megamacs.com/v1/?cat=10002

News:

Author Topic: "Early" iMac buying advice. Help, please (Read 3191 times)