First apple

[orion24]

I just got an old apple from recycles. I don't have a keyboard and mouse for it and I wonder if I can use a PC keyb/mouse with it somehow. Maybe with a converter. If so, what type of converter will I need? And if no, what keyboard and mouse will fit this thing?

 

[SomeGuy]

From the photo, it looks like you will need an Apple ADB mouse and keyboard. Not aware of any converters. I'd think those would turn up from time to time at a recyclers.

Later Macs with USB, of course, could use PC USB mice/keyboards.

What model of Mac is that?

 

[Chuck(G)]

Looks like the rear of a beige G3 to me...

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

Yep, definitely a beige G3.

You could use a USB keyboard/mouse if you stick a PCI USB card in it... pretty much any cheap card with an NEC chipset will work, as will some others. Only problem with that is that it won't work until the OS is loaded, which presents a problem for things like booting from CD, clearing PRAM, etc. (which all require key presses at boot).

But it shouldn't be too hard to get ahold of an ADB keyboard of some sort. I'd still recommend a USB card, though, so you can use a modern mouse... most of the old ADB mice really suck.

 

[orion24]

It says PowerMacintosh G3 300MHz 1MB cache 32MB RAM 4GB HDD.

I'll try hooking up a PCI USB card. I do have a PCI NEC USB2.0 one (assuming the slots are the same) . Problem is if it will recognize it without any user input. If I need to install a driver then doing so without the keyboard and mouse functional might be a problem.

 

[Mk.558]

Apple Extended Keyboard II models are still around, some will need retr0bright treatment but they're good keyboards, if only large and big enough to be sized up to a barn door.

An ADB mouse is something I'd keep on hand for it, but the USB optical mice are WAAAAY better than any of the old rodents. For that thing, I'd also get a decent video card and USB 2.0 and FireWire card for it. You won't be able to use USB 2.0 in pre-OS X software. Aside from Option-key boot selections, I can't think of any use of a non-USB rodent that would be necessary for enjoyment of the machine, though -- but I'd have one just in case -- they're cheap and all over the place.

Add those things up, and the PM G3, particularly with a G4 processor swap (I've heard of 1GHz Sonnet cards for them) and plenty of RAM to go around, are pretty good machines, aside from the ... "meh" ATA bus. With the integrated Zip drive (I'd upgrade it to a 250MB if possible), FDD, DVD drive, expandability, they really are quite flexible.

 

[njroadfan]

The later ROM revisions fix the ATA bus so that it can support slave devices. If the machine came with a factory Zip 100 drive, thats usually a good sign since it is installed as a slave IDE device. If you are running MacOS X (10.2 is officially supported, 10.4 can be installed with XPostFacto), its onboard drivers allow slave devices to be used even with the early ROMs. Also check the video chip. If its a Rage Pro its a rev. B or C board with slave support. The original Rev. A has a Rage II+ chip.

Just remember that there is still the requirement that the boot partition must be below the 8.4GB boundary in order to be seen properly. The beige G3's ROM doesn't support the Extended Int 13h commands to read above that limit since they didn't exist in 1997!

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

You won't be able to use USB 2.0 in pre-OS X software.

It's probably worth clarifying, so it doesn't cause confusion: you can still use a USB 2.0 card in OS8/9 with no problems. It'll just be limited to USB 1.1 speeds.