It’s The Rage (1999)
Apple iMac G3 Computer? Good computer? Good deal?
I’m considering bidding on this computer on eBay… can anyone tell me whether or not this is a good computer? Whether it’s internet ready? Any issues? I’ve never used an Apple/Mac computer before, and I’m looking for a good deal on a computer that I can use for college (mostly internet and MS Office use).
Item description:
“In Great Condition still have the original box. iMac 333 MHz Made 1999-04 Mac OS 8.6 Tray loading CD-ROM PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, 64 MB of RAM, a 6.0 GB hard drive, and ATI Rage Pro Turbo graphics acceleration in a sleek, space-age, all-in-one case with a crystal-clear 15″ color screen. tangerine (orange-yellow). Keyboard and mouse included.”
Link to the item on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300238468048&_trksid=p2759.l1259
It only has about 3-4 hours left on the auction.
That exact machine is nine years old (I can tell by the tray -loading cdrom, after 1999 they all had slot loaders).
Here’s what it will do:
-Surf the net (barely: it won’t be able to use modern browsers because it can’t run a modern OS, which means no Flash, streaming video, audio clips, or really much of anything cool) It will however work with Yahoo Answers…
-Email (should be fine with basic email)
-Basic word processing (and I mean basic, you’ll need word 5.1a for Mac, even the oldest version of office will fail on a machine this old)
-limited music (older versions of iTunes will run on this but with only a 6GB hard drive you’ll need an external USB drive to hold the music)
What it won’t do:
It won’t run any of today’s software, at all, period, not even with massive upgrading.
It won’t play DVD’s
It won’t be easy to service (it’s so old not a lot of techs still remember how t service them)
It won’t last long (the video transformer had a service life of about 7 years, it’s 9 years old so it’s 2 years past it’s best-before date) I have 5 or 6 of these in my shop all with blown flyback transformers (which cost more to replace than the machine is worth)
The Bottom line: This was a great machine in it’s day, but it’s well past it’s prime. If ALL you want to do is light net surfing and word processing then this will manage it, but for how long? This machine is worth $25 tops
you’d be better off bare minimum with one of these iMacs:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iMac-G4-800MHz-60GB-CDRW-DVD_W0QQitemZ320270772671QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item320270772671&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318
at least they’ll handle current browsers, OS & Office fine.
Rage Against The Machine / No Shelter / bio part 4 live Woodstock 1999