TAM (20th Anniv. Mac)

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vapor's picture
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TAM (20th Anniv. Mac)

Hello all:

I just picked up a nice TAM. It is pretty stock, except with the Ethernet COMII card and 98 MB. It has OS 7.6.1 installed along with a bunch of software. I am interested in getting feedback on a couple of things:
(1) I know you can run up to OS 9.1, but given the fact that I only have the stock 250Mhz processor, will it run slow? Will it be flaky at all? Or should I only go as high as OS 8.6 perhaps?
(2) I have the Ethernet card installed. Is there some fundamental setup drills I should go through. Right now I have the setting for my router and subnet address inputted but can't seem to get on the internet with Netscape (which is what is loaded right now).

I am an avid Apple II collector but have begun branching out into some cool Mac systems as well - including the color classic and this TAM.

Any general interest in discussing tweaks and features of the TAM is welcome!!

Thanks,
Vapor

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Sorry, the title parens was s

Sorry, the title parens was supposed to be "20th Anniv. Mac" not "20th Cent. Mac" Lazy typing on a Saturday afternoon.

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20 cents? That's a good price

20 cents? That's a good price for one of those! Wink

Fixed it for you.

Post some photos of it!

1) Go with OS 9.x. It's the least buggy, and most optimized for PowerPC.

2) IIRC, Classic MacOS can have problems getting a dynamic IP from routers. Try assigning everything on the Mac including IP and DNS.

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Thanks for the quick response

Thanks for the quick response. I wish it was only 20 cents!!!! Just a tad bit more than that, but was in much better condition and with all of the accessories, except the remote and the pen/pencil set they came with. I picked up a remote on eBay for a few bucks and I've got plenty of pens and pencils around (I collect various models of those as well).

I will load 9.1 when I get it - also ordered from eBay but not here yet. I will also try the manual Ethernet setup as well and see how that goes.

When i get it all configured and placed I will post some pictures. It really is a nice system. My next investment in it will probably be the G3 400 or 500 Mhz processor upgrade - if I can locate one.

Thanks,
Vapor

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OS 9 helper

You can go higher to OS 9.2 using OS 9 Helper:

http://www.os9forever.com/os9helper.html

Never had one, but I was under the impression that the TAM is basically just a PM6500 in special packaging, which would mean you could kick it up to 128mb RAM with two 64mb sticks and a Sonnet L2 G3 processor. I had a couple of 6500's maxed out that way with 7200rpm drives and they ran pretty sweet in OS 9.

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You can go to OS 9 but it wil

You can go to OS 9 but it will be slower then staying with OS 7 or even going to OS 8.

I went to http://main.system7today.com/updates and made sure everything was up to date (mainly internet config) since i was running 7.6.1.

I was having issues with my P 475 with connecting to the net (one i did buy a ethernet card for it) and it was due to the internet config utility. But setting it up was the other PITA.

The settings i am using under TCP/IP are use DHCP server, set the Subnet (enter your subnet address here), router (enter your routers IP), and name server address (enter the same router IP address). then it should work. if not then there could be a extension issue (driver issue). The P475 has no issue on getting its IP from the router.

I try to stay away from assigning my devices their own IP address because of potential IP conflicts, like if a friend comes over with a wifi device the router could give that IP out to his device, or if his device is manually set to use a IP my device is set to use.

Since i had a Beige G3 i had a way to xfer the data to my P475 (before i had a ethernet card) by using a floppy disk. but the drive in my P 475 don't work all the time so i had to use the external SCSI CD burner i bought for my P475 for allot of it (luckily i had a burner in my Beige G3).

vapor's picture
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I've had those settings input

I've had those settings inputted and have played with trying to get it up on the ethernet. The drivers for the card were already on the system when I got it but no luck yet. I have a copy of 8 and 9 coming. I have 98 Mb on the TAM so do you think I should still stick with something like 8.1? I heard 8 and9 were more reliable and adapted better for Ethernet and the Internet. Plus, the new OS will be installed with the Ethernet card installed so that may help out. The Ethernet was taken out of the machine when I got it because it had the flat back panel. I think it had primarily been used with modem and dialup back in the day. The light on the card does light up green when it is hooked up to the router.

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My friend has a 6500 and trie

My friend has a 6500 and tried running OS 9 on it in stock form and it was slow as a slug, he did upgrade it (memory, CPU, and Video card) and it did make it to where OS 9 was at least usable.

I would try OS 9 at first and see how it goes, if its usable to you then stick with it, but OS 9 likes ram and you do not have allot available on that system.

When running OS 9 on my Beige G3 266 i went from 64mb to 128mb i seen a speed up, from 128 to 512mb i seen a speed up, and from 512 to 768 i didn't see much of a speed up but things ran more stable, after that a CPU upgrade and faster HDD provided performance speed ups.

Installing a newer OS with the ethernet card installed should get the card working.

Sometimes deleting the preference files to TCP/IP and other related programs could fix the issue, but from what it sounds like is that you are running into a driver related issue or the extension is disabled.

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Re: TAM (20th Anniv. Mac)

Can I buy it?

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