I want to upgrade an ancient G4 tower. It actually belongs to my partner - his parents bought it new for him to take to uni about 14 years ago, and he's been using the venerable old thing ever since. As much as I personally love a classic mac, it's seriously out of date now and really not properly functional as a main computer any more (It is a 400MHz model with 64MB RAM and a 10GB Hard Disk and is currently running Mac OS 8!). As much as I have tried to convince him that he needs a new one he is reluctant to get rid of it, but he has agreed to let me upgrade it as much as I can.
Specifically, I want to upgrade the hard disk to a larger size, maybe using an SSD to speed things up a little (Will this be worthwhile?) and stuff it full of as much RAM as it will take, although after a brief google search i'm not sure how much I can put in (1GB, 1.5GB or 2GB?) and of what type. I also want to dual boot the machine with some version of OS X so that I can gradually transition him over to that...
So to summarise, I would like to know:
- How big of a hard disk can I put in?
- Will the use of an SSD improve performance noticeably or will the rest of the computer be too slow for it to make a difference?
- How much RAM can I put in?
- What type of RAM does this system accept?
- Which versions of OS X will run acceptably on this system and maintain maximum compatibility both with all of his old stuff and with modern web browsers etc?
In addition, is it still possible to buy graphics cards/processor upgrade cards for this machine?
Specifically, I want to upgrade the hard disk to a larger size, maybe using an SSD to speed things up a little (Will this be worthwhile?) and stuff it full of as much RAM as it will take, although after a brief google search i'm not sure how much I can put in (1GB, 1.5GB or 2GB?) and of what type. I also want to dual boot the machine with some version of OS X so that I can gradually transition him over to that...
So to summarise, I would like to know:
- How big of a hard disk can I put in?
- Will the use of an SSD improve performance noticeably or will the rest of the computer be too slow for it to make a difference?
- How much RAM can I put in?
- What type of RAM does this system accept?
- Which versions of OS X will run acceptably on this system and maintain maximum compatibility both with all of his old stuff and with modern web browsers etc?
In addition, is it still possible to buy graphics cards/processor upgrade cards for this machine?