Blue and White G3 Question

I will be receiving a free Blue and White G3 and will be proceeding to update it (optical drive, HDD, motherboard (possibly) RAM etc), and am new to doing work on mac computers. Any suggestions as to what to do would be greatly appreciated. What should I get? Also where can I get a compatible 56KB modem?

Firstly, your G3 b/w will be a pleasure to work on, with its hinged access door.

Secondly, read as much as you can from here Mactracker. It will tell you what maximum anything will go into your G3. See also sites like Low End Mac: The Mac Experience and Mac Specs, Prices, Answers, & Comparison @ EveryMac.com - Est. 1996.

Your best source of genuinely compatible Mac parts, especially RAM, is probably here Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC. Brands of RAM said to work well in Macs are Crucial and Kingston, make sure it's low density. That's where OWC is good - it sells only items suitable for and tested with Macs.

Both Zoom and Apple make USB modems, otherwise a PCI card modem, available from here Search Results for "56 K modem" at OtherWorldComputing.com. One of the better dialup external cable modems for that earlier Mac was made by Global Village. You may have luck in tracing one of them at an online auction like eBay.

If you want to experiment a bit, try putting two hard drives in your G3 (128 Gb maximum), one to run OS X, the other standalone OS 9 (see my Mac Specs).

Another good source of info on B&W G3's is here: XLR8YOURMAC.COM's G3-ZONE! Special Coverage of the Apple G3 Systems