PowerMac 8600/300

[X-Factor]

A friend of mine decided to give me his PowerMac 8600/300 and now I don't know what to do with it. What's the highest OS X I can install on it? And can I install 9.2.1? Besides that... are there any upgrades for it, and are they cheap? Thank in advance.

 

[Eidorian]

You can't installed OS X on it without upgrading the CPU to a G3. 9.1 is the highest OS you can get on it. I'd go with 8.6 though.

 

[CanadaRAM]

There are G3 upgrade cards that you can buy, which replace the CPU daughtercard.

The 8600 is a nice machine, it was my main Mac for years,

I would put at least an IDE interface card, and maybe a combo USB/Firewire card in it, so you can install large cheap hard drives and external peripherals, respectively.

 

[Eidorian]

There are G3 upgrade cards that you can buy, which replace the CPU daughtercard.

The 8600 is a nice machine, it was my main Mac for years,

I would put at least an IDE interface card, and maybe a combo USB/Firewire card in it, so you can install large cheap hard drives and external peripherals, respectively.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_trio.html

What he said...

 

[MacsRgr8]

You can get Mac OS X 10.2 on it using XPostFacto

Mac OS X 10.3 (and later) does not work with a 603 or 604 CPU. (However, Mac OS X 10.2 can work with the 603 or 604, as of XPF 3.1).

Won't be supported or anything, but it is fun to play with.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

XPostFacto can actually get Panther (10.3) running on that old Beige Mac. Err wait, I was using my old G3 Beige, so perhaps not. But either way, your options are limited on what the machine will be able to do with OS X.

You should definitely get System 9.2.2 on there, it'll run that just fine. From there on? I dunno. I figure upgrading that computer will get you into Mac Mini territory for price. So it's kinda up to you.

 

[spinne1]

The computer is so old it is not worth putting any money into unless you are stone cold broke and have no other options (but you already have better computers, so.....). It will be slow with OS X without a G3 upgrade (which are cheap and plentiful on ebay--but you must know exactly which ones will work with that model). It will be zippy with OS 9. Nonetheless, certain things will be slow even on zippy OS 9. For example, web browsing will be slow even with a cable internet connection (relatively speaking).

I'd use it for playing OS 9 games and for typing papers. Not much more.