What OS to Install on eMac ? ? ?

G'day and welcome to the forums.

What is the processor speed of the eMac, OS X.5 Leopard requires a 867MHz processor, or faster, and at least 1GB memory. It is very difficult finding Leopard, or even Tiger OS X.4 on CD's, as nearly all releases came out on DVD's.

Bearing this in mind for starters look for a full retail install CD of Panther OS X.3, and make sure you get the black coloured discs and do not buy the silver grey model specific discs as they will probably not install.

Also you do need Apple compatible low density PC133 memory modules, not generally available from PC shops.

Am sure my mate from NZ hughvane will be along shortly as he is a bit of an eMac specialist whereas I consider they make very attractive anchors, or that is what he will tell you!

You wouldn't happen to know the processor type would you? I don't believe the 1Ghz+ models can boot OS 9. If you only have a CD drive then you probably can't load Tiger on there since it only came packaged on DVDs. I would say anything from 10.1-10.3 would be fine.

I hope this information is accurate. I'm not too familiar with the older Macs. I didn't get into Apple products until about 2006.

Hey, thanks to both of you for replying to my thread!

Urm, just had a look at the mac, opened the draw of where the CD drive is, and from what the sticker inside it, it says that it's processor is 800Mhz and has 128Mb RAM... is that any help ?

Okay Panther it is OS X.3 on CD and increase that memory up to 1GB. Here are the specs for your eMac:-

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/emac/stats/emac_800.html

Note the specs state the machine has a DVD reader, or combo installed. Many were sold to schools who were able to purchase a baser model without the DVD reader, only CD.

And this is the Panther discs you need:-

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Mac-OS-X-Pan...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3efe850627

Emacs range from 700mhz to 1.42ghz. Hard to say which one you own because 3 of the 5 emac models made had an option for a CD only drive.

As the above said if you can find a 10.3 (Panther) on CD to buy somewhere that will work. But in saying that you can get 10.4 (tiger) to install on it. Mind you you'll have to read the links below on the subject as it's not a straight forward process.
No DVD Drive? Beware Mac OS X Tiger - Blogcritics Culture
Installing OS X 10.4 'Tiger' on DVD-Challenged Macs Using FireWire Target Disk Mode

Could you use the same methods to get 10.5 (Leopard) onto your machine I would guess. Someone else I'm sure will say if this is actually possible. But would it actually be worth the effort? Would your emac be fast enough to actually run Leopard efficiently? I'm not so sure on that one.

[edit] You beat me to post you have an 800mhz emac. So in that case 10.5 would probably be to slow on your emac. But 10.4 if you can get it installed should work just fine.
And yes upgrade the ram on it if you intend to keep the emac for a long time. You want this type of ram for it.
"PC-133, 3.3 volt unbuffered, 8-byte, non parity, 168-pin SDRAM"
Since you have 2 slots for ram and the max ram you can have is 2x 512MB ram sticks (for a 1GB total). And if you find a store that sells them, they should be pretty cheap considering it's an old type of ram we're talking about here.

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[edit 2] To harryb2448:

There are 2 different models of emac that had 800mhz. The original emac and the next upgraded model with ATI graphics.
You posted the original one (model nimber M8892LL/A) but the next one model number (M9150LL/A) also was 800Mhz.

Here is a link to the other emac with 800mhz.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/emac/stats/emac_800_ati.html

hey again, thank you so much to all of you for all your help on this!!
I will see if I can pick up a copy of the Panther OS and just to make sure i'm looking at the right thing, could you tell me if this RAM would be compatible ?

512MB RAM Memory - Kingston KTM3079/512 PC133 ECC DIMM on eBay (end time 06-Apr-10 23:36:08 BST)

thanks again

I have 10.4 Tiger on my 700mhz e-Mac. Installed via CD's.

- Nick

morgster93 said:

hey again, thank you so much to all of you for all your help on this!!
I will see if I can pick up a copy of the Panther OS and just to make sure i'm looking at the right thing, could you tell me if this RAM would be compatible ?

512MB RAM Memory - Kingston KTM3079/512 PC133 ECC DIMM on eBay (end time 06-Apr-10 23:36:08 BST)

thanks again

Click to expand...

Yes that is the right RAM you are after for the emac. But I'm not too sure about buying 2nd hand ram though. I always believe it's best to buy that new.
A quick search on the crucial website showed me this:
CT64M64S4D7E - 512MB, 168-pin DIMM , SDRAM, PC133 from Crucial.comUS
That is what you need at only $56US$ per 512MB stick. I'm sure those people outside of the US can find a nice place to get ram too. (Umart I have found to be the best for Australians).

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And for you experts out there. Here is 2 types of this RAM out there. Exactly the same but one is CL=2 and the other is CL=3. What does that difference mean? The crucial memory chooser directed me to the CL=2 version. But does this difference mean anything?

It is not the correct memory as they are advertised as suitable for IBM server. This type of low density is what you do need:-

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/133SD512328/

And only $29.99 per 512MB module! OWC are Mac specialists and the cheapest by far.

I'll add a tid bit to this. I just bought an imac G3 with panther installed on it. It's fun and a nice toy in my kitchen. And believe me, with panther, it feels like a toy.

What I'm going to do and what I think would be best, is to find, borrow or buy a cheap external dvd drive, get a tiger disc and install tiger. Tiger will turn your emac from a toy into a computer that you can actually do something with.

Os X Panther is dead. It's a lot of work to keep it usable. I'm stuck with firefox 2, older itunes, no flash, no social networking, no support and on and on.

It's taking all my nerd to make this a smooth machine. I have a tiger disc and I plan on using target disc mode to install tiger once I up the ram in this thing. I wouldn't advise Panther to anyone who is a novice with mac's, let alone my worst enemy. It's junk, dead and for good reason.

So with all that, The price of the black Tiger discs can go from $50-$200 depending on where you look. An external drive can be had for under $100. All depends how much you want to invest into this machine. Go with Tiger. It's on it's way out, but still has lots of life left, modern capabilities, better support and will feel more like an old computer rather than a novelty act.

Oh, and you can find the Tiger install cd's, but when I looked they were going for about $200-$300. Perverse.

Good luck, invest a little $$ and you'll have a fun little machine.

harryb2448 said:

It is not the correct memory as they are advertised as suitable for IBM server. This type of low density is what you do need:-

512MB PC133 CL3 3-2-2/PC100 CL2 2-2-2 1... (OWC133SD512328) at OWC

And only $29.99 per 512MB module! OWC are Mac specialists and the cheapest by far.

Click to expand...

Well I threw in emac into the crucial memory search and that's what it spat at me. So if what I linked is wrong, then it is crucial's memory seach engine at fault for telling me to get the wrong memory. And so what if it says it is for a PC. I get my memory from a place where don't even know what an Apple is let alone Mac memory. But as long as I know exactly what I want I can go in there and get the right memory for my Mac.

Mind you the only difference in what you linked and what I linked apart from the price is yours is CL=3 and my link is CL=2. I still don't know what the CL means there. Anyone actually know this?

CAS Latency. It's some kind of timing issue that was because of the fact that PC66/100/133 was used over such a wide range of hardware. I've seen PCs from 133s to 3GHz use the stuff.

But I'd say that Tiger is the best OS for that thing, but its price at this point makes it absurd to buy.

From the perspective of a G3 iMac and a G4 eMac user, I'd suggest Tiger as the maximum OS, even if the processor was 1 GHz or greater.

In respect of Panther and the comments made about it, I find 10.3.9 quite adequate for internet usage, and better than that for word processing, basic graphic work and so on. It's major failing is with Flash, which means doing without YouTube and the like. For that I use my eMac/Tiger. It's all about setting parameters of usage.

Regarding RAM, I've used both Crucial and Kingston brand RAM successfully in older Macs, the RAM (bought from OWC) I took out of the iMac recently was Hynix brand. I have to agree with Harry about OWC. It is without doubt the best - as in safest - place to buy Mac-related products. Great service too, even from way down here in lil' ol' NZ.