Anyone still use an OS 9.2 or lower Mac?

Question

I'm asking this out of pure curiosity. :) Does anyone other than myself still have, and use, a Macintosh running OS 9.2 (or lower?)

I have a G3 iMac that doesn't have enough memory OR hard drive space to "comfortably" upgrade to even the oldest OSX. Basically, if I did, my Mac would run as slow as a snail AND I'd only be able to have about ONE program open at a time, otherwise I'd risk a memory-related crash. I can't operate like that! Hence, I can't upgrade to OSX .

Of course, I also have a great multimedia laptop running Windows XP, so it's not like I'm "stranded" with a dinosaur. *chuckle* I use my laptop for certain important things, but I still use my Mac desktop for certain other things that it's still great at. For example, I have Adobe Photoshop on there, and I use that program a lot for both biz and personal use. I also have some truly classic Mac games on there that I love!

Anyway, if you have an OS 9.x Mac, for whatever reason, please stand up and be counted! :)

Answer 1

Believe it or not, an " OLD" Mac running the " OLD " 9 can be
far superior to a new Mac running 10.
Mac has always been a few years ahead of PC - Steve Jobs
saw a funny pointing thing in an experimental lab at Palo Alto
Research Center, ( PARC) and the interesting novelty at Xerox became the " MOUSE " which he HARDWIRED into the motherboard. Years later, the PC came up with a device on the
PRINTER PORT, serial, non powered 9 pin, port, with a SOFTWARE program running continuously ( eating up CPU time, and slowing down the computer ) that translates the Serial
Printer port data " Paper OUT " " Paper Jam ", into mouse clicks..
duh...
Steve Jobs was in Japan at Canon, and saw a really neat floppy
that was smaller, better, and had more data than the 5 1/4 inch
black floppies, and put it into the MAC. Years later, using a SOFTWARE program to translate the "new" 3 1/2 inch floppy,
the PC added this "new " feature...
The Mac has been traditionally more powerful than the PC since
the MAC programs are programed with code that talks to the
CPU and motherboard DIRECTLY, so that an "OLD" Mac,
with as much ram and CPU speed as you can tweak it, is FAR
faster than a PC with double or triple the CPU speed and
resources....
SO.... if you take your " OLD " Mac and run photoshop, and take
a typical "NEW" Mac, running the SAME Photoshop, you might
be surprised to find that it runs faster on the old Mac.
OS X does NOT talk to the motherboard directly, but is, like the
PC a few levels away. The PC has a Software program, like Photoshop, which talks to Windows, Which talks to DOS,
which talks to the motherboard. Duh.
Now, OS X is really UNIX, which talks to the motherboard,
running a program that " Looks" like a Mac, that runs a program,
like Photoshop.... Even worse.... The newer Macs run on a PC
motherboard, so that the whole point of the MAC, running directly
on the Motorola chipset, is like standing on a stepladder, and poking at a keyboard on the floor with long sticks. I don't know
how you could get any further from the computer....
I have 30 or 40 MACs, and many are older. Unfortunately, the
policy of MAC to talk directly to the CPU meant that with each
new generation of Motorola CPU, the entire computer, with software, had to be completely re-designed. On the other hand,
I can put in a 5 1/4 inch black floppy from my 8088, into my
new XP ** and it will boot, thinking it is an old PC, while this is NOT
the case with a MAC. MAC remained consistently ahead of any PC, since it threw out the old, slow, outdated software, and
utilized the FULL power of the new chipsets....

So, don't feel left behind with a MAC, - you were years ahead.
I would explore all upgrades with the MAC you have like RAM
and ( depending on the model ) the CPU card etc. and continue
to enjoy using the full power it can give you.... I am a bit of a
collector. so I would find ALL the software you can that is
9 compatible, while you can. A computer is only as good as the
tasks that you can use it for....

Personally, I am going gradually to LINUX. Rock solid, FREE,
amazing, and growing huge amounts of support everywhere...
( The new Mac is, as I said UNIX ( Linux ) based as well, case in point ). As the answerer below mentions, OSX, is like most Mac new stuff - it really " IS " new and improved in offering many new features, typically ahead of the rest, and these will be copied.
Since the new Macs have huge amounts of ram available, and run on the fastest rams, and buses, and chips available, they can do amazing things, and are not to be dissmissed - the OSX is setting the new standards. However, it is not utilizing the POWER which traditionally was MACs major strength... Eventually, with more ram and CPU speed, the OSX/new MAC combo will be truly "ahead", but... while the new software is great,
I am not pleased with the hardware - yet...

Enjoy your Mac while you can.... ! Note that I know many people
who are still using older Macs with 9... they won't give them up until they are absolutlely forced to.... !

have fun

ROBIN


** YES, I put a 5 1/4 inch in my new XP, so that I could talk to
my old PCs.... I am a die hard techie... XP absolutely HATES the
5 1/4, so that I often have to boot in DOS, and access the non-
NTFS, D: storage drive which is in FAT32, that DOS ( win98SE version ) understands. I can boot from older floppies, as I stated
to get FAT16 compatability....


.

Answer 2

Actually, I have an iMac G3 and I upgraded it to Mac OS X v 10.4
Of course it's not the fastest in the world, but it works. Also, I have an iMac G5 and a MacBook Pro, so I don't use the G3 anymore for obvious reasons...I have used Mac OS 9, and I liked it much better than OS X right when OS X came out. But now, I LOVE OS X, and I would never go back to OS 9.

Answer 3

I have a collection of computers with half of them being Mac. One is a G3 tower and another is a grape IMac DV both @ 400MHz running OS X 10.2.8 and OS 9.2.2. I also have a PowerPC 7300 @ 200MHz and a PowerPC 8500 at 250MHz both run OS 9.2.1.

I use the G3s more often but the older ones run as my server to use as extra HD space and file backup. I also run SoundJam MP for tunes (I think it is better than iTunes). I can still burn CDs on the older ones with my SCSI burner.

My goal was to be able to use them to run a specific set of apps so I could do my most intensive stuff on the G3s and play tunes and keep calendars (Now Up-to-date) and scanning to these dedicated Macs.

I had a Centris 650CD until last year when I donated it. It was a 25MHz (not a typo - twenty-five MHz) but it went on-line with roadrunner and it was part of my network. Clarisworks 4 ran fine on it. I also had a powerbook 5300 () It was a great little book but it was damaged and I resurrected it for awhile.

OK, hope you find something useful in this. ;-)

Answer 4

No, not now.