OT - Apple Powermac G4

[Uncle C]

I've never used an Apple machine in my life, so a simple question.

I am trying to help out a friend with 3 young children 6, 8 and 10, who all want to go on the household laptop for homework and to play very simple games. I have the chance of getting a very cheap G4 for them.
It looks sturdy enough to survive a bit of kids battering, but my question is, will the children be able to work it or is the operating system so different to Windows that I will be wasting my time?

Thanks

 

[Rowdey]

I'm sure you'll (they'll) be fine.

My 6 year old use's PC notebooks and iMac's at school and looked at me with disdain when i asked if that's awkward..
(Lucky sod, BBC basic machine for me when i was 15 years old at school ..)

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

What operating system is it? OS 9 or OS X?

(OS 9 has a top menu called 'Special'. OS X doesn't).

 

[Uncle C]

What operating system is it? OS 9 or OS X?

(OS 9 has a top menu called 'Special'. OS X doesn't).

Cant tell yet as it wont turn on, so I got it for nothing. could be the power supply up the shoot, but the PRAM battery is missing and I've read can stop them turning on.

Its 500MHz
256MB SDRAM
40G hard drive
56K MDM

Whatever that all means

 

[Bold Seagull]

Cant tell yet as it wont turn on, so I got it for nothing. could be the power supply up the shoot, but the PRAM battery is missing and I've read can stop them turning on.

Its 500MHz
256MB SDRAM
40G hard drive
56K MDM

Whatever that all means

My daughter uses an iBook G4 and it does pretty well. The most important thing is to make sure it has the max RAM it can take. There are tips around about streamlining the OS for performance. I run OS 10.4 on it. Internet can be slow but she is mostly fine with it.

 

[Acetripper]

My eight year old daughter uses our Macs at home. We have two desktop iMac G5's and two Macbook Pros. She loves 'em!

 

[beorhthelm]

thats a bit of an antique in IT world, but great for kids i reckon. it should do anything they want, it would have been used to create magazines and stuff in its day, which is only 10 years ago. kids should be fine with learning non-microsoft ways, in fact it would probably do them good. only thing is the mouse, they were awful things Apple used to impose on people get them a decent one.

 

[Uncle C]

Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. I'm going to take a gamble on buying the new internal PROM battery. Its less than a fiver and may kick this old girl into life.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I still have one of these....

 

[Uncle C]

What operating system is it? OS 9 or OS X?

(OS 9 has a top menu called 'Special'. OS X doesn't).

The new PRAM battery works and it fired up OK. The OS is X

So different to Windows, how do I get on to search engine like Google?

 

[beorhthelm]

The new PRAM battery works and it fired up OK. The OS is X

So different to Windows, how do I get on to search engine like Google?

use Google and search for Safari.

 

[Uncle C]

OK, it seems to be running in Firefox, which I have used before so might leave it at that.
Thanks

 

[Badger]

You should get them one of these:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20395212

 

[Uncle C]

They'd wreck that in seconds

 

[Uncle C]

OK nearly there. I need to adjust mouse speed etc. Normally would go to Control Panel etc. Where is it on Apple?

 

[JetsetJimbo]

It's in System Preferences, the icon for which looks a bit like some gears.

 

[Bold Seagull]

OK nearly there. I need to adjust mouse speed etc. Normally would go to Control Panel etc. Where is it on Apple?

[apple menu] click the apple symbol at the top left
[system preferences]
[mouse]

 

[Uncle C]

You guys are good thanks.

 

[Bold Seagull]

You guys are good thanks.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/beginners-guide-to-os-x-927039
http://smokingapples.com/opinion/old-mac-in-service/