Look what I found at my recycling group’s most recent e-waste drive: a beautiful-condition PowerMac G4 and Apple Studio Display.
The guy who dropped it off said it “worked perfectly.” His family was simply upgrading to a newer Mac. All the volunteers at the e-waste drive immediately brought it to me and asked me if I wanted it. The answer to that one is obvious.
An older guy dropped off a Macintosh IIci and an Apple Extended Keyboard II, as well, but those are going to my friend Curtis, who helps me out with classic Macs.
Now, what to do with the G4?
After turning the machine on, I found out it’s the “Yikes!” model – which came out just after the blue and white G3 PowerMac. Low End Mac labels this first-gen G4 a “Road Apple,” arguing that the only significant upgrade from the G3 is the G4 processor. But still. This thing qualified as a supercomputer when it was released in 1999.
This G4 runs with 320 MB of RAM at 400 Mhz, purring with OS X 10.3 Panther (I updated it to 10.3.9 through Software Update).
Opening the G4 up, I found four RAM slots, four PCI slots, two hard drives (one the original 10 GB, the other a 80 GB drive), and a simple CD-ROM drive. I’ve always admired the flip-down, open design of the post-G3 PowerMacs, and this was my first chance to really play around.
The 17″ Studio Display matched the G4’s design, with a nice flat-screen front and VGA connector. It would have been better if the family had recycled an LCD, with its lower thirst for power, but who can complain about free?
It seems the first hard drive ran the family’s main applications and general files, while the 80 GB drive held a lot of graphic design projects and a slew of graphic programs for OS X and Classic environments: the Adobe CS2 suite, the pre-CS Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, as well as Macromedia’s Dreamweaver 4. This machine was a hard worker.
This G4 needs a purpose. My iMac G3 isn’t exactly a modern desktop computer, and my iBook G4 is just now showing signs of its age. My first thought was to upgrade the RAM to the 1 GB ceiling, pop in a USB 2.0 PCI card to upgrade the connectivity, and possibly upgrade the G4 processor to a 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz speed. It would, essentially, become a capable desktop system. Panther might be an issue (especially after I found the new Firefox was a no-go), and this G4 probably can’t handle Leopard, but by no means is it outdated for the average user. A new hard drive can’t be bigger than 128 GB, and a new video card might be a good idea for any modern graphic work, but I can see this particular PowerMac serving as a great web design machine or as a simple web browser. My iBook can still be the graphic design heavy lifter, and I still haven’t decided how I’ll handle my vast, 28 GB iTunes music collection, but as I go along I’ll figure everything out.
For now, it’ll be a work-in-progress, and I’m pretty excited to have a PowerMac to play around with. It’s not the most capable version, but again – I couldn’t beat the price.
My first run-in with the G4 was with the “Quicksilver” version in my newspaper office in college. We had four of them, and it was such a cool experience to walk into the dark office with all four G4s in sleep mode, glowing in the room. They were great machines, serving us well with QuarkXpress.
Thanks to good luck, I get to play with my own. Any suggestions?
[Updates: Check out what I've done with this PowerMac so far: upgrade the RAM, install a USB 2.0 PCI card, fail to install a DVD-ROM, then succeed.]
June 24, 2008 at 12:34 am
Awesome, G4… very cool. I wish I had one. Since you can’t upgrade to Leopard or possibly even Tiger, you might as well upgrade it with spare parts and sell it off, make a profit, or use it as a web server if you are going to host this website as a .com domain name or something.
Anyway, interesting blog post, you should do them more often.
Sincerely,
JD
June 24, 2008 at 1:40 am
Lovely! It looks awesome!!!
You can use it as a music jukebox for example. Or for word processing… In one word you gotta use it!
Yesterday, I was using my old PowerBook G4 1GHz, I was impressed how fast it was on Tiger… It was hard to believe it’s only a 1 GHz machine when you see the performances of the Intel based MacBooks.
I miss the PPC era!! Why did Apple switched? IBM and Motorola only needed time to release a portable G5 and a G6…
June 24, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Thanks Hedi and JD. My thoughts have mirrored yours: turn it into a workhouse machine, possible a music server, but the more I use it (I’m typing on it now – and it definitely needs a new keyboard) the more I find it’s still a capable machine for light-weight tasks like web surfing. I still want to kick it around in the graphics department; I just found Flash 5 on it, so I could learn Flash. And I think I will upgrade it with spare parts and stuff I find on eBay (more RAM is on the way now). It could probably handle Tiger, with the right processor. A G6? Now there’s a powerhouse Mac!
June 25, 2008 at 7:56 pm
A fine machine and a fine screen. I had a “B&W” G3 400MHz, ordered on Macworld Expo unveiling day in January 1999. It was the Mac with which I “switched” back to.
http://flickr.com/photos/blakespot/sets/72157604337980863/
And the screen was awesome, a Mitsubishi Diamondscan tube…but they were prone to dying. Mine did.
http://flickr.com/photos/blakespot/2379087810/in/set-72157604337980863/
I decided, when I heard news of NeXT being acquired by Apple, that I would return and this was the machine I was waiting for.
I was always a next nut…
http://flickr.com/photos/blakespot/sets/72157604337928535/
I love the “El Capitan” case design used on the B&W and the Yikes and Sawtooth G4s. Indeed, though, the Sawtooth was much more of a machine than the Yikes.
There are reports of people getting Leopard to run on a Yikes equipped with a higher end graphics card. You may want to hunt down the details and give this a shot.
Me, I would upgrade it to 10.4, max the RAM, and put it to use. Even unaccelerated, it’s worth its space on a desk. But with a dual G4 1.67GHz accelerator or so… Lovely. I used a dual G4 800 Quicksilver for several years…
http://flickr.com/photos/blakespot/2377292366/in/set-72157604329214257/
And can say that it felt FAR FAR faster than my 1.42GHz G4 Mac mini which had a faster bus and a single processor nearly twice as fast as the combined clockspeed of the two G4s in the Quicksilver.
Check the website I setup in late ‘98 to cover my move to the Mac… Memories…
http://blakespot.com/b&w/
June 25, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Oh, I forgot. Check my great El Capitan Apple poster:
http://flickr.com/photos/blakespot/2373955117/in/set-72157604317583021/
July 3, 2008 at 7:45 am
[...] all in all, and plenty more to come. Now if only I could find that extra 128 MB of RAM….[Read part one of the PowerMac G4 [...]
July 9, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I just acquired a powermac g4 mirrored drive door with a dead power supply, I have a 256mb PC-333 RAM module if you want it
July 9, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Thanks Will. I think the Yikes! takes PC 100 or 133, though – but I’ll look that up to be sure.
July 10, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I just found a pc-133 ram module from an emac. but I don’t know what size it is! it just says pc-133 it’s either 128mb or 256 mb I think
July 11, 2008 at 9:01 pm
If you get a USB 2.0 PCI card to work please let us know what you used.
July 13, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Will do, Scott. I’ll keep everyone updated on the G4’s progress.
July 14, 2008 at 2:17 am
Wow, lovely!
i also have a g4.. it needs serious ram upgrade though.
I was wondering… can a g4 dual 500 mHz use a 512 pc-133 sdram?
July 17, 2008 at 10:32 am
I just got a G3 Blue & White and 2 G4’s. I’m loving playing with them as well (have maxed out ram on all 3 to 1GB) but I’m really hoping to upgrade the graphics adapter to something better. Mac cards are a little pricey and I have several PC cards that I’d like to flash but I’ve seen mixed results on the web. Does anyone have any ideas? I have an ATI 9600 and a Nvidia 6800GT that I’d like to move to the Mac.
July 19, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Alex, I’ve thought of upgrading my graphics card as well, but I haven’t had any issues with the stock one in the PowerMac. I guess when I find I need, I’ll make the switch. Let me know how it goes!