Members Introduction... time to reflect on our past that got us here :)

[ToddH]

Hello from Georgia.

Long time computer user. Started with Apple IIs and TRS-80s in school and moved on to an Atari 600 and Commodore 64 at home. In the late 80s I switched to Amiga and owned an Amiga 500 then an Amiga 1200 while in college. The first Macs I used were in my college computer lab. As much as I loved my Amiga I always had a soft spot for Mac OS. It had a simplicity and ease of use which I really enjoyed. When Amiga went under I reluctantly switched to Windows, which I hated. Eventually switched to Mac when the first Intel Macs came out and been a Mac owner ever since.

Lately I'd been playing with Sheepshaver to relive some of the old Mac classic days but it just wasn't the same as having the actual hardware. When I discovered this forum I knew I had to get my hands on a G4 and give installing OS 9 on it a chance. I eventually found a nice G4 Mini for a song and the rest is history.

[ren0]

Hi from the UK!

I've been using a Mac since as long as I can remember thanks to my Uncle. Growing up we never had a PC in the house as my Dad's a builder so my first real taste of using a computer was on my Uncle's Macs. (I can only remember as far back to the tangerine iMac). Well when I was a teenager my uncle has started running out of space for his old Macs and as a result I ended up with his old Ruby iMac G3 which I still have (and it still works!) to this day.

This pretty much started me off with my love for the design of Apple computers around that 2000's sort of time. My 'daily driver' is a MacBook Pro that I bought in 2012 and have since upgraded to an SSD myself and it's served me well ever since.

I'm currently in the process of buying and refurbishing a tangerine G3 iBook which I have already put far too much love and effort into, even going as far to try and fully strip the thing so I can clean inside. (I can see some stains through the translucent plastic!) Growing up I always wished I could have one of the clamshell iBooks but being so young I didn't have the money for it! So I've bought one now!

Anyway I'm probably rambling, cheers for reading!

[zefrenchtoon]

Hi everyone!
Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.
My real name is Antoine and, as you can guess, I am French. (So I am sorry for my English).
I am very happy to have found your board.
I am using a Mac since … so many years. I started on a Mac Classic then a IIsi, a LC630, a LC475, a 7500 (quickly upgraded with a G3), a Yosemite G3/400 Rev1 (overclocked to 450), a PowerBook G4 15” 1Ghz and actually running on a MacBook Pro 2010.
Few years ago, I had the opportunity to get a PowerBook G4 1.67GHz, a PowerMac G4/350 Yikes and a PowerMac 6100/66 DOS for free.
I always liked to tweak my OSes since System 6.0.7 to Leopard so your topics about running OS 9 on unsupported hardware are so cool to read. And finally, I did it. In few days a should receive a Mac mini G4 1.5GHz to install a fresh new install of MacOS 9.2.2 v9 thanks to you and your awesome work. 
I’m working in computer science as a developer of software dedicated to firefighters, so I’m using languages and frameworks not OS 9 compliant. 😭
I always wanted to play with some DA but I never had the time/money/hardware/software to try.
Now, I can … 

[esbardu]

Hi everybody,

another newbie here, from Spain. I'm a late switcher, my first Mac was a 2006 Intel Mac Mini. I always liked computers and indeed I studied Computer Sciences but it was hard for me to switch to Mac earlier as I needed a PC in High School (Turbo Pascal and games) and at the University (no Macs in my degree).
But the fact is that I always wanted a Macintosh, I really wanted a Power PC back in the days where I had 486DX2 66, I remember dreaming about having the "Frankenstein" that was half Power PC and half 486.

No I am the lucky owner of several Macs (without any constraint in the number of computers I can have). I have several modern Macs, one Macintosh Classic and I have just bought a Mac Mini G4 1.5Ghz, I have used Basilisk II and Sheepshaver but wanted a real computer.
For me Mac Mini is the best option, I can easily store it when not in used and share the screen, keyboard and mouse with other computers.

I haven't even tested the machine with the installed OS X, I inmediately installed Mac OS 9.2 and now just bought an M-AUDIO USB and USB Floppy Disk.

Thanks!!!

[Timmertje]

Greetings from Holland!   

Hi, I’m Rien 48 years old. Married and 2 daughters.
Working in the ict as senior System admin. 
My mac adventure started with the first iMac apple released. At that time I was working at an company (ICI) in the Botlek Netherlands. My collegue and I were in that time Amiga fans. Then the first color Apple was announced.  Woooo.. An g3 233 mhz. Infrared.. WOOOO..  And usb ports!  We both did the mega update of the graphic memory to a amazing 6mb! And max ram at that time.
We both bought 1 . Put the amiga’s aside. And where blown away by Mac os 8.1 at that time. Pretty soon after 8.5 came. And a bit later 9…. And 9.2.. 
Got an usb scanner + printer +isdn modem. Future proof. J
Always was a big fan of os9. It worked so smooth.
Fast forward. Next I got an powermac g4 400mhz. An imac g4 800,, an powerbook g4 titanium. Ibooks, macbooks… MDD. This was a beast of a machine. I believe it was 2 x 1.4 ghz. Or so.  That thing was fast. Burning dvd’s with iDvd was fun. J

Slowly mac osx arrived, and I was going that route.got all versions, till the end of os9.
And that was that.. Sad..
Fast forward, my latest machine is an Imac 5K from 2018. It is the daily driver.
During the past years, when growing older. I was playing again with my Amiga 1200. And still do so now and then. My old imac g3 233 sadly didn’t survive. So I got myself an powermac g4 QS 733 mhz with an 22’ tft studio display… What a great setup!  Os9 on it. An special pci ide controller that support bigger hdd’s. Have now an 200gb ide drive.
I bought this system from an online marketplace for a 50Euro. In very good condition both. Except the dvd rom. That one is dead.  So I’m now looking to see if there are any pci sata os9 compatible controllers. So I can put in an sata dvd-rw and an sata SSD.
Not really looked into this.  If not I can use an sata ‡ ide cable. So I can add sata drives and convert them to ide.  Since I have enough sata stuff, but none IDE stuff J

I’m glad I found this forum, already got very usefull information. For example I’m using this website with classzilla. And typing this message in word 2001 and then copy past to classzilla and post it J

This baby is in the bedroom so I can play a bit when not able to get into sleep J

Thanks for reading.
Rien aka Timmertje

[Luke2642]

I'm a newbie here too.

I just love the look of the iMac G4 asethetic, that's what got me into classic Macs. I now play with various G4s, iMacs and eMacs.

I like Apple for their design aesthetic, both hardware and software. Playing with their classic systems in 2021 is affordable and enjoyable.

However, I dislike Apple as a company for their lack of open source collaboration, their platform lock in, their lawsuits, their purposeful limits and hamstringing of hardware and software, and their ridiculous price of upgrades, when they allow upgrades to even be possible! I'd even go so far as to say I 'hate' their attitude to entry level devices and high end exclusivity. The world needs pioneers that cater to everyone, with durability and reusability in mind. In 2021, they're in such a position of power to make the world a better place.

[quantum8]

New to this forum and haven't used anything below 10.2 in long while. It's been nice relearning everything and reliving the old way of doing things!

Hoping to get my mini G4 up and running, as well as restoring my 7600 back to OS 8/9 sometime.

[fabrice002]

Hi, I'm Fabrice.  New here, but not to Macs.  Since 1987 I've migrated from a Mac_SE to Mac_SE30 (with Xceed color monitor card), to PowerMac 7600, some SuperMacs that were my mother's, several iMac originals, 2 PowerBook Wallstreet G3s, a Quadra 605, a PowerBook G4, my son's PowerMac G4 + accelerators, daughter's iMac G5, etc.  Still have (or have again) most of them.

Also an MBP1,1 15" (2006;works fine), an MBP2010 in daily use (has fixed GPU cap); my main machine is a mid-2015 MBP-r 15".  The MBPs are max'd for memory and two have replaced, upsized SSDs.  Between max memory and the SSDs, they're perfectly speedy.   (I'm not a gamer!!  )

Most of the older ones are probably suffering defunct power supply caps and dead internal PRAM or std battery packs.  I have the SMT rework tools, but in many cases, way too much surgery to get to the raw component — and then you have to source the replacements.   So most of those will probably go in the trash.   Anyone know of an effective way to recycle?

My main goal is to make one perfectly functioning Wallstreet out of the two, because of their tremendous flexibility. Have a SCSI 30-pin adaptor (for an AGFA scanner, will probably toss the 3.5" SCSI HDs), a dual USB PC card, a Buffalo AirStation 2.4 & 5.2 GHz wifi (no driver), a pluggable ZIP drive, 2 pluggable CD drives, an Excaret Pro HD pluggable, and probably lots I've forgotten.  And lots of 2.5" HDs.

So that brings me here today, looking for a PBG3 PROM battery and a usable internal battery.  So far those companies that list them do so as teasers - they don't have them. Still will try eBay.  I might try to construct one or two from cells with welded tabs, but need to know voltages.  BTW, most electronics are highly tolerant of +/1 1v. difference from nominal.  Still want to know voltages.

So, what say all of you?  Ideas?

[outlawal2]

Good afternoon!

Longtime AMIGA guy here that has obtained a couple of old G4 MACS and figured it was time to add some Apple equipment to my personal Computer Museum.
I am a Windows guy by trade and support Manufacturing PCs with every version of Windows from 2000 all the way up to 10.  Started my computer journey at about age 12 with a Commodore 64, then an Amiga and that one set my love for computers in STONE.

Today I have a handful of Amigas running, a handful of MACS to GET running, a few MorphOS machines, several XP boxes, multiple Windows servers running in an ESXI cluster on 3 servers all connected to a 10GIG network.
My basement is full...

Thanks ahead of time for the knowledge and enjoyment that I am going to receive from this site!

[damo-blak]

Well, i started on making music (trackers) and GFX on amiga's just like many did,then got Atari ST for midi/games and c64!,
I had an amiga 2000,then 4000.Went on to pc as the atari was struggling to keep up with my 140 bpm IDM and complex Midi i was using at the time!,(went on to cubase 1.0 on pc)and had a small studio recording people who came my way
and writing,i used to work for a commercial studio at one point they gave me a mac system,
it was an old mac system,full scsi and had sound designer II sound card etc.,didnt really get much out
of that at the time as nobody i knew had any software and there was not much free stuff on the web.

Passed that on to somebody or other,continued using pc's on soundblaster AWE/yamaha sw1000xg/m-audio stuff
for a bit until 2007 when i got an OSX 5 machine,I had been using logic at friends houses on macs before that,so that was good.

I had a white macbook,i used it for one last gig in 2019, it died after that!,but i got the performance done:),my white macbook survived
the beer/dirt and battering of many gigs,it lasted 12 years!.I've got kids now so wouldn't have time to make the sets up,not but
anybody is playing out due to covid!.replaced it with a 2011 macbook pro laptop.

Im on here as i was building an old pc up with windows XP and echo MIA, midex 8,and I had been looking on this site for a long time
as im a bit nostalgic of old computers,so i have decided to get a g4(just waiting to have it delivered),its gonna be cool messing with Os9 as i have not used the classic Os
for any length of time.The other thing is i have a number of midi sound modules,so some good editors are out there.Maybe the midi is good on Os9?,will it be as tight as on atari st?,lets see.

[kats26]

Hi all,
Joining the community utilising my Macbook Pro to produce deep and tech music with Ableton.

[Pyewacket]

Hi! I’ve been lurking here for years and finally am introducing myself

I started using Apple products back in 1984. Not with a mac as sadly that was way above my budget. I had an Apple ][e that I installed the ultra sexy extended 80 column card which also increased RAM to a whopping 128kB lol  and a speech card (Mockingboard maybe?)I loved the industrial strength velcro on the top cover that made installing cards easy.

My first Mac was a (gasp) Performa running 7.?P don’t remember the number. Since then I have had a few Mac towers, an iBook, and a Cube (I miss my cube!)

Currently I have, and use, a 2018 mini running Big Sur, a late 2013 iMac running Mojave, and a G4 Mac Mini running Tiger, but I mostly use Classic for actual art processing work. The iMac is mostly still on my desk because the new and old minis don’t like each other and don’t speak lol I use dropbox for my files and the mini is too old to access it directly so I file share with the iMac and transfer files to its dropbox folder.

I also have an iPad Pro (older one) and an iPhone 12 mini I love how they all work together 

It is great to see an active community!

[agnesw]

Hello,

Just trying to play some old games on my current mac, and it's a very surprise nice to find this great community here!

[TheOdinnson]

I am a simple country boy who grew up with a very sharp aptitude for electro-mechanical tech. My first computer was a Performa 405 my sister bought me at Sears that cost her around $1500. I used that bad boy from the time I was 10 up until my Senior year of high school when I finally got a PC.

Now I'm back into the retro scene and LOVING all these old G3 and G4 machines!!

From the bottom of my heart, thanks to everyone's hard work and long hours you have put in to making this site and all the content within.

Sincerely an 80s gingerbeard nerd.

[themacofmyeye]

Hello. I started collecting mac's a couple of years ago. I grew up through the 90's but we could never afford Apple products - so I guess now I'm re-living those days and tinkering with machines I could only have dreamed of back in the day. I really love the simplicity of Mac OS 9 and I enjoy seeing how much I can get out of these machines, in terms of productivity and also compatibility with the modern mac.

I thought it was about time that I joined the forum, and I'm currently posting from a G4 quicksilver.

p.s. I have an instagram account dedicated to my collection (themacofmyeye) if you want to check it out.

[Mac OS 9 user]

Hello i am a MAC OS 9 user. No joke i sent this message through mac os 9! its insane but i got the internet working. i have been using a old macintosh for a long time got my data onto my new macbook pro! i cant wait to see what this website has and what i await! :D

[lepidotos]

I don't really have any nostalgia for OS 9 or the PowerPC days since they ended before I turned four, but I remember really wanting an iMac G3 as a kid. Nowadays, I'm mostly interested in the nanokernel structure of OS 9 and how that impacts how the OS feels and its GUI, which I still think looks really pretty. I got an iPod 6.5 for my 15th birthday, and besides an iPod touch 4, that was the only Apple thing I had until now that I have my iBook.
I'm into music, but that wasn't really a factor in deciding to go the OS 9 route, I really just like it. I'll be using it for music definitely, it's just that that was a happy coincidence. In the future, I'd really like to find a Power Macintosh G3 at a recycling facility, rather than just buying one. Besides financial reasons, adding one more to the available pool never hurts.

[anonymouse]

Followed long time this forum.
Nice to see that registering works and writing reply works with Netscape 7.2.

It is time to me to give thanks to all active members. Follow my post for some gifts for you.

And sorry my bad english. So I don't write no sense nonsense 

[bkellytech]

Brendan Kelly

Long time mac user.... I remember when I started programming on a Mac SE, you had to buy the "Inside Macintosh" books which were filled with as much philosophy as technology. So much thought given to the user interface. I appreciate the humor, sense of play that you would never see today (smoking bomb for error, etc).

Currently a technical director for Walt Disney parks and resorts. When I'm not working, I'm playing with my mdd dp 1.25 and kurzweil synths.....

[mads]

Hi there, yet another newbie here hoping to run OS 9 on a machine it was never meant to run on (G4 mini, in my case).