G3 Wallstreet Power Book

[Amy M.]

I realize I'm probably reaching for the stars, but I have a wonderful PowerBook Wallstreet model which I would like to be using.

It's 233 mhz with only 2 gig hard drive and currently OS9. I would like to be able to add a USB port if possible, so I could add an external hard drive. I'd also like to add RAM and install OSX.

Plus, I would like to be able to load Photoshop on it and am not sure if the 233 is too slow to handle that.

Does anyone know what upgrade options I would have? Also, where I might be able to find equipment to upgrade it with?

Thanks very much for your help.

[John A]

This should be what you're looking for:
http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/machine.php?name=powerbook-g3-wallstreet

USB can be added through the computer's PCMCIA slot, although if it's only for an external hard drive, I'd recommend looking into a Firewire card instead. Firewire's a lot faster than USB, not to mention that it's bootable (so you could have an entire installation of OS X residing on your external hard drive).

You can add up to 192 MB of RAM according to the web page linked above, which will be enough to run Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). However, Jaguar's not being sold by Apple anymore, so you'll need to get it secondhand (Amazon has some mint copies, might also want to look in eBay for some relatively-decent prices).

[Calixa]

You really are pushing the envelope on the G3 even trying. I have one and semi-retired it when OSX came out. Photoshop 2 (!) runs OK on it using OS 9.2.2. No matter how much RAM you put in the processor is really too slow for OSX. I saved and got a MacBook for that reason!