Tangerine iMac G3 turned into a Hackintosh
5:03 am, December 3rd, 2009, John Brownlee
For the last year or so, I’ve had an old indigo blue iMac G3, throbbing its orange oculus silently on my computer desk. I inherited it from the previous inhabitant of my apartment, and while I was at first enthusiastic about it, I’ve never quite been able to decide what I want to do with it.
While my budgerigar, Humbert J. Humbird, likes it well enough, converting it into a bird cage doesn’t really seem like a good idea: a gloomy demesne indeed for a parakeet already morbidly inclined. Another idea I had was to install Writeroom and put it in the front hallway of my palatial blogger’s luxury apartment, as a sort of guest book, but the only nook suitable is already the napping post of my senescent man servant, Beasley.
The other day, though, inspiration struck: I would Hackintosh it. I’d just rip out that iMac’s guts — the bulbous CRT, the 450MHz Power PC architecture, the 10GB hard drive and the 350MB RAM — and install a homemade mini-PC, hacked to run Snow Leopard. A perfect New Year’s project, and an excellent way to make that gorgeous, old and obsolete piece of plastic junk into a modern Mac.
I haven’t started yet — I expect the real challenges to be the installation of an LCD screen and getting the slot-loading DVD drive to play nice — but I was curious if anyone had tried to Hackintosh an old iMac G3. Sure enough, someone had, as demonstrated this gorgeous picture guide of some maker who gutted his own, tray-loading Tangerine iMac G3 and installed a Hackintosh.
Unfortunately, there’s no text instructions, but the process seems simple enough. I plan to start sometime in January, and I’ll update here about it as I do. Any of our Cultists done something similar and want to warn me away from potential pitfalls? Pipe up in the comments.
[Tangerine iMac G3 Hackintosh]
[Creative Commons Image from LRosa's Flickr]
Posted by John Brownlee in Hardware | Comment on this article
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Great idea. I’m always sad to these these wonderfully iconic design classics relegated to the obsolete scrap computer pile. I think the shells really are more than worthy of a second life in some guise, even more so if re-born with new guts to run Leopard.
The new iMacs are obviously superb but these little units still have such character and legacy status.
Or am I just a misty-eyed old Mac-head?
Richard
RichBos, on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 am
Or, you could just drop in a Mac Mini with a 14″ LCD screen and avoid all the fuss of hacking anything.
Rocky, on December 3rd, 2009 at 8:03 am
a delicious project in which I am jealous that I cannot undertake myself… Keep us posted
techiegoddess, on December 3rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
wtf?! Try:
“Tangerine iMac G3 MIGHT GET turned into a Hackintosh”
John, you haven’t even started yet and you’re posting with a title like that? Give us a break, please…
Um no, on December 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Um no, you’ve misread the post. I link a guide in which a tangerine iMac has already been turned into a Hackintosh; as stated, my iMac Hackintosh will be an indigo blue one. That project can be theoretical without the already built one solipsistically blinking out of existence.
John Brownlee, on December 3rd, 2009 at 9:51 am
I had the same reaction as Rocky: stuff a mini in for the guts. Even an older model off ebay will probably run faster/better than a hack. If the exercise is to repurpose the old case, this does the trick.
imajoebob, on December 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
ditto with Rocky and imajoebob. probably a lot easier and it’s legal. WIN
Charli, on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
although looking at the photos and seeing the tower, i’m wondering if it is a hackintosh or just an old g5 stuffed into a new case.
Charli, on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:24 pm
The Mac Mini solution is problematic for a number of reasons. For one, I want the end Hackintoshed G3 to actually hook up to as many of the G3 chassis’ ports as possible. I want it to seem like a fully functioning G3… not like another computer crammed in its case. That just can’t be done by cramming a Mac Mini in there: hell, the optical drives wouldn’t even line up. I really need to build my own PC to get everything working out of the original ports.
Also, frankly, I just don’t care: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an enthusiast who owns three separate Macs from Hackintoshing for the fun of it. In fact, I’m writing this right now at my local pub on an Asus Eee PC 1000HE running Snow Leopard. I love it, but if Apple brought out a small, ultraportable laptop with a 10 hour battery life, I’d instantly buy it for twice as much. As a lover of Apple, a Hackintosh can’t ever compare, but my own moral compass says that in the absence of Apple allowing me to, say, pay to upgrade my G3 into a newer machine, there’s nothing wrong with doing it myself.
John Brownlee, on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
imajoebob: why do you think an old Mac Mini would run better than a Hackintoshed, custom-built rig? That doesn’t go along with my experience at all.
John Brownlee, on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I’m afraid my old G3iMac is currently being used, as my fireplace! It rocks, maybe when I get tired of that I’ll do the same & hackintosh it!
Doug, on December 3rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
John – Apple designs its systems to get the best balanced performance from a short list of compatible parts. Going “off label” from those parts may give you better individual part performance, but can prove problematic under OS X. Heck, it’s already problematic under Windows, and that’s designed to work with thousands of disparate parts. I always have to laugh at the PCers who claim Apple gets a premium, but when they want a system that really screams they end up buying AlienWare, which uses the Apple design approach and costs MORE than comparable macs!
What’s so problematic about the mini? It’s not possible to deconstruct it, maybe replace a few cables? Or is it too modular, with a few cables, like my PowerBook?
imajoebob, on December 4th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Ummm, if you are worried about the mac mini internals connecting to the g3 chassis, you might want to talk to this guy
http://www.kiwidee.com/kiwidee/cs_e.html
I personally would prefer this to a hackintosh since its a mac, has a kick-arse sub AND makes coffee
Simmie, on February 1st, 2010 at 4:50 am