Can you os upgrade on older imacs? 3

[Cyberfly]

I bought a iMac "350" (350 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, 64 MB of RAM, a 6.0 GB hard drive) at a cash converters yesterday. They said it was illegal to sell it to me with the software. It's got Mac Os 9 installed on it, but there's also a lot of old jumk of the person that owned it before hand. I'd like to reinstall the system, but someone said that I stuff up the HD if I install versions higher than Mac OS 9 (eg. 9.2 or X). Is that true?
Also, I paid au$500 for it...did i get ripped off (as someone else said I did)

Thanks for any help,
Ayscha

 

[jimbopalmer]

you will want at least 256 meg more RAM for OSX, other than that no problems
(while you are inside you could upgrade to 512 Meg, but it is not NEEDED)

All iMacs CAN do OSX I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[jimbopalmer]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106163

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[macgeneral]

As always JimboPalmer has beaten me to the draw

It is not illegal to sell an iMac with an install of the operating system (and the applications associated with it). It is crossing the border to "give" third party applications like Photoshop to a person without their acquiring a software license from the manufacturer.

Typically the machine you describe sells retail for around $300-$400 dollars - a bit less on Ebay.

The RAM upgrade Jimbo mentions is critical for loading X. Do note that as the Mac OS has evolved, so to has it's RAM (memory) requirements.

OS 9.2 runs about 45MB of RAM so you can do the math yourself. Each application you use will try to grab enough RAm for it to operate (this is auto-managed in OS X but you can set RAm requirements, to some degree, in the earlier OS versions).

Increase the RAM on your machine and run whatever Mac OS suits you!

macgeneral

 

[jimbopalmer]

By the way, if you run the Apple System Profiler, you can read details about how your RAM is laid out now, so you can plan the upgrade, ideally one slot is empty and all the new RAM is available, but you may find both RAM is filled and you have to take out a 'small' RAM to put in a 'big' one. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[Cyberfly]

So OS 9.2 runs about 45MB of RAM, how much does Os 9 or 9.1 run? Are the $300-400 the machine sells for Australian or American Dollars?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Zelandakh]

they are US dollars, but local pricing varies.

Each OS takes about 10-20% more than that last. That's main versions, not increments.

 

[Cyberfly]

So I didn't do too badly with paying 500 aussie dollars for mine. Yay! Happy now

Thanks again you guys!
Cyberfly

 

[kfons]

YOu could have paid less but:
I just upgraded my Rev B 233 MHZ Imac for around $350.00.
I instaleld a Sonnet 600 MHZ G3 card which also include Firewire. Added a 100GB Western Digital Drive for $80.00 at Comp USA, and 256MB Ram (total 384 MB).
Upgraded to OSX 10.2.3 from OS 9.2.2 and I'm nver going back to 9 - it rocks.
The machine should last me another 2, possibly 3 years and was cheap.
By the way I just bought a similar machine to the one you did for $150 with a printer and scanner.

Kevin

 

[PGRAYSON]

If you do install OS X 10.2, upgrade the firmware first from the OS X install CD.

 

[pmactekker]

Greetings from Texas.

If there is a question about compatibility, here is info on OS 8-9 (

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25114

) and requirements for Jaguar, OS 10.2 (

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html

).

 

[panini]

Are these OS's free to download from Apple?

 

[jimoblak]

The following are purchased OS upgrades. Inbetween versions are free.

8.0
8.5
9.0
10.0 (OSX)
10.2

See apple.com for details.