[packet of krisps]

Hey guys, I have a sweet little Blue iMac (slot loading), it's a pretty good machine, it's got 768MB of pc133. It's not very fast with Jaguar on it, however. I have a brand new copy of Mac OS 9.2, and I ran into a problem: I put the CD in while 10.2 is running, and of course it won't work, (expected), I put the disc in and booted from it, and I get the folder with the question mark. I figured that the HD needs to be formatted in Mac OS standard, (as opposed to extended) I used the 10.2 utility to erase the HD completey, reformatting it with OS 9 drivers in it, (an option in the disk utility), that didn't work, I got the same folder icon, so for now, I re-installed 10.2.

How do I get OS 9 on there? Do I have to format the disk to DOS or something, perhaps try a different HD?

Thanks

[idykenano]

just a check- the optical drive has read other discs, correct?

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Put the CD in and boot holding the 'C' key down. If that doesn't do it the CD isn't bootable. Is it scratched?

[Koralatov]

It all comes down to personal taste, but I couldn’t move from OSX down to OS9—I’ve been vocal in the past about my distaste for the ‘Classic’ Mac OS. I would, however, suggest trying out one of the later OSXes. Whilst it might seem counterintuitive, OSX actually got faster on the same hardware from 10.0 through 10.4. As such, I’d recommend trying either Panther or, better yet, Tiger.

I run Tiger on a variety of G3s (366 Clamshell/320, 466 Clamshell/576 and a 500 iMac/1024) and I’ve never had reason to complain about its performance. It does occasionally ‘stutter’ when I have a bunch of applications open and try to switch between them too quickly, but I happily surf the net, IM and listen to iTunes on the 366 Clamshell without any complaints. I imagine your performance would be even better, due to the bigger FSB (100MHz vs. 66MHz) and more RAM (768MB RAM vs. 320MB).

[P]

For the original question: 9.2 will not boot a slotloading iMac. 9.2 was a version that only came with certain computers - it was never a general release. 9.0, 9.0.4, 9.1, 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 were general versions and will boot that machine, however. You need to find an installation disk of one of those (nothing older will boot it either, except the special 8.6 that some of the first slotloaders came with).

For the OS X question: Panther is an improvement speedwise. Tiger, OTOH, was a step down for me on the slotloader as the OP. The RAM usage was too high to use it smoothly, and the only real improvement over Panther is Spotlight.

[packet of krisps]

Yes, the optical drive reads other discs, it simply will not boot with this one.

I am just gonna use Mac Tracker to see what OS it originally came with.

Edit: Haha, yes! It originally came with OS 8! And supports, 9.0, 9.03 and 9.04!

This computer is being used simply for web browsing, should I just put OS 8 on it?

[Cold Warrior]

OS 9 was much more stable IMO than 8. Put 9 on if you have it. Web browsing has advanced a lot since those days. I hope you're not doing anything too needy.

[packet of krisps]

No, this is really a coffee table machine, 'cause it's so nice looking. I will put OS 9 on it.

[imitchellg5]

Web browsing sucks in OS 9 in my experience. Internet Explorer is horrid, and iCab is barely better You should upgrade to Panther. I've got it on my 466 MHz PowerBook G3 and it flies, plus you can have the latest iTunes on it to listen to music. Panther would be perfect on your iMac.

[P]

The OS that the first slotloading iMacs came with was Mac OS 8.6, "Rev 2". That is something different from what you get if you install from an 8.5 disc and use Apple's upgrade, but it has no official version number. The shipped OS was updated to OS 9 very very early in the run - I ordered mine about a week after launch, and I got OS 9.

The best OS to put on it, if you're not going to Panther, is OS 9.1. It has more native components (including the task switching calls, so switching apps is much faster) without the newer Open Transport and Classic support files from 9.2.1 and 9.2.2. Install 9.0 and then the update to 9.1.

Mactracker only lists which OS it has come with at some point during its lifetime. You can also upgrade to any publicly available version for which it meets the system reqs. Some versions, namely 8.6 Rev 2, 9.0.1, 9.0.2, 9.0.3 and 9.2, were only ever shipped with new machines, and were thus not "publicly available".

[packet of krisps]

I put 9.1 on it, it runs really fast, web browsing sucks so much with I.E., anyone have any other browsing suggestions for 9.1?

[CharlesS]

Your only options there are going to be IE, iCab 2, or an old version of Mozilla.

None are particularly great in this day and age.

[steve626]

Originally Posted by packet of krisps 

I put 9.1 on it, it runs really fast, web browsing sucks so much with I.E., anyone have any other browsing suggestions for 9.1?

The web browsers that work for OS 9 have basically been left behind by newer features that appear on web pages now. Still, I have found that the latest version of icab (there is a new OS 9 one that just came out) is not too bad. We have it on our old 7100 powermac which still works (!) running OS 9.1 on a G3/266 MHz processor (from an upgrade card). You might as well try the alternatives, which for OS 9.1 would be an older version of opera and an older version of netscape. All of these are far superior to IE.

[packet of krisps]

Opera isn't very good. iCab looks nice, thanks for the help.

[Kyros]

The last version of Netscape is nice since it runs Gmail, I can't remember if iCab (or other browsers, for that matter, I don't think I've tried any others) does or not. Obviously it doesn't matter if you don't use Gmail.

[Luca Rescigno]

Yeah, iCab. Last version of Mozilla for OS 9 is 1.2.1, so that's pretty old.

And stick with OS 9. For computers that old, it's a lot faster. Also, OS 9 looks better on those fuzzy old iMac displays. You can run it at 800x600 and it'll still be usable - not the case with OS X.

[olePigeon]

I'd recommend putting 10.3 on there.

[ATLMacUser]

Apple still sells Tiger for G3 support. If you don't plan on syncing or networking with other newer machines use Panther...

[unhappyending]

I have a iMac G3 350MHz with 256MB's of ram, and it originally came with 10.1 and I upgraded it to 10.3, I saw a huge speed improvement when moving to 10.3. As said before I'd upgrade to 10.3.

[EuropeBetterThanAmerica]

Upgrade to 10.3.9 or 10.4.11
Tiger isn't much slower if any than Panther