SillyDog701

[goGecko]

Recently I got access to a 120 Mhz Power Mac running Mac OS 8. It has 64 MB of RAM and Netscape Communicator 4.7 with a 1 GB Hard Drive. It is hooked up to a 10 MB Ethernet Router and a shared DSL line. I have some questions:

1. The PowerMac didn't come with a restore CD, how should I back it up?

2. Is Communicator 4.7 the newest version of Netscape that I can run? (I know that Mac OS 9 can run 7.0).

3. The CD-ROM drive is broken on the PowerMac. Can I replace it with a normal IDE drive (from an old PC)?

4. Is there any good forum for people running older Macs? (All the rest of my stuff runs Windows XP).

5. The hard drive makes lots of noise. Given my fast connection, is it okay to turn off the disk cache? Will this cause any harm?

6. How much RAM should I allocate in Get Info for Communicator? Currently the preferred amount is 8 MB. The Finder is only allocated 7 MB.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.7 (Macintosh; I; PPC)

[goGecko]

......
3. The CD-ROM drive is broken on the PowerMac. Can I replace it with a normal IDE drive (from an old PC)?

Well, I took apart the PowerMac and found that the internal CD-ROM drive is a SCSI drive and it wouldn't be possible to use an IDE drive. I'm also unable to locate a manual for the system. Oddly the CD-ROM started working after I put it back together again, but the internet is still painfully slow.

On another issue I found this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html ... 45#English
Given that I don't have a restore CD, should I install OS 8.1 upgrade from OS 8 or just stick with the current version?

Thanks!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[Don_HH2K]

2. Is Communicator 4.7 the newest version of Netscape that I can run? (I know that Mac OS 9 can run 7.0).

If you happened to be running OS8.5, then you'd be able to use a Gecko-based browser, old as it may be. I don't believe that the OS8 RTM supports Gecko-based browsers.

5. The hard drive makes lots of noise. Given my fast connection, is it okay to turn off the disk cache? Will this cause any harm?

There's no reason you can't turn off disk caching. It will just load sites newly every time you access them. It depends on how fast your Internet connection is. If your connection is >768KbPS then go ahead. If not, don't do it. Just note that chances are that won't do anything for hard drive noise, though.

6. How much RAM should I allocate in Get Info for Communicator? Currently the preferred amount is 8 MB. The Finder is only allocated 7 MB.

Netscape 4.7's release notes want at least 24MB of RAM for Communicator 4.7. I ran Communicator on a 486/33MHz with 16MB of RAM under Windows 95, so I bet you can get away with 16MB. I ran Communicator 4 with 8MB of RAM under Windows 3.1 on a 386/25MHz, but that choked it, so I wouldn't reccomend trying it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (un-AXed)

[Al]

Netscape 4.8 is higly recommened. Also iCab is also a good browser for older Macs. No Gecko-based Browser will work on OS8.5 or lower. It would be a good idea to let NS use at least 16 MB of RAM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0

[Don_HH2K]

Al, Netscape 4.8 will only run on MacOS 8.1+, while goGecko says that he is using OS8 RTM. Netscape 4.78 is the latest version that will run on OS8 RTM.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (un-AXed)

[Al]

What does RTM stand for???? I'm pretty sure 4.8 works on OS 8.1 because I used 4.79 and IE 5.1.6 on OS 7.6.1 (PPC)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

[beanboy89]

What does RTM stand for????

I belive it is "Released to Manufacturing."

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[Al]

okay! I think that 7.6.1 build had that Apperance Manager Upgreade

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910