Thinkpads Forum

I came across a Palm IIIxe today and it's in great condition.I just put it on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0128889484

It looks to be sitting in front of a Powermac 6xxx series. Cool.

Yup... The machine behind the Palm is a Power Macintosh 6500/225. Those machines are great. Back when I was in high school taking graphic arts classes, the classroom had tons of those things. The 6500 is one of the first systems I ran Photoshop on.

I used to own a 6500/300. It has been replaced by my first true Mac love. A PM8500. I also have a beige G3MT that is doing game duty in my sons room. The 8500 was my first tower. I loved that machine.

The 6500 was good but working inside it was (and still is) a complete nightmare.

I used to have an 8500/150 but it died last year and rather than figure out what the source of the problem was I just parted the system and threw it out. I really wish I would have thought to save the RAM since my 6500 only has 32mb.

When I still had my 8500, I actually used it as a pseudo-DVR at one point since it's video system actually isn't half bad. That system was pretty advanced for it's age but the case was hell to get around in.

...now if only there was a way to get that 300mhz mobo from you

The 8500 series Power Mac was notorious for being difficult to muck around in. Actually, the desktop 7500 was a whole lot easier to work inside of, though the Blue and White G3 and later G4 Power Macs are probably the easiest computers ever to modify. Apple got a lot of complaints on the 8500 series.

I should know, I was a tech support trainer for Apple at the time.

I could never understand why I had to do so much work just to upgrade my RAM...

I always have and will continue to have a special place in my heart for the 8500. Sure it was hard to work on, but (IMO) it was a beautiful machine. It was my main workstation during my transition from PC to MAC (I have since become used to working with both platforms). I love the styling of the tower, and how upgradeable it is.

Just a side note, you cannot use RAM from an 8500 in a 6500. The 6500 uses SIMMS and 8500 uses those weird non PC DIMMS.

My 8500 still boots and runs 9.1 to this day. I just picked up a G3 500 for it and an extra 256MB of RAM not too long ago. Oh it has a 32MB PCI Rage Orion card and ATA/133 controller card. This box flies in OS 9 and is not too shabby in 10.2 either. I will have until I can no longer source parts.

Mac OS 8.6 is my OS of choice for older PowerMacs. To date I have not come across any applications that claim to require OS 9 that won't run on 8.6 and 8.6 is less bloated than 9. On the 8500 and on the 6500 OS 8.6 and Office 98 run like a dream. As soon as I upgrade the RAM, I might upgrade the system to have Office 2001 though.

In the past I've owned a 233mhz PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II, a 250mhz PowerBook G3 kanga (my favorite PowerPC PowerBook so far), a PowerBook 3400c/180, a 1400c/133, a 1400cs/110, a Duo 230, a Duo 280c, 2 IIsi (still have one), an 8500/150, an LC 540, an LC II, a IIci (my favorite 040 mac) and a Mac Plus. Only Macs I own now are the 6500, Plus and one IIsi. Last year when I was running my spare time eBay business, I bought and sold alot of vintage Macs.

I have owned:

Q700
Q950
PM7200
PM7100
PM8500
PM G3 Beige MT
G4 Sawtooth
Pismo
Ti 867
2x Ti 1000
LC475
2 x LC II+
1 MacSEFD

Still have

G3 MT
PM8500
TI 1000
Mac SE FD

Oh and a Handspring Visor Platinum (iThink, it's the model with a color screen).

Visor Prism is the one with color. I currently have a Palm IIIxe, a Zire m150 and a Sony Clie SJ20. I'd like to get a color pda but since it's not essential to anything, I'd only go for it if I could get it real cheap. I'd really like to have a Palm IIIc again.