On Wed, 8 Jun 2016 12:40:12 -0400, John Albert
wrote:

On 6/7/16 3:17 PM, wrote:
I dont have any USB keyboards or mice, so I will have to buy something.
But I'm not going to spend a lot, since this computer is old (1999). But
I'd still like to play around with it.

Seems to me if the g3 has USB ports, you can use a USB keyboard and mouse.

Any USB keyboard should work, be aware that the keys on the bottom (to
the left and right of the space bar) will have different functions than
as they work with Windows.

If you get the right USB keyboard, it will have additional USB ports on
it into which you can plug a USB [wired] mouse.

Any wired USB mouse should work as well. You'll have to set up "the
right button" in the Mac's control panel.

OS9 is the old "Classic" Mac OS.
Not sure if the g3 you have will run OS X, and even if it can, it will
only be an older version of "X" that will run on it.

Does it have an Ethernet port in back?
You can probably get it online without too much trouble.

I'm not sure how well the now-obsolete Classic Mac browsers will work
with today's internet.

Newsgroup reading should be fine, think I used Netscape for it back then.

A site that may be of use to you:
http://lowendmac.com/

This URL has a lot of useful info. Thanks for the link.

You said "OS9 is the old "Classic" Mac OS".
Being that I have no experience with Mac computers at all, I am trying
to get some idea of comparison of the Mac operating systems to those of
the PC. Based on the year, I'd take a wild guess that OS9 is simular to
Windows XP. (Just a guess), or is it more like Windows 98 or 2000, or
Vista, or Win7, or ????

I know this is like comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended on the
"apples"), but on a level of power and usefulness there must be some
sort of comparison.

One thing I did notice is that the RAM in this computer seems really
small at 256mb (Four 64mb strips). But from what I've read, the Mac
computers dont seem to need as much RAM as does PC computers.

Yes, I do have an ethernet port, but at this point I am not yet sure how
to use it to go online. Until I get a mouse and keyboard, I cant do much
of anything except boot it up and shut it off.

I am curious whether I can download Mac software on a PC, then install
it to the Mac, using a USB flash drive??? Can a Mac even read a standard
flash drive (usually formatted to Fat 32).

Thanks for the help!