Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Austin Pass]

> On 15 Jul 2016, at 21:54, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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

I have a G4 Cube, complete with ADC Apple Cinema Display but it (subjectively) feels slower in normal use than the MDD, with a single 400Mhz G4 and PC100 SDRAM vs dual 1.25Ghz and PC2700 DDR RAM.

I have lots of 68k Macs and love them dearly, but was looking for the biggest, best, fastest that could be used with Mac OS 9.

-Austin.