Sorry I missed these replies! I forgot the check the notify me of replies. Thank you for these suggestions! I recently got Digital Performer 5 to install on my G4 1.5ghz 12" Powerbook which is nice as I've been using DP3.11 on my OS9 system so it was nice to use something familiar.. however I also have been checking out other early software like Ableton and some version of early logic (one that needed a dongle emulator)
So yes things have evolved some. I have an M-Audio Ozonic which I believe has leopard drivers and maybe Lion. It must have been the device I was contemplating at the time.. I have a focusrite saffire as well which might have been under consideration as well, but having trouble finding legacy drivers for it on focusrites website..
but more recently since this original post, I got my hands on an M-Audio Profire 2626. It definitely only goes as far back as Leopard. So that's become my baseline for OSX.. It's been a bit of a struggle due to various factors from bad disks to bad memory to dvd drives not reading burned images etc.. but i'm getting there.
Thanks!
Caleb