POLL: Blue & White G3

[FBz]

Self-explanatory, right?

Might be a related link here later...
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6127.msg51643.html#msg51643

[S. Pupp]

I had one, purchased used in 2001.  I used it (with a 450MHz G4 cpu) until buying a new 2003 MDD dual 1.25GHz.  I have never for a single minute missed the B&W.  I used the MDD G4, however, regularly until about two years ago.

[rvense]

What's wrong with them? I've always thought they were the best looking tower and jealous of the ADB port, but I've never had one.

[mrhappy]

Never had one… pretty though!

I went straight from Mac Plus to G4-400

[Protools5LEGuy]

What's wrong with them? I've always thought they were the best looking tower and jealous of the ADB port, but I've never had one.

Rev. 1 is a nightmare

[FBz]

Well… it’s the second weekend of the Poll now and only 15 respondents so far.

   •FIVE of which still have and / or use a B&W.
   •Four, wishing that they still had one.
   •And FIVE declaring that the B&Ws were possessed by demons.

Maybe more respondents this weekend? Hope so anyway.

Have been “tandem testing” different setups / configs with mustagcoupe, V.Yakob
(and also awaiting some input from Borgmac’s possible contributions).

V.Yakob and I have been exploring back-to-the-past installations of OS 8.51 and OS 8.6.
Next slated to try the actual original B&W G3 Installer disc (also intended for the G3 MiniTower.)

And I’m waiting to post results from all of this “through-the-past-darkly” F-U-N.
*Only one poll choice noted for “Quit posting about B&Ws” …and that was me.

Interesting note on Rev.1 possessed by demons motherboards:
mustagcoupe uses his with the SiL3112 cards to avoid the antics of the Rev.1
and focuses on use of OS X. (OS 9 devotees might also consider this!)

So there’s a creative & productive workaround for you Rev.1 owners.
Thinking about various design-build scenarios w/ alternative power supplys & home-built case designs.
And this, inspired by mustagcoupe’s plywood-encased G5 project. (Like I really need another project.)

At any rate, weekend #2 of the B&W Poll coming up. May we have more than 15 respondents please?
Even if your selections might boost the “Quit posting about B&Ws!!!” choice.

Thank you.

[ssp3]

One of the choices is ambiguous. 

[Protools5LEGuy]

I can be biased by the fact that it was my first Mac.

It needed the 3.6 volts battery more than the duracell bunny.

From time to time the PRAM gets corrupted and you have to boot via firmware. (Set defaults...)

The boot picker you get pressing "Option" on new world macs was not working most of the time.

Are tremendously finicky about jumper positions on HDD, not to mention the optical drives that are even harder to make them recognized. If a optical drive is not "blessed" it cant boot installers.

You can change the cable to add a 2nd drive (even on rev.1) but the next morning both drives got corrupted. 

[Protools5LEGuy]

Also, the fact that is only 3 PCI slots + graphic slot make all 3 PCI slots undesirable for Protools rigs but the simplest.

Dont get me wrong, I was then happy (2003) with a Protools 5 LE rig including an AM-III, 2 Rage 128 (One with onboard decoder the other without) and a Sonnet ATA-66 tempo card. Way more happy than with a Pentium 4. But some days it took almost half an hour to get the blue thing going.

You get a routine to reset CUDA button + clear PRAM to work.  But when you get a "good working" machine (just a G4 DA 466)  you think about throwing it to the river on the next bridge.

When you realize Steve Jobs sold you shit with the B&W Rev. 1 you think "I should buy a Rev. 2 board" but this thing is limited to (Unicorns) G3 1100 MHz, 600 MHz G4 or 1000 MHz G4 with a 66 MHz bus you end giving up on the upgrade route.

Then you realize you could buy a first gen G4 motherboard and exchange it, but the PCI slot number is the same and you loose the ADB port.

When you have a B&W you want to think your machine is unique due to the ADB ports, but the cost of a MacAlly ADB pro keyboard + ADB mouse was too high (and I commit to buy it) 15 years ago. Today it makes more sense just to use USB (apple) keyboards

[Protools5LEGuy]

I have to mention that the original polycarbonathe handles cracks way sooner than all G4 handles.

My B&W has Quicksilver handles because originals were beyond repair.

Hardware modders love the G3 B&W look, but only slim mATX boards can get room there, and the heat generated shows it is a ´90s machine not designed for 600W+ modern CPUs. In the end if you mod it you finish with a gruyere machine that can make 2-3 youtube videos just to show off.

I can see myself in 6 years taking a Mac Mini (2018-2023) inside the blue box, just to have the gorgeous blue thing near and give me the good vibes it should gave me years ago.

[S. Pupp]

To me, my B&W looked like it was a Fisher-Price invention.  I much preferred its industrial look after removing all that plastic cladding and selling on eBay any cladding that had no cracks.

[smilesdavis]

I love my smurf g3