Len Gerstel wrote:

> A local store has some beige G3 266 DT for $279 and some B&W G3 350 AGP
> video for $449.

<snip>

> Should I go the cheap route and plan to upgrade in the future or bite the
> bullet and get the B&W.

I totally agree with Mikael and Jeff. Go for the B&W G3. It has a 100 Mhz bus,
can have up to 1.5 GB RAM, has two extra hard drive bays, has a 16 MB ATI Rage
128 PCI (!) card, three 33 Mhz slots and one 66 Mhz slot. And a tower model is
easier to upgrade than a desktop. And it's not expensive. And if you're
planning to run OS X, it'll run much faster on a B&W G3 than a Beige G3.

But B&W G3s don't have an AGP slot aux contrary what the advertising says, one
of the four PCI slots is used by that ATI Rage 128 card.
And to avoid ROM problems (even with the B&W G3 yes) open the B&W G3 casing
before you buy and make sure it has a dual-HD bracket, so that you can stack
several HDs on top of eachother instead of side by side. That way you can be
sure you'll be buying a B&W G3 Rev2, because Rev1 B&W G3s don't support slave
drives which means adding a second HD on the same IDE bus. Even installing a
large HD as the master can give corruption problems.

For more info check http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/IDE/. There is
also a link there which shows the innards of a Rev2 HD bracket.
But if you're planning to use the stock HD only (6 or 12 gig, has this one a
SCSI HD or IDE?) than it doesn't matter if it's Rev1 or 2.
Another option *if* you want to install an extra HD (up to four) is to buy an
VST Ultratek IDE controller card ($45 from OtherWorldComputing (OWC)
http://eshop.macsales.com) which can be made OS X compatible with a firmware
patch from OWC.

HTH,
Marc


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