Upgrading iMac to OS X? 1

[gregarican]

I have inherited an old iMac. We're talking 233Mhz slot loading circa late 1990's. I have read that it is possible to upgrade it to OS X. Here are the specifics:

. 233 Mhz CPU
. 256 MB RAM
. 6 GB HDD
. Mac OS 8.6

What would be the steps necessary to accomplish such an upgrade? I would like to run current software releases and feel that keeping on Mac OS 8.6 would be a tough fit.

Any pointers or feedback would be appreciated

 

[jimoblak]

OS8.6 is from around 2000. That's pretty old. The RAM that you have is not enough for 10.4 and will just get you by with 10.3. There would be no RAM left for your apps to run.

If anything, I would check out eBay or some other means to upgrade to 9.0 but I would not stress that computer any further unless you intend to use it for word processing and web surfing only. None of the iLife, iWork, or any audio/video/photo editing apps will operate well on it unless you are extremely patient.

 

[drlex]

I concur with Jim; I had a similar iMac (333MHz, 192MB RAM, 60GB) and kept it at OS 9.2.2. iPhoto could be slow and iTunes CD rip and Photoshop filters were an exercise in patience.

soi la, soi carré

 

[jmgalvin]

I'm with the other 2, don't waste your time and money. As Jim said, it might be worthwhile to look around Ebay for OS9 as it's far better than 8X. If you want you can buy it from OWC

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/software.

We still have 4 of these, running 9 - used for photo retouching on various flavors of Photoshop. They're quite good.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[jimbopalmer]

If you do decide to upgrade to OSX, two points

You may need new firmware

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

If you need a larger HD, it must have a first partition with OSX on it less than 8 gig

http://lowendmac.com/imacs/imac.shtml

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

 

[drlex]

2 excellent points, Jim - worth a star from me. I've seen posts relating tales of woe from neglecting to do one or other of those things prior to upgrading to OS X.

(I tried 10.1 on that iMac after both changes and the experience put me off X until 10.3 was available, at which point I bought a 2nd hand G4 iMac. Now contemplating an intel jobbie when funds permit[happy])

soi la, soi carré