Questions on a Powermac G3 Beige

First of all, I'd like to say hello to my ex-fellow fanboys, as a convert to the Wintel world. Now, I used to be a giant mac fan. From me early days, I loved the classic os, up through OS 9. My first computer was a Mac Plus, then a Duo, then a Power Computing clone, then an Imac, then my heart went over to the shiny blue of Windows XP. Hehehe.

Anyways, for nostalgia's sake, I decided to get a good old mac computer. I looked around on eBay and found this little gem...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:BCA:US:11&Item=130060291692

Bought and paid for, and I'm looking forward to getting her.

Now, I did some research after remembering that this was the last SCSI/ADB-based mac and I came up with a few questions...

I'm planning on upgrading her pretty heavily. I've got some PC100 SDRAM lying around, generic stuff from Hyundai, built for a Pentium 2, and I'm kinda hoping it would work. Is there a reason it wouldn't? They're 64 meg modules and worked fine at a 66mhz system bus when I tried them on the Gateway motherboard they came with.

Also, I'm looking to put it into a KVM with my three Windows builds. Is there some way I could get her to use a USB keyboard and mouse using an expansion card? I'll be sure to check that it has compatible drivers, of course.

Thanks all!

Yes if you put a PCI USB host adapter then you can use a usb KB and Mouse. I think your PC100 memory will probably work, but you won't know until you try. Those G3s were a little pickier about what ram they would take than a lot of PCs. good luck and welcome back.

BTW: you can also install a PCI ATA host adapter and get a bigger faster cheaper hard drive or a disk burner.

www.powermax.com, www.macsales.com great places to purchase upgrades...and more optional add-ons for that Beige G3. Strong computer BTW too.

Thanks for the answer! I plan to perhaps use it as a Mac OS X server with SCSI stuff I might pick up and as a computer to tinker around on.

I've got another question, though. Tiger requires Firewire to install, Panther USB, and my mac has neither built-in. I just bought a card from ebay that does both USB 1.1 and Firewire 400. Will OS X 10.4 install, or will I have to use xPostFacto?

There might be a problem because 10.4 is on a DVD. That leaves you three options:
1. Get an internal DVD drive that will work
2. Get a USB DVD drive to work
3. Get a FireWire DVD drive to work

I don't know if your Mac has ATA or not. If not, like jhelm007 said, it would be a good idea to get the PCI ATA card. It would give you big drive support and alse enable you to have a DVD drive.

Will you be able to get 256 of RAM into it?

I was planning on using a Toshiba DVD-ROM I have lying around and putting it in there. The Beige G3 is the last mac to have SCSI, but it's legacy and the HDD and CDROM are both ATA.

And yeah, I have a 256 stick lying around. I might have to use it if the powermac doesn't have four SDRAM slots, as most of the sticks I have are 64 meg ones, but I'll be able to hit 256 with little trouble, assuming my PC ram (Micron and Hyundai) works on the mac.