Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
That is a bloody awesome collection!!!!!
I feel ashamed of my G4 and G3 iMac's, LOL!
What OS's are you running on hardware that vintage?
Thanks!
I run System 6 on a lot of my early 68K stuff, while later stuff with enough system resources gets either System 7 or OS 7.6. I do have system disks for System 1-5, and boot them just for the heck of it every once in a while.
I run either OS 8.6 or 9.2.2 on PowerPC computers from the G3 era and earlier. I don't like OS 8/8.1, so tend to avoid it. 8.5.5 is a really solid OS, but 8.6 adds USB mass storage support. I find that 9.x can bog down some low resource 601 and 603 processors, especially in laptops. My 8600 and 9600 are both running 9.2.2.
Since I started using Macs in the OS X era(really the Intel era) I also have fun pushing the limits of hardware on OS X. A friend of mine modified the Tiger(10.4) kernel and I've been able to run it on 604e based systems(specifically the 8600 and 9600). It's not really a usable OS, though, as it's glacially slow on low-spec computers. Also, interestingly enough, it doesn't even see the second processor in my 9600. I do have either Tiger and/or Leopard installed on almost everything that will run it, even if the computer primarily runs OS 9.
I have a few special projects that are moving along at a slow pace. I have a bunch of G4-upgraded G3s, and the G4 makes it theoretically possible to run Leopard on them. I have a modified install(from the same friend who re-wrote the Tiger kernel) that will plug in and boot on beige G3s along with B&W G3s as long as they have some sort of G4. Unfortunately, he and I are still tinkering with getting it to work on my G4-upgraded 8600.
In addition, I've recently procured a G4 upgrade for a Pismo Powerbook G3, and once I get some other kinks ironed out in the computer(I need to order more RAM and will probably put in a 7200rpm HDD) I'm going to install Leopard. Interestingly enough, the Pismo can work with a bone-stock Leopard install.
As OS X goes on PPC, I stick to Tiger and Leopard. Leopard maintains the best software support, although Tiger is lighter and there's a decent amount of software for it. I rarely use versions of OS X older than Tiger-in many cases they run slower, have worse software support, and anything that can run OS X at all can be made to run Tiger. With that said, I do have one tower(a dual 500 Gigabit Ethernet) that has every version of OS X from Public Beta to 10.5 installed. I have another B&W G3 tower with all the Developer Previews along with Rhapsody.