eMac surprisingly usable as a daily driver

[Fcr-900]

Back in May I posted asking if the eMac 1.42 ghz model (being offered for free and is my only machine) was capable of being a daily driver and after a couple of months it really shocked me.
First of all, tenfourfox isn’t as slow or bad as many people say, on my machine it’s fast enough most of the time and has loaded every website perfectly so far whereas WebKit has given me problems. Hopefully this browser isn’t discontinued because I’d like to keep using my eMac for as long as possible because it’s not a bad experience like I thought it would be.
Second, I love all the useful apps and software (that I use daily) this machine already had and can get like office 08 and photoshop, iMovie, audacity and a few audio and music editors.
YouTube plays perfect in tenfourfox when set to 240p resolution and is decent in 360p so it can also do what WebKit can do.
A couple more things...

How do I get OS 9 on this thing? Found some cool games that apparently work better in OS9 and classic mode isn’t the best experience.

Second, should I overclock the CPU to 1.90ghz to increase performance?

 

[RogerWilco6502]

First of all, I'm glad this has been your experience! As someone with a similarly specced machine (1.42GHz Mini G4), I can attest to your findings.

MacOS9Lives has a lot of great resources on this and if anyone were to know how to get OS 9 on your machine, these would be the people to talk to.

I don't know much about overclocking, but if you do I would recommend looking into the risks associated with it if you haven't already.

Best of luck and have fun!

 

[Fcr-900]

First of all, I'm glad this has been your experience! As someone with a similarly specced machine (1.42GHz Mini G4), I can attest to your findings.

MacOS9Lives has a lot of great resources on this and if anyone were to know how to get OS 9 on your machine, these would be the people to talk to.

I don't know much about overclocking, but if you do I would recommend looking into the risks associated with it if you haven't already.

Best of luck and have fun!

Thats cool thanks. I really need OS 9 on this machine to run certain software and I strongly dislike using classic mode in Tiger.
I don't know why some people complain about TFF, it's nearly as compatible as the latest chrome, with tweaks its pretty fast, and it's the only modern browser on OS X that is ''complete'' and ''just works'' and is developed by people who really know their stuff.
Only thing is, most addons are only for Quantum Firefox...

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Thats cool thanks. I really need OS 9 on this machine to run certain software and I strongly dislike using classic mode in Tiger.
I don't know why some people complain about TFF, it's nearly as compatible as the latest chrome, with tweaks its pretty fast, and it's the only modern browser on OS X that is ''complete'' and ''just works'' and is developed by people who really know their stuff.
Only thing is, most addons are only for Quantum Firefox...

No problem! I hear ya about Classic mode. I try to avoid it whenever possible. I agree about TFF too, it works amazingly well and works out of the box.

 

[Project Alice]

OS 9 will not work on this. You might be able to get it to boot but the graphics chip isn’t compatible, and it’s likely a lot of other hardware probably isn’t either.

What software do you need OS 9 for? This machine is also too new for Jaguar which is normally an okay alternative for a better classic. However I’ve never had a problem with classic except with a handful of 3D games.

Edit: I checked the Jaguar on newer hardware thread, but I don’t see anything about this eMac. I feel like it probably won’t work. I’m sort of curious though, I have a 1.25Ghz eMac but it needs recapped and doesn’t work right. My working eMac is the 1Ghz model that natively boots into 9 if needed.

 

[Fcr-900]

OS 9 will not work on this. You might be able to get it to boot but the graphics chip isn’t compatible, and it’s likely a lot of other hardware probably isn’t either.

What software do you need OS 9 for? This machine is also too new for Jaguar which is normally an okay alternative for a better classic. However I’ve never had a problem with classic except with a handful of 3D games.

Edit: I checked the Jaguar on newer hardware thread, but I don’t see anything about this eMac. I feel like it probably won’t work. I’m sort of curious though, I have a 1.25Ghz eMac but it needs recapped and doesn’t work right. My working eMac is the 1Ghz model that natively boots into 9 if needed.

People have gotten OS 9 to work well on Mac mini G4’s, which are the same age and specs as this machine. Is it the crt that isn’t compatible as it isn’t with Linux? Am I stuck with Just OS X on this thing? I’d love to try to get OS 9 on this as it’s so fun to use as well

 

[Project Alice]

People have gotten OS 9 to work well on Mac mini G4’s, which are the same age and specs as this machine. Is it the crt that isn’t compatible as it isn’t with Linux? Am I stuck with Just OS X on this thing? I’d love to try to get OS 9 on this as it’s so fun to use as well

It is not the same hardware. All the G4 Mini's have a Radeon 9200 GPU, which works natively in OS 9. This eMac has a Radeon 9600. The 9600 has zero OS 9 support. A good rule of thumb is if it has Core Image, it doesn't work in OS 9. The 9600 is a full Core Image supported card.

The older eMacs will work in OS 9, but the 2005 ones such as this will not.
Trust me, OS 9 may be fun for about 5 minutes but it gets old quick. This is a great OS X Mac.

 

[Fcr-900]

It is not the same hardware. All the G4 Mini's have a Radeon 9200 GPU, which works natively in OS 9. This eMac has a Radeon 9600. The 9600 has zero OS 9 support. A good rule of thumb is if it has Core Image, it doesn't work in OS 9. The 9600 is a full Core Image supported card.

The older eMacs will work in OS 9, but the 2005 ones such as this will not.
Trust me, OS 9 may be fun for about 5 minutes but it gets old quick. This is a great OS X Mac.

I feel that It runs leopard really well with the 2GBs of ram despite what others say. I guess I could just use classic mode although I would have rather it run OS 9 natively.
Great machine, tons of cool software. PPC wasn’t totally left out when it came to software! (Audacity, tons of audio editors, and cool free games I got from MacIntosh Repository)

 

[z970]

@Fcr-900 Macintosh Repository is not an authentic site.

Macintosh Garden is authentic, was there first, and happens to be the place Macintosh Repository automatically draws most or all of its content from without any acknowledgement whatsoever.

All Types - Macintosh Repository

www.macintoshrepository.org

^ Do you think they contacted me asking for approval to repost the stuff I made? They didn't, and neither did they give credit to their original hosting location.

Think of it this way... Being a garden, Macintosh Garden actually grows and produces things, both historical (which have been wholly abandoned to the sands of time by the original developers) and original (which are new and still supported by the developers who posted it themselves), nearly always giving as much credit as possible.

Being a repository, Macintosh Repository simply stores them, trims the "fat", takes all the credit for both ends, and then has the 3@11$ to demand that they be paid.

 

[wicknix]

Is it the crt that isn’t compatible as it isn’t with Linux?

Give this a shot for linux. Seems quite a few people have had luck with his hack on their emacs.

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Cheers

 

[bobesch]

I'd leave the eMac untouched and look for a decent G3/G4 machine, that is able to boot into os9 natively.
An iMac G3 or and early iMac G4.
A black PowerBook G3 or an early/mid TiBook G4 (400-600MHz).
With a little bit patience all of them can be found at 50-70 bucks and it's fun to have an only-os9 machine and get into networking with the eMac/OSX.
The Clamshells are rare and the screen is small and the iBook G3 Snow are pretty smelly.

 

[retta283]

@Fcr-900 Macintosh Repository is not an authentic site.

Macintosh Garden is authentic, was there first, and happens to be the place Macintosh Repository automatically draws most or all of its content from without any acknowledgement whatsoever.

All Types - Macintosh Repository

www.macintoshrepository.org

^ Do you think they contacted me asking for approval to repost the stuff I made? They didn't, and neither did they give credit to their original hosting location.

Think of it this way... Being a garden, Macintosh Garden actually grows and produces things, both historical (which have been wholly abandoned to the sands of time by the original developers) and original (which are new and still supported by the developers who posted it themselves), nearly always giving as much credit as possible. Being a repository, Macintosh Repository simply stores them, trims the "fat", and takes all the credit for both ends.

Well said. Every time I see a link here posted to Macintosh Repository I think this same thing to myself. I have had a number of interactions with the Repository staff members, and I can tell you they are not very nice, and they don't care whatsoever about permission or plagiarism. They want donations to their site, that's the main driver. I assume you still need to donate to download files over 1? GB which is absolutely absurd. Charlatans trying to make a quick buck by ripping off another website and doing next to no work.

 

[z970]

@retta283 What truly sucks, in my eyes, is that people like that are actually getting the donations just for their bad behavior and open plagiarism (otherwise they wouldn't have this big, pompous list of "contributors"). People are actually paying them because they're under some false impression painted by this so-called "staff".

Spoiler

Meanwhile, certain individuals (like myself) are sitting here working their tail off in both spare and stolen time trying to make the mess that is Web 3.0 actually not a joke on old machines, literally have hundreds of users, and yet still haven't been thanked with so much as $1 for the stupid amount of work said project took.

Wikipedia has my sympathy. It's remarkable how the free market can, and often does, work in such distinctive ways...

 

[retta283]

People are actually paying them because they're under some false impression painted by this "staff"

In the last of my discussions with the staff, I told them that they should be more upfront as to where their software is coming from (most from Macintosh Garden) and make donation optional, as a way to thank "friends" of the vintage Mac community. The response was simply "You wouldn't donate anyways." After that, I no longer cared to continue the discussion, so I said something along the lines of "This is not the attitude any website should run on." and was instantly banned. Never once did I insult or make rude remarks, the last message was the worst I said. Complete incompetence.

On the topic of using old Macs as daily drivers, I have been enjoying some old iMacs recently, a 17" and 20". The 20" is much more enjoyable, but is newer and has less OS support. Recently I've been on the 17" FP iMac, and it's quite nice. Not IPS, which is the biggest drawback but otherwise it's a nice machine for some old games and light browsing. Brilliant computers.

 

[Amethyst1]

The 20" is much more enjoyable, but is newer and has less OS support.

Any chance of you trying Jag on it?

 

[retta283]

Any chance of you trying Jag on it?

Sadly, no, it's an iSight G5. I do remember there being a G5-specific build of Jaguar, but I'm not sure if it'd work on anything but a PowerMac, especially not with late 2005 specs. That would be awesome to see Jaguar on an iMac G5 though. 17" is the first generation which would be more likely to work with Jaguar. Runs Panther nice. Depending on how "open" that G5 build is, it could be worth trying out.

Dream Jaguar machine to me would be a 17" or 20" G4, as I am nearly certain it would run flawlessly on both, as the hardware is 100% supported. Someday...

 

[Amethyst1]

Sadly, no, it's an iSight G5.

I see, I thought you had a 20" G4. Sorry!

 

[retta283]

I see, I thought you had a 20" G4. Sorry!

I'll be on the hunt for one, if I do find it trying Jaguar will be the first thing I do.

Of course, I can always apply my partial Jaguar theme to Tiger and make it look fairly close. Still working on it.

 

[Amethyst1]

Of course, I can always apply my partial Jaguar theme to Tiger and make it look fairly close. Still working on it.

Sounds good - looking forward to seeing it!

 

[z970]

In the last of my discussions with the staff, I told them that they should be more upfront as to where their software is coming from (most from Macintosh Garden) and make donation optional, as a way to thank "friends" of the vintage Mac community. The response was simply "You wouldn't donate anyways." After that, I no longer cared to continue the discussion, so I said something along the lines of "This is not the attitude any website should run on." and was instantly banned. Never once did I insult or make rude remarks, the last message was the worst I said. Complete incompetence.

That's a shame.

I had a suspicion of course, but it definitely sounds like Macintosh Repository is run by nine-year-olds. And you can tell, because they proudly proclaim on the front page (with design aesthetics made by their colleague four-year-olds): "If you're planning on running the treasures of the past you'll find here on real old Macintosh hardware from the 90's, you sir/madame, dEsErVe To WiN aN iNtErNeT!"

No, I think they deserve to be told the truth. Not "win an Internet" (whatever the hell that means) ...