On 6/9/2016 9:29 AM, Fred McKenzie wrote:
In article ,
Don Y wrote:

And, the machine will feel sluggish (typically Macs were purchased
"underpowered" to save $$).

Perhaps so, but I have an old G3 Mini-Tower that was "top of the line"
when new. I got the fastest processor and filled it with maximum RAM.
It did not seem sluggish at the time.

Yo're speaking from *your* budgetary standpoint. Most Mac users
that I know were disappointed that they didn't "buy more horsepower".
Considering the price premium they were paying for their Mac's
(relative to comparable and faster PC's), it was understandable that
they would want to save a few bucks.

But, folks are ill-equipped to understand what ACTUAL consequences
memory and CPU choices will have on their user experience.

"At the time" also only makes sense if you want to run software of
comparable vintage. I bought a pair of 25MHz 386's in ~1986 each
with hardware floating point and a whopping 13MB of RAM. They
were greased lightning, at the time. Compared to friends still
running 286's at the time... shrug

But, each subsequent software release would get sloppier and sloppier
until the same hardware became quite sluggish. And, it's dubious
that those software updates were adding much by way of increased
functionality, etc.

[OTOH, some tasks were CPU limited even back then; a 3D render
of some of my models would take more than 24 hours of wall time]

It definitely runs early versions of OS X.

And the Quadras "adequately" ran A/UX. I doubt many folks would
want to step back there when they could get a flusher experience
on cheaper and faster hardware, today!

I see only two reasons to support/run old/antique hardwa
- supporting a legacy tool or application
[I've done this in the past to verify some of my devices would
interoperate with particular machines, even those past their
prime -- as expecting folks to upgrade JUST to be able to
use your device is arrogance]
- curiosity (what was XYZ like -- from a user and/or technical view?)

When you can pick up a more powerful machine, second hand, for
$20, that should be an upper limit on how much your time can
be worth chasing history!