Apple Mac Tower

Unfortunately not yet. In the above posts(s), the reboot took me back to the screen with the ?mark/face. Shut down did just that, shut it down. As I figured, I never dis hear back from Apple of a replacement harddrive.
"EDIT" yes, I was truthfully hoping to get it up & running just so I could use it to surf the web & such but I think unless I can get him to buy a harddrive & OS, I might be sol.
One last thing I'm going to try later is remove the harddrive & put it back in just in case it might of come loose somehow.
 
Check your local craigslist or whatever online classifieds. Heck, put up an ad asking for someone to give you an old IDE drive. OS X 10.4 is your best bet for that machine, it is a good mix of 'modernism' and speed. You shouldn't have to spend more than $5 or so for a drive. I think that is a minor problem, a more significant one is trying to obtain an OS X install CD(s)/DVD.
 
Check your local craigslist or whatever online classifieds. Heck, put up an ad asking for someone to give you an old IDE drive. OS X 10.4 is your best bet for that machine, it is a good mix of 'modernism' and speed. You shouldn't have to spend more than $5 or so for a drive. I think that is a minor problem, a more significant one is trying to obtain an OS X install CD(s)/DVD.
Just thought I'd let you know I told the owner what you said in this post & he said it sounds like a good idea.
I'll be looking forward to your help if he goes thru with it.:)
 
OS-X 10.4 for $100!

How old did you say this machine was again? That would be a hard purchase for me to make.

That would almost be the same as spending a fortune on a 80's model car. Old enough to be considered an antique, but not quite the same definition that "working on an antique" once held.
 
Right. Of course you can buy it, but if you would have seen how the thread progressed, they aren't going to be spending that kind of money on the OS. In fact, the entire computer isn't really worth the OS price in your link.
 
No it is not worth it. It was just a suggestion. He can get the os for 44.00 off their to. But the same their. As far finding someone having this os for free goodluck. Now the hard drive is another story. I have old IDE drives. I am sure he should not have a hard time finding one of them.
 
Ok, I've sent him the link but haven't contacted him yet to let him know.
I don't know what he might be wanting to do with it if I do get it up & going.
If all else fails & he don't want it, he'd give it to me to experiment with.
 
Ok, I've sent him the link but haven't contacted him yet to let him know.
I don't know what he might be wanting to do with it if I do get it up & going.
If all else fails & he don't want it, he'd give it to me to experiment with.

In the long run, If he gives it to you. Experimenting with it. Would be about all you could do. Putting a lot of money in it is just not worth it. It is to old. I would really just start checking ebay out to see if somebody may have a old hard drive and os. The os is where I think you will run in to problems finding someone who has it. Anyway good luck with it. I just aquired a old emachine that runs xp. The most I can do with it now is use it for games and storage.
 
I've only used a mac for about 30 seconds about 8 years ago & it was a laptop.
Regardless of the age of this one, it'll still be educational to check it out & get
familiar with it. Email & websurf probably.:)
 
You are right it will be educational. I don't come across a lot of macs . Mostly just Pc. Well hopefully .You will be able to get it up and running.
 
With the help of the awesome guys & gals in here, I have hopes they'll make it easy on me since I know zero about them. If I get it up & running, can I have a Big Mac attack?lol :)
 
If you stick with PPC software and not Intel (because 10.4 ran on BOTH PPC and Intel) and don't try to run anything that doesn't say it will work on 10.4 for PPC, then really you won't have any problems with 10.4. It is an extremely solid OS. In all likelihood you'll have to use some weird fork of FF for PPC to run a real modern browser on it, but Opera 10.63 works on PPC and opens pretty much any site Opera 12.xx does and learninmypc is familiar with Opera. You aren't going to be doing anything with Flash with it, but Flash still sucks on modern Macs.
 
If you stick with PPC software and not Intel (because 10.4 ran on BOTH PPC and Intel) and don't try to run anything that doesn't say it will work on 10.4 for PPC, then really you won't have any problems with 10.4. It is an extremely solid OS. In all likelihood you'll have to use some weird fork of FF for PPC to run a real modern browser on it, but Opera 10.63 works on PPC and opens pretty much any site Opera 12.xx does and learninmypc is familiar with Opera. You aren't going to be doing anything with Flash with it, but Flash still sucks on modern Macs.
Ok, but I still don't know what PPC is or means? Doesn't Mac come with Safari or a default brower?
 
PPC is short for PowerPC, it is a RISC based processor rather than CISC that a typical "PC" has used since the... 8086? decades ago. Apple, Sun, and NeXT went with the RISC model while Intel and AMD did CISC. Apple switched to CISC processors (Intel) in late 2006 I believe. So what this means to you, is your Mac Tower is a G4, it is PowerPC based, it will not run any x86 applications regardless of whether they were designed for Mac or not. You have to get the PPC version if one exists.

Safari is included in 10.4 and is the only browser since OS X doesn't bundle you with (any?) 3rd party stuff. That Safari is old though, and is only upgradeable so far, because Apple left the PPC market. So your best bet is Opera 10.62 or some variant of FF (if you get that far, look up TenFourFox (think about the name, it makes sense)).

Also just for your and anyone else's information that is new to Macs and following this thread. Before Apple went to Intel processors, their "professional" line used the term "Power" before the item. So for 'notebooks' there were Powerbooks. For the towers they were Power Macs. Now, Power is gone mostly because they switched away from the 'PowerPC' architecture and went to x86 (and since they only use intel processors (so far) Apple just says Intel) now they have to just call them Pros - So we have Macbook Pro and Mac Pro.
 
PPC is short for PowerPC, it is a RISC based processor rather than CISC that a typical "PC" has used since the... 8086? decades ago. Apple, Sun, and NeXT went with the RISC model while Intel and AMD did CISC. Apple switched to CISC processors (Intel) in late 2006 I believe. So what this means to you, is your Mac Tower is a G4, it is PowerPC based, it will not run any x86 applications regardless of whether they were designed for Mac or not. You have to get the PPC version if one exists.

Safari is included in 10.4 and is the only browser since OS X doesn't bundle you with (any?) 3rd party stuff. That Safari is old though, and is only upgradeable so far, because Apple left the PPC market. So your best bet is Opera 10.62 or some variant of FF (if you get that far, look up TenFourFox (think about the name, it makes sense)).

Also just for your and anyone else's information that is new to Macs and following this thread. Before Apple went to Intel processors, their "professional" line used the term "Power" before the item. So for 'notebooks' there were Powerbooks. For the towers they were Power Macs. Now, Power is gone mostly because they switched away from the 'PowerPC' architecture and went to x86 (and since they only use intel processors (so far) Apple just says Intel) now they have to just call them Pros - So we have Macbook Pro and Mac Pro.

Very good information.
 
Cobalt006 ,
SNGX1275

& all you other wonderful people that viewed & responded to this thread. I talked to the guy that ownes the Mac tower & he has decided to recycle it at a 2nd hand store. Thank you everybody for your input & hopefully I can have my Big Mac attack on another Mac down the road.Thanks.(y) :D
 
Sorry to hear this, It would have been a great learning experience. But as you have said. You can have your attack on another Mac. LOL!!!!:)
 
Back