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Curbside PowerMacintosh 7500/375 (!)
Posted by: Tmargo101 on 2012-10-18 19:48:53
So the other day I was out and spotted a computer on the curb. When i pulled over and investigated, I found that it was a Power Macintosh 7500. It was just sitting out with the trash, Computer, Apple Monitor, and KBD/mouse. I brought it home, and opened it up, not expecting much... but... 8-o

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Inside i found:

Massively Upgraded 256MB RAM, up from stock 16-32MB RAM 8-o

Sonnet G3 Accelerator Card at 375MHz 8-o

2 SCSI HD's, 18GB, 1GB

Mac OS 8 on HD

USB Card (?)

WHY DO PEOPLE THROW THIS STUFF OUT????? Oh well, more for me }🙂

It boots, and runs perfect. 😎

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Posted by: volvo242gt on 2012-10-18 20:47:06
Not bad at all. Had one myself that I purchased with a 200MHz 604e processor installed. Had 7.5.5 installed on it, which I upgraded to 8.6 in short order, using the 3GB drive that came out of my old Centris 650-badged 7100/80. Eventually, popped in a 300MHz Newer Technologies MaxPowr G3. Then, upgraded to 9.2.2 on it with a 9.1 GB Seagate that came out of a friend's old 8500.

Anyway, the 7500 series was a nice computer. Only thing I didn't like whas the requirement of the manual-inject floppy drive. At least, the G1 PowerMacs (Nubus versions) can use the old auto-inject Sony floppy drives. Other than that, I liked it. Was a lot easier to work on than the IIvx-style case of the 7100/80.

-J
Posted by: uniserver on 2012-10-18 20:51:11
because 95% of the population say's if it wont do facebook or youtube then its time for the trash.
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2012-10-18 22:16:30
A G3 system is pretty old, and few people bother to check inside a 7500 they are junking to see if there are upgrades inside.

7500's are nice machine and they can get upgraded quite a bit (Rage 128 or Radeon 7500 PCI video cards are great for them).
Posted by: Cosmo on 2012-10-19 01:19:46
That is really nice find! I've never seen such (any computers) thrown in the curbside here.
Posted by: Byrd on 2012-10-19 01:47:52
It's always nice to find a heavily upgraded Mac for free - much more exciting than usual!
Posted by: directive0 on 2012-10-19 06:46:42
I have a real soft spot for this design of powermac/g3. Good find!
Posted by: ClassicHasClass on 2012-10-19 08:03:11
The 7300/7500/7600 are really nice Macs, easy to work in, insanely expandable. I personally prefer the 7300 and (if I need video) the 7600 because they had some kinks worked out of the design, but the 7500 is also very solid. My 7300 has a 800MHz G4, a gig of RAM, an ATI Rage Orion and an OrangePC card, letting it boot OS 9, Windows 95 and Windows 98. Perfect for running all those good old games. 🙂

The only downside is that if you have a lot of stuff crammed in there, heat is an issue. You should hear the fans on the OrangePC and the G4 howl along with the system fan when it's running full tilt. It's no wonder Apple added extra cooling to the 9600.

Also, for many years a Power Mac 7300 with a 500MHz G3 acted as my database server running NetBSD. So that's another option for you.
Posted by: bibilit on 2012-10-19 22:51:33
Nice,

I have got a 7600, was given to me a year ago... with more or less the same setup as yours.

The G3 was also fitted, removed it and put a G4 instead.

Not a bad machine.
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2012-10-20 13:02:03
A G3 beige PPC like the 7500 makes one hell of a fast OS 7.6.1 machine if you get into software of that period. I do suggest a PCI ATA card so you can use common (and faster) CDRW/HDs.
Posted by: Bunsen on 2012-10-25 11:56:58
Very nice curb score 🙂

Posted by: phreakout on 2012-10-28 21:54:42
Nice score! I got mine years ago; had a Sonnet Crescendo G3 500 Mhz. Got it up to 224 MB RAM, but will be maxing that to 1 GB soon. Installed USB (PCI) card, D-Link 10/100 Ethernet NIC and scored an Adaptec AHA-2940 Mac Edition (Ultra 160 LVD/SE) SCSI card. Originally had dual 9 GB drives, but their bearings were wearing out, so I replaced with dual 80 GB full-height 10 K RPM drives. It's screaming fast boot into OS 9.1.

Also, for many years a Power Mac 7300 with a 500MHz G3 acted as my database server running NetBSD. So that's another option for you.
Hey CK, which flavor of *NIX would you recommend for my 7500? I'm thinking possibly as a server for web/file applications, maybe even an alternative to Classic OS.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

Posted by: ClassicHasClass on 2012-10-29 06:30:56
I don't have a lot of experience with Old World Macs and Linux, but last I checked NetBSD still "just worked" with the 7(3,5,6)00. The kernel will need a bit of modification to enable the backside cache on the G3 card, but it should boot without that. Note that NetBSD doesn't support the 601 card. You need to be a bit of an OpenFirmware jockey, though, and dual booting is tricky. Still, it has the best persistent support IMHO; I don't know how well the PPC Linux distros support Old World any more, if at all.
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