GC8

Does an iMac require a unique mouse or will it happily run on any/some two-button USB mice? It could probably do with a replacement keyboard too as some of the keys actions have gone.....

Also; OSX and 10.x.x; does the GUI resemble OS 9.x, which is currently installed or is it unique? I ask as OSX-10.4 will run on this kit but I dont have it yet and Id sooner familiarise myself with the current release rather than legacy OSs if they differ.

Any help appreciated.

Simon

Stueyb

On my imac running 10.3, a two buttoned intellimouse works fine for me. The second button is handy as well as im used to right clicks

angrynorth

The GUI for OSX is quite different to OS9, but if you have one down then the other will be easy as they do have some consistencies.

OS9 sucks ***** by the way, I'd go to X at the soonest opportunity you get, plus you will be able to use almost any mouse you desire with it. There are a lots of OS9 fans out there though, but I never really got on with it.

G5 + OSX with Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer here (sideways scroll model)

AllanB

Most of the MS mice work fine on OS9 and I was using the intellimouse explorer but both packed up in less than a year btw


AllanB

GC8

Thankyou for the replies so far... whats the craic with regard to keyboards? Are third party devices available or will I have to try to find a fit Apple part?

Simon

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

OSX always..enough said

Inputs devices for a mac running OSX..see below
Input devices on a mac

Apple keyboards..yes they are white and yes they look great for the first week until you start using it with your little grubby hands, but hey i bet God uses a white keyboard and mouse
Plus they have designed it with the knowledge that most people eat lunch at their desk and so the keyboard has a tray especially for catching your crumbs !! what attention to detail
basically you can use whatever usb keyboard catches your fancy, but some keyboards do not take advanatge of the built in mac OSX function keys such as the top right 4 buttons, for sound up, down, mute and eject CD/DVD.

oh and you can go wireless as well..what fun
wireless

Swiss

ScoobyDoo555

I've also got a spare G4 keyboard (black), but am using the whitey (well, off-white at the moment!!!)

Looks awful when dirty

Mouse-wise, I ditched the optical one pretty quickly. USe a Kensington Turbo Mouse (trackball) - for audio waveform editing and MIDI programming it'sa god send.

As I've also got a dual-screen setup, it great to roll the ball and be at both ends of the screen really quickly!!

Dan

Markus

I've recently added Logitech wheel mouse to my G4 and it's working perfectly, no need to put any drivers on, unless you really want the extra bits logitech sticks in.

As for the look of OS 9 vs OS X, yes it is a lot different. Being brutally honest here, don't even bother with any pre OS X version, go straight to OS X. OS 9 is dead, Apple no longer ships updates for it, nor officially supports it. There are actually very few companies out there who will update their versions of software that run under OS 9.

The Classic environment in OS X does allow pre OS X apps to run, however, you do not want to seriously run applications in Classic. Want an example? QuarkXPress. This is runs like a maggot infested animal carcass under Classic.

Bottom line, OS X and only OS X, and if you're running X, I'd try and Get at least 10.3.9, but realistically you want 10.4 (Tiger) if you're machine supports it. They did up the requirements for Tiger over previous versions of the OS, so you want to double check you're machine will run it. Ideally you want at bare minimum 256MB RAM, but ideally you want 512MB or more (I'm running with 1GB at the moment, and it's pretty nippy)

As for keyboards, I'm using the standard apple keyboard that came with my G4. I have used other USB keyboards and they work fine. As said by others, some might not take into account the specific keys on the mac keyboard. There are also wireless keyboards and mice, the very funky ones being the Apple bluetooth keyboard and mouse, very very nice indeed.

GC8

Thankyou very much. I believe that the device will run 10.4. Its a slot-loading G3 350 with 320MB and 6GB. Apple state that pre-firewire kit wont run 10.4, however..... This model was replaced by the similar slot-loading 400MHz DV which had IEEE1394 support, so Im assuming that itll run.

Simon (confused PC engineer)