{"id":21411,"date":"2020-07-12T14:51:52","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T21:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=21411"},"modified":"2020-07-12T16:22:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T23:22:57","slug":"claus-imac-g3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/claus-imac-g3\/","title":{"rendered":"Claus Wolf Reviews the 20-Year-Old iMac G3\/500"},"content":{"rendered":"

G3\/500 iMac<\/h2>\n

You probably have fond memories of your first something. Maybe it is your first car, your first computer, your first kiss? These memories stay with us and when we think back to them, they give us a nice and cozy feeling.<\/p>\n

Considering that this is a site with a slight Macintosh bias, I decided to review my most recent acquisition: an Apple iMac G3\/500, with 20GB HDD and 128MB RAM from Summer 2000. A most beautiful computer!<\/p>\n

\"iMac
iMac G3 Side View with Ports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a machine, very similar to this one, that was my first Macintosh. To be fair, it was wasn\u2019t mine at all. It sat on my desk when I worked in Tech Support in London, as I was the one guy who didn\u2019t mind using it!<\/p>\n

The other day, as I was idly browsing ebay-kleinanzeigen.de<\/a>, I came across an advert for this particular machine and to paraphrase something Andy Ihnatko often says: I had 70 \u20ac and I will make another 70 \u20ac rather quickly, so I bought the machine – sight unseen.<\/p>\n

It arrived in good condition, only the bottom left control key is broken, everything else looks great and it booted without problem.<\/p>\n

Mac OS 9.0.4<\/h2>\n

Mac OS 9.0.4 greeted me with its not so terribly unfamiliar look. While there were massive advanced in user interface design in those 20 years, it was super easy to figure out how to go about things. The installed programs took me down memory lane and it was a lot of fun to just click around.<\/p>\n

The internet still worked, after I manually changed the TCP\/IP settings for my wired connection.<\/p>\n

\"TCP\/IP
TCP\/IP Settings in OS9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let me qualify what I mean when I say, the internet works. The installed browsers on that machine are so old, that they cannot handle https connections, and there are no modern versions, for obvious reasons. What that means is that you can \u201cgoogle\u201d just fine – they still offer a http connection, but most everything you might want to access, including podfeet.com, will be inaccessible.<\/p>\n

Some sites, dedicated to these old machines, will actually disable https for you, like www.macintoshrepository.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
iMac showing Macintosh Repository in Classilla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the first excitement had settled, I figured I should try to install OS X 10.3.2, as it might improve things. I\u2019ll spare you the anxiety. It didn\u2019t work, but while working on this, I screwed up big time. The system folder could no longer be found – and so I got to embark on a journey of discovery!<\/p>\n

That journey taught me a lot I had long forgotten. In the end this is a story about the power of the internet and the kindness of strangers, who put their wisdom online.<\/p>\n

How to get Mac OS 9 back up and running?<\/h2>\n

If the seller had included the Mac OS 9 install CD I could have tried a restore, but I wasn\u2019t that lucky!<\/p>\n

In the end I found an .iso image at macos9lives.com\/…<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I kind of feel bad for getting software this way, but it is the only realistic way of getting software for a 20 year old machine. The site operators are to be congratulated for their service to the community.<\/p>\n

But how to get the Operating System on the machine? I had used up all my empty CD-Rs and it was the weekend. If you wonder why the weekend might be a problem, I simply had no way of buying new CD-Rs, our local supermarket doesn\u2019t stock them. I thus had to figure out, if one could boot from USB. I found a forum entry, which explained that you could.<\/p>\n

To \u201cburn\u201d that iso-image to the USB stick, it is easiest done from the command line (in macOS) and takes merely 4 carefully constructed commands.<\/p>\n

diskutil list<\/code><\/p>\n

That first command helps you find the disk identifier for your thumb drive. In my case that was disk5 and you want to be 100% certain that you don\u2019t screw that up, it might be the last you\u2019ve seen your data!<\/p>\n

sudo diskutil unmountDisk \/dev\/disk5<\/code><\/p>\n

sudo dd if=\/Users\/USERNAME\/Downloads\/macos-922-uni\/macos-922-uni.iso of=\/dev\/rdisk5 bs=1m<\/code><\/p>\n

diskutil eject \/dev\/disk5<\/code><\/p>\n

Now that I had a thumb drive ready, I needed to convince the iMac to boot from it. Whether the following is needed, I don\u2019t know – but macintoshrepository.org\/…<\/a> suggested to<\/p>\n