03-27-2006, 09:29 PM

The other day my friend gave me a g3 laptop, they have no knowledge of anything macwise or about its history accept that it was from a school.

The last time i had a mac was back in 1994, so help me out here please (=

I booted the thing up and i know its Mac OS 9, and alot of the programs that i clicked on were locked. I dont know macs but using my pc knowledge i made the assumption that i was not logged in and this mac is next to useless without its network and login info. So i have a Mac G3 that was part of a previous probally nonexistent school network, i dont have the password or info to log in, and i have next to no mac experience. God help me. Or atleast mac people of mac-fourms.com help me!

The bottom of it says the following:

"Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series: 14.TFT/233MHz-512K/32MB/2GB HD/4MB Video/CD/Modem"

What do i do? On the back of it theres a small button that says reset, shold i press it? Will i have to buy OS 9 again if i do? and if i do actually get to using it, then what should i do? Id like to use this in the same way as a power user would on windows, just surfing the net, listening to audio, watching videos, and maybe making techno because i hear macs are good for apps like that. Today i went to Barnes and Noble looking for Info on OS 9, hah all the books were about OS X )=< , figures. I looked through the magazines and saw some upgrades i could get from macsales and macware. Should i get those? I think i should probally look into an external HD, or maybe i could use that mini mac thingy and just carry one of those around. Forgive me if im stupid, i really dont know what im talking about. As you can see i need mac help if not mental help >_<

Help!

03-28-2006, 03:46 AM

That PowerBook is what you'd call a WallStreet or WallStreet II. They're about eight years old, and will run anything from Mac OS 8 to Mac OS X 10.2.8 (or higher if you hack it.) But don't expect too much...it's pretty old, and it probably won't keep up with much in the way of video.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "locked." Does it put up a login dialog at startup? If so, is it the real Mac OS 9 dialog, or something like FoolProof? And...are you sure it wasn't...er..."borrowed" from some school? :mac:

In any case, you'd be well advised to find an operating system install disk and wipe it clean. You might try 10.2 ("Jaguar") if it's been upgraded to 128MB of memory (Preferably more.) (To check, choose "About this Mac" from the Apple menu in the upper right.) Otherwise, look for an OS 9 CD.

03-28-2006, 06:58 AM

Yes i did more research and found ou it was a Wallstreet. And, because i couldent wait i ended up pushing the restart button on the back, it did not work. Probally because the school wanted it to not work because ti was a student laptop. But heres something i forgot to say. On startup i get a message saying "Missing cccdata file." and when i want to start a locked program i get a message saying "The application ("insert name here") could not be opened, because it is locked" Another one of my friends moms is a man expert, ill get advicefrom her. I dont want to wipe it because i dont have the OS. Al i have is the laptop and the charger.