First off I know zilch about these strange computers. I have a PowerMacintosh 8600/200 that I picked up for free and was wondering if anyone could give me some info on this computer ? I hooked it up to a monitor and it works fine but I can't figure out how to hook up both the mouse and keyboard ????? WTF they both work if plugged into the same plug...but I can't seem to find a way to plug both in at the same time. Also do you have any recommendations for software ? This computer has plug ins for video so I'd like to see if I could do some video editing with it ?? So what software would I need ? Another thing ...what OS should I use ...or could I use ? I think it has 8 or something on it now ? Thanks for any input ...I'm clueless
First, on plugging in the mouse, there is almost always a serial plug on the keyboard. Look at the top right corner of the keyboard. There is probably a plug there. Unlike PC's, Mac mice do not plug directly into the hard drive. For software, get a version of the OS prior to X - any version of 9 will do for now. After you have OS 9.x installed, you will be able to add pretty much any and all Mac software you want. You can get X later but you'll need to check how much memory you have an other considerations. As for editing, pretty much the standard is Adobe Premier, but I'd recommend starting with a free download of iMovie. It is a pretty cool piece of software and it s a good practice run considering Premier is $300-$500 depending on the version. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.
LoL I knew what he meant...thanks Jeff I was wondering why anyone would make a mouse cord so short Ok also I was wrong about the os,it's 9.1. It also has the imovie program installed so I'll play around with it and see if I can figure it out. Thanks again
Ok, you plug the mouse into the serial port on the back of the big, ugly, beige piece of **** plastic box that sits on the floor. Make more sense? Geeks.
DARO Yeah, you are pretty much limited to OS 9.2.2 because the 8600/200 isnt a G3 or better. I would suggest at least os 9 as Jeff said. For free thats not a bad mac at all. In its day that sucker was friggin expensive. Speaking of expensive, that Alienware PC does look nice. I still have one from about a year ago in Cyborg Green. They used to be very cool. Then Best Buy started selling them and everyone got that case.
You can get those cases by themselves if you want. That looks like an Antec/Chieftec model. I have the beige version of it that I bought from Directron in Houston.
Any clues about how I can get a better resolution going ? The only option listed is 640x480 would I need to update video drivers or what ? Can I transfer files I download with my pc to the mac ? They both have a zip drive and I downloaded a kids math program but the mac said it didn't reconize .hcx (something like that) Is mac software backward compatible with their operating systems ? Thanks again
.hqx and the mac just says that it can't find the program that created the file ? ...and then it trys to convert it into a word document ...wtf ?
Daro - get a copy of stuffit expander and then drag and drop the .hqx file over the application. An .hqx file is compressed for download and I don't think it got uncompressed after it downloaded.
