Need general mac advice...Just aquired a G3

Hi all,
I should say that first off I'm a long time mac fan, but I've always used PCs. Anyway, I was at a friends last night and he had a G4 and G3 sitting in an empty room unused...he said he uses the G4 but I could have the G3, so I took it.

The specs on the sticker on the back read 300MHz, 64 megs of ram, and an 8 gig hdd. I've a few general questions.

What OS would run well? I have a copy of OS 10.3 around somewhere. I plan on adding ram so any OS I put on it will run better.

What kind of ram does it take? The sticker says SD ram, will regular PC100 or 133 work? I'm assuming no becuase it is a mac and probably needs something special.

How big of an HDD would work? I have a western digital 80 gigger laying around somewhere (IDE). Will this work?

What is the name of the socket on the video card? I know it's not VGA and requres a converter...it has two rows of maybe 10 to 12 pins, whereas VGA has 3 rows of pins. I need to get a converter to hook it up to a VGA monitor I have.

I don't plan on using this computer much, just something to play around with for net surfing and music.

Thanks guys!

yes, the IDE will work.
yes, PC100 or 133 will work too.
i had 10.3 on mine, ran fine.
not sure on the name of the socket.

Thanks seven. Could the socket be the ADC one? I'm not sure...I know it's not VGA.

I take it that it's a Blue and white G3. They had a great design. Found this which is the technical specs on that model:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58226

I found this as well which has lots of upgrade info:

http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/machine.php?name=powermac-g3-blue-white

If you install a larger harddrive then you may need to partition the first 7 gigs and install the system into that. I remember having to do that with my iMac 333mhz. Anyway you can find information about that in the read me file on the install disk. Have fun.

I think it's an Apple display connector or something like that; you may be right. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think this was just a powered VGA connector but is obviously incompatible with standard VGA monitors and cables. You will need an adapter or you can always just upgrade your video card. I have a PCI ATi Rage 128 out of a G3 I can sell you but it's nothing fancy. It does have a VGA port but seeing that your video card is different than the stock one it's probably been upgraded so going with a Rage 128 would be a downgrade for you. What OS is running right now?

If it's a ADC connector then you can get an adaptor for either DVI or VGA. Here is what's available at the apple store.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?find=adb&btn.x=0&btn.y=0

Is your G3 a Blue & White tower or a Beige desktop system? All the Blue & White G3 I have ever worked with had a VGA connector. If it's one of the older Beige models it might be the old Apple DB-15 plug. There are adapters avalible for it to VGA but you would be better off replacing the video card.

It's a blue and white tower and I've been told by a friend thats its a "mac VGA" connector. I'll need to find an adaptor I suppose.

Sorry for the sparse responses guys, but I'm at work and had limited time to respond. Anyway, this is the adaptor I believe I need.

http://www.clubmac.com/clubmac/shop/detail~dpno~29465.asp

My plug on my video card socket is a female version on the left of the picture.

Mr. Bobbins - I'm a bit confused. The sticker on the back says 300 Mhz, yet the first link says it came in a minimum of 350 MHz. The second link said they came in a minimum of 300Mhz, yet came out in January of 1999 while mine is dated 1998. Could it be because the second link is a UK site and they werent released in the UK until January of 1999? (I live in the states)

Dtravis - my tower is blue and white and it has a DB15 port, so not only the beige ones came with it . I'll get some pics up later.

All G3 B&W sold to the public had a Stock VGA connector. What you have is a 300Mhz G3 B&W that was sold to the education market. That is the only B&W to have that DB-15 Video. You will want to upgrade that card. It's quite slow and has very little VRam. I own one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Macintosh

I may upgrade it, but I'll have a hard time bringing myself to spend money on a new video card on an eight year old computer. I have the access to lots of ram for free, but not a new video card.

What kind of video card does it take? AGP, PCI? Are video cards PC/Mac specific?

The B&W uses a Apple PCI slot for the stock video. You can get a 16 Meg Apple ATI card for not much on Ebay. Mac video cards use a apple rom. You can get a PC card and flash it though. Since there are the stock PCI slots, any Apple PCI card will work, but that one slot that looks like a PCI slot backwards is for the Apple ATI Rage card. I got one on ebay for next to nothing and it made a large difference.

I had forgotten about the Educational B&W with that ATI card with the DB-15. Been a while. Does your card also have DIN jacks next to the DB15? If so those are for Video capture!

Here is one of the cards for the B&W. Quite cheep.

http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-ATI-RAGE-...8QQihZ012QQcategoryZ25449QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here are some pics for you guys to figure out what I have!! LOL

I just read somewhere you can put a G4 in a G3....how true is this? Whats the max speed G4 I could put in my G3?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technology/EG45001M/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technology/EG410001MU/

There are two of them. They are not cheep but really would give it a boost in performance.

Your B&W is just like mine, the education model with the ATI with Video capture. I have the plugs that plug into the din plugs for Video Out and in. I had forgotten all about that card.

I don't plan to do much with it...maybe use it to surf the net when I'm on WoW raids on my PC (a blasphemous letter combination on these forums) =P.

I may use it to store music. I'm mainly looking foward to being able to play around with Mac OS, honsetly. I've always wanted one to play with. I'm considering buying a mac mini for schoolwork and using my dell laptop for my games. How do you like your mini, travis? Can it run any 3d applications well?

Thanks for the help guys. I really wish that there was a store here that carried a DB15 -> VGA adapter...I was really hoping to get this tower up and running tonight.

I take it you mean the Intel Core Duo mini. If so it's fine for most applications. Just demanding 3d games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 for example would be a bit much for the Intel GMA 950 Video. Otherwise it's great and VERY fast. Just be warned that Adobe Photoshop has to run under Emulation till next year when the native universal version comes out and will be a bit slower than it would be otherwise, but for most stuff it's not that bad. Any Native or Universal application will FLY on the Mini Core Duo. It's an amazing machine for it's size and price. Just no demanding 3d games.

Sounds like it'd run world of warcraft just fine, then.

It's not too demanding.

My friend runs WoW on his 17" Power Book with a PowerPC processor. It has Ati Radeon 9700 in it. It runs pretty well. MC and BWL get a little bogged down but still playable. Just not sure if he has the settings max or not.

Also if you got a Mini you could put windows XP on it with boot camp. Works as good as a PC running XP with the same config and also handy if your making the crossover and still have windows software that you'd like to keep using.