Strange beast, now at home

[RHPConsult]

Some of you may remember the query I posted about the best low end Mac for my 4 year-old grandson who's ready for his first Mac.

While I was contemplating the recommended alternatives, my Caddy mechanic (not Griz   ) asked me if I'd like to have an old Mac that they wanted to get rid of.

"Of course" sez I, thinking that I could help someone else who could use something to get started with. He said he just couldn't bring himself to take it to a recycling center, (Sorry, Paddy!) since it worked quite well.

You can say that again.

I just finished wiping the drive and installing 9.1 on a Mac the likes of which I've never seen before - - an all-in-one (ed model) G3/233/4 gigs w/floppy/CD and ZIP  (ZIP bay only, it appears, though I'm not yet sure). Only 32 megs of ram, but I can fix that. And, thanks Kelly, for that very useful matrix/link on applicable OS/Mac models you posted just the other day. That really came in handy, for reassurance purposes.

Presumably only the teachers out there in TS Land have  ever seen this interesting model machine.(My mechanic's wife was a teacher).

It has a curious perforated, translucent plastic cover (sorta streamlined in shape), encasing the top and rear of the box. Has all the "works in a drawer", PCI, ethernet, no internal modem, large built-in speakers in front; same for a mike and volume control, 15" monitor, weighs in at just under a ton!      

So, you never know what can come over the transom, so to speak.

Anyone have any advice about any known vagaries of this curious creature. It seems to be running well with a fresh 9.1 on a clean drive. Only anomaly, thus  far, after the new install, it "bonged" about 5 times (spontaneously) as though it was zapping its PRAM without any "coaching" on my part???

Any informed observations welcomed!

[Mrious_be]

Your description makes me think at a picture i once saw from a "desktop" apple computer.
It was sold only in some asian countries i think and was an "all-buildinto-one" model like the iMac, but bigger and way more ugly  
I'll try to see if i can find such a picture again and post it afterwarts.
I guess Ram and harddisk space is upgradable  

Hope it will be usefull

[Mrious_be]

After searching for it, i think you have this one?
 
Or to be found on this page for details.

The mac i talked about was this one:
 
And again more information to be found on this page.

All this information comes from theapplemuseum which i also added to ma favorites, looks interesting.

[kelly]

Pretty cool Dick.  

Sometimes said to look like a "Molar".

Nice machine for everyday use.

One downside. As far as I know you're stuck with onboard Video.

Unless someone knows how you can use an added Video Card.

Hard Drive Upgrade site.

http://scienceman.com/pgs/trev_g3aio.html

Code name Artemis.

http://www.mathdittos2.com/columns/bh/bh981223.html

http://new.lowendmac.com/ppc/g3aio.shtml

Spartacus's site

[RHPConsult]

Marcel

It's the second one you pictured . . . waaay diifferent than the first DT box, which looks justlike my beige G3

Kelly

Right on! It really DOES look like molar . . . perfect description, far better than Artemis. Leave up to Mac-sters to come up with an apt characterization.      

Thanks for the additional links. I should have thought of Spartacus' weath of info myself.

This is an interesting project.

[jwboyd]

I believe this was the first G3 all-in-one. I bought two of them for my school district the year I retired, 1993.

(Has it really been that long?)

[kelly]

These were 1998 or so.  

You might be thinking of a 520.

http://new.lowendmac.com/500/lc520.shtml

[bil207]

There is a great little freeware app. called  Mactracker that lists info. Apple hardware and operating systems etc.

From Mactracker's site:
"Mactracker  provides detailed information on every Apple, Motorola, PowerComputing, and UMAX Mac OS computer ever made, including items such as processor                 speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, and expansion options. Also included is information on Apple displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, iPod, AirPort Base Stations,  Newtons, and Mac OS versions".

[Al]

I've got a LC575...

 I really like it, it was my very first Mac and because of it is how I met a bunch of you folks back at NoWonder.  She still runs (8.1), it has no use now but as a showroom piece.  I don't think I'll give it up ever.

   

Richard, good catch on your molar...  
 
 [ 04-26-2003, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Al ]

[RHPConsult]

Help, Kelly, help . . .

Stop me before I  shop again!    

Al's no good at all, in that department!            

I just got off the phone with Other World. By Thursday my Molar (or rather Master Tucker's Molar) will have 512MB of ram and 60 gigs of HD for >175 bucks.

Suchadeal.

Those great sites did it all, Kelly. Thanks.

[Al]

I love spending other peoples $$$$....            

Sounds like a winner, Richard.  Master Tucker is going to have one heck of AIO....  Hey, how 'bout a ZIF upgrade?  (ducks and backs out of room slowly)

[krissel]

I didn't see this thread til now and emailed Dick the following after an earlier inquiry:

 

quote: It sounds like you have the all-in-one G3 that was popular for a short period of time in the schools. We have several in my district, the secretary at my school and my supervisor had them. They were the precursor to the original iMac.  They're very sturdy machines and seem to run with little failure at least from my observation of our secretary's usage. I know they added RAM to the original in our office and while some had built in zips, our district was too cheap to add them to the ones that didn't. They aren't the prettiest machine but are real workhorses. They kind of had a cult following for awhile and were in demand as schools upgraded and sold them off, at least the districts that had the money to do so.

Glad to see that you will be able to get more RAM.

Our secretary had the G3 mounted on one of those moveable wall-mounted arms so she had it up off her desk and was able to slide the keyboard under it. That overcame the massive desk-hogging that was probably the main detriment to that design. The iMac that followed showed how quickly they were able to compress the features into a smaller space.

Overall nice machine. Should take a lot of abuse.

[RHPConsult]

For anyone still puzzled about the reactions to this Mac, just think about your neighbors' impact on suburbia as soon as they started parking their new Hummer in his driveway.

"Industrial strength" fo sure!

[kps]

Did you make that "impact" Dick? You traded the "caddy" for a Hummer?    

Any Hummers I see around here have some dot com address plastered on it....makes me wonder how long they'll be able to keep the payments going.

[kelly]

jwboyd. Little item for you.  

One User's Mac Journey

http://new.lowendmac.com/misc/03/0428.html#4