Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Swift Griggs]

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016, Austin Pass wrote:
> I'm toying with putting the "ultimate" classic Mac together, although 
> I'm having a little difficulty pinning down the definition of what the 
> ultimate representation of the type is, so was looking for a little 
> input from Classic CMP'ers.

I've recently been through that exercise with M68k Macs. I settled on the 
Quadra 700 and the Quadra/Centris 660AV. However, I think you'll hear a 
lot of people also recommend the Quadra 950 and Apple Workgroup Server 95. 
However, I realize you aren't interested and are looking at the PPC 
systems.

> I'm aware that there's a clear divide between Motorola and PowerPC CPU'd 
> variants, so I'm going to plump for a PowerPC based version so that I 
> can get access to newer hardware and use it as a kind of bridge system 
> between my current computers and the more historic versions.

I've contemplated doing a PPC rig, too. For me, I don't care much about 
hyper-expandibilty. I like the more blingy hardware. So, for me, at the 
top of the pyramid stand two systems: the G4 Cube and the 20th Anniversary 
Mac. The Cube is now cheap on fleabay. It's prime time to grab those. If 
one comes up on cheap Craigslist here in Denver, I'll probably snag it and 
warehouse it for a while. I am just not motivated enough to pay shipping 
or Ebay prices, yet.

IMHO, most of the tower systems were too "plasticy" and the desktop 
Performa-styled boxes were uglier than homemade sin.
 
> I have the original media that shipped with this, so I can get 9.2.1 on 
> it relatively easily. 

You'll want to Google MacOS PPC. Let's simply say "it's out there" and 
easy to get. Unless you just want the manuals an screen-printed discs, 
which I understand, too.

> Was a gigabit ethernet card ever released with Mac OS 9 drivers?

Ohhhh, yeah. Lots of them. Check out lowendmac or the like. They have 
lists of them.

>  I have a couple of 600GB PATA disks that I can use with it, but has 
> there ever been a SATA implementation that worked with classic Mac OS?

Not sure about that, but I can tell you that there are ton of SCSI 
controllers and you can use an expensive SATA-to-SCSI bridge like the one 
sold by ACARD. I use several of those on various machines and they rock. 

> In terms of the software - any top-line utilities or System Extensions I 
> should look to get my hands on?

Yes. Get the disk utilities that allow you to use non-Apple disks. The one 
that comes to mind the fastest is Lacie Silverlining and LIDO. 

> What's the state of the art in classic Mac OS browsing nowadays, Mr 
> Kaiser - is Clasilla still maintained?

He will know better than me, but your best bet IMO, is either iCab or 
Clasilla, for sure. 

-Swift