[G4] Need advice for a fixer-upper

[John Niven]

Firstly, you have to realize that this is ~7 year old
technology. It doesn't compare to modern PC's. If you
want a modern, no problems computer buy a current Mac.
It is, however, a great way to get into OSX all the
way up to Tiger (10.4), and will run many productivity
and entertainment tasks well.

How much too spend and on what parts depends on what
you want to do, but...

IMO the best upgrade is a new harddrive. The original
is now rather old and can easily be replaced (toss it
out). The internal built interface is limited to
ATA/66 and 128Gb. But that's not bad! You can buy a
brand new PATA 160Gb, 7200rpm, 8Mb cache drive for
less than $70. You will only be able to format 128Gb
of it but who cares? You can reuse the disk in a
latter upgrade if you want.

Install a DVD burner, or a CD burner/DVD rom. That
allows you to play movies and burn CD's in iTunes.
Look for advice on compatible models. Otherwise get an
external DVD burner with a firewire interface, you can
use it everywhere!

Next buy a retail copy of Tiger. Panther is fine but
Tiger is better/faster and you can reuse it if you
upgrade to a more modern Mac. The amount of ram you
have is OK, more is better, I use 1Gb.

I love the dual monitor experience :-) Easy on a Mac.
You can get a fancy dual monitor card, or go the LEM
route and pick up a 128 rage PCI card from a B&W and
just add that. I have two 17" Sharp LCD (in white)
that match my white Mac keyboard. You can pick up 17"
LCD's second hand very cheaply as others go for bigger
upgrades. Matching models is not necessary but Kool!
Again these can be re-used in latter up-grades.

Download open-office for free. Make sure you have X11
installed (it's optional).

Do you need wireless? Get an original Airport card.
Not the fastest, but they work well. Wired is always
faster though.

Lastly look for a dual 450 or 500 Apple processor. You
can only go to a dual processor if your mother board
can handle it. OSX can really use two processors
(unlike OS 9).

Mostly what I recommend is about the user experience,
which is what LEM Macs are all about.

Good luck,

John 

--- Kevin Walsh <walsh_kevin_t at yahoo.com> wrote:
> First the specs: Power
> Mac G4, AGP Graphics (Sawtooth, I think) / 1 CPU,
> type: 2.9, 400 MHz / firmware 4.2.8f1 / AGP: Rage
> 128Pro / OS X 10.3.9



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