Mac Questions

[TheJackal]

I'm looking into getting a 1.25ghz G4 and I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone here can answer...

1. What kind of memory do the G4 towers take and would I have to special order it from apple or would the local Radio Shack/Future Shop carry it?

2. Under Mac Os X how many hard drives can you have? Are you limited by drive letters like you are with Windows, or can you have as many hard drives as you can afford?

3. Could I still run my old System 7 games & apps. on a G4?

[bigandy]

I'm pretty sure that under OSX, you cannot run apps from System 7. As for the question on memory, I don't know what type of memory it takes, but most local electronics stores should carry it.

[jca08]

http://www.apple.com/hardware/powermacg4/specs.html

as far as #2 goes, it sounds like they can take 2 or 3 more hard drives without hardware upgrade like pci card...however, this is the same on a Windows machine, you can upgrade the hardware...i'm not quite sure what you mean by being limited by drive letters...i'm not sure what on earth you would do with 26 drives, but after that i would think there is some kind of work around to add more if you truly wanted such a beast...

josh

[TheJackal]

What I mean by being limited by drive letters is after 26 drives, you would have to map them as network drives, but from looking at OS X it looks as though it doesn't use drive letters, instead, the drives appear to be numbered, and not assigned a letter. So basically what I am wondering is, would it be possible to add a potentially infinite number of external drives to it, or at least more the 26?

[Force Flow]

I have never seen a Mac with more than 5 drives (2 external, 3 internal). It's a little ridiculous to stick more than 26 HDD's on one machine anyway

Don't you just name the drives whatever you want in OSX?

[dj4uk]

In windows 2000+ you aren't limited to 26 drive letters anyway - you can use drive paths.

DJ

[TechSupport420]

1. G4 towers take PC-100 or PC-133 RAM sticks

2. I am not sure if there is a limit but I have a G4 server running 5 drives just internally and 8 Raided drives externally

3. There are ways you can get your OS7 apps to work most should work under classic mode in OS9 others that don't work can be emulated.

[bigandy]

Thanks for clearing up the issue about the OS7 apps working on OSX TechSupport. Since I haven't been using Macs very much lately, and I never use the classic mode when I use my friend's Mac, I had completely forgotten about the fact that OSX has Classic mode.

[TheJackal]

Thanks for your help.

Got another question... Do you really miss your floppy drive? I've been thinking that I dont know what I will do without one but is it really worth to spend more then $50 for an external. So, will I miss it?

Second question, How many printers out there come with Mac support?

[bigandy]

There are lots of printers that have Mac support. One of the printers we have (for the HP), Lexmark X73, is compatible with XP and OSX. It is also one of those 3-in-1 (Printer, Copier, Scanner) units.

[Force Flow]

Originally posted by TheJackal Thanks for your help. Got another question... Do you really miss your floppy drive? I've been thinking that I dont know what I will do without one but is it really worth to spend more then $50 for an external. So, will I miss it? Second question, How many printers out there come with Mac support?

There are times that they are useful, but mostly I use zip disks with macs. That way I can transfer larger files between my PC and most macs, being that the macs I use don't have CD burners.

[Mac Medic]

If printer drivers aren't built into OS X, go to http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3
and see if your printer is supported in gimp-print.

Drives now-a-day can be pretty much unlimited as they use the Unix naming system (2k & XP use a naming system too ie: IDE 0, IDE 1 etc) but how many drives do you need practically.

Depending on the G4 you buy, they can use DDR memory. Remember that for $1999, you can buy a G5 instead.

[TheJackal]

I think that I will be sticking to a G4 as here in Canada, the G4 starts at $1799cdn, while the G5 is still $2799cdn, thats a $1000 difference... and I would rather have a G4 and a thousand dollars worth of software, then have a G5 and no software for it.

Thanks for the link regarding printers in OS-X, I looked at my printer documentation, and it is supported in Mac OS 8.6 through to OS-X.

So far, thanks for all your help all, I'm sure I'll come up with some more questions soon.

[TechSupport420]

Yeah like they said just about any newer printer will plug right in and work for OS X not much to worry about with that. If you miss your floppy drive (which you dont need since you have a mac to boot to when it dies) I would recommend finding a external usb superdrive, they can be cheaper then regular usb floppy drives if you hunt for them and they read both superdisks and regular floppies and the gray one will match your G4