8 ms·

Mac Mini G4 – The best « classic » Macintosh for retro-gaming?

244 points by freediver 2y ago

amcaskill 2y ago
Some other classic Mac OS 9.2 compatible games from that era, ranked: 1. Command and Conquer 2. Rainbow Six 3. Total Annihilation 4. Unreal Tournament
- bsimpson 2y ago
  MacMall accidentally sent my dad a box of Marathon games, probably meant for a store's shelves. Marathon ended up being one of my favorite games from that era. The Windows kids had games like Doom and Quake, but we had Marathon. Mac marketshare was so small at the time that there was an implicit craftsmanship that came from anyone targeting Mac - you expected higher quality, because they cared enough to use Macs in the first place. (Some of that mentality lives on to this day.) Of course id made great games too, some of which did eventually come to the Mac. Marathon is a first person shooter, set in space. It has a compelling storyline, as well as fun art and weapons. My dad's office had an AppleTalk network, which was kind of like Ethernet but strung together with regular phone cables. I used to bribe my little brother to commandeer the network with me and play Marathon. There were ultimately 3 Marathon games, that were eventually open sourced and ported everywhere. You can find them online and on Steam as Aleph One. Fun fact: the game that launched the Xbox was originally made for the Mac. Bungie, the creators of Marathon, showed off their new game Halo at the Macworld conference. The hype train went through the ceiling, and Microsoft bought it as a launch title for their new gaming project. Since then, Sony bought the rest of Bungie and is preparing to launch a new game in the Marathon universe.
  - amcaskill 2y ago
    I found the demo version of Marathon so terrifying at that age that I never pursued it! I will have to give it another go.
- goda90 2y ago
  I got into Escape Velocity and EV Override on my brother in law's Mac. Since I had a PC at home, I was really excited when EV Nova was also released for Windows. Recently I picked up Endless Sky which is inspired by those games and is open source.
  - chongli 2y ago
    Absolutely love EV and EVO. I played a bit of Nova but it didn’t grab me the same way (perhaps it was too many years later, although I did replay EV much more recently and loved it). This is the second time today I’ve seen someone mention Endless Sky. It looks really interesting to me. Have you started playing it yet? I think what makes or breaks these games is the quality of writing and the effort and detail that goes into the different planets, factions, missions, and story.
thepryz 2y ago
While the Mac mini is nice due to its size, personally, if you're choosing a hardware over emulation, I'd rather have an iMac G4 simply because of the aesthetics. It's amazing how well that design holds up even today.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  The arm holding the monitor was the weak point on those machines. They all seemed to droop after a while. Fixing the problem was near impossible.
  - freediver 2y ago
    Counter point - mine still holding strong after 20 years.
    - amatecha 2y ago
      Same, I have two of them and the arms are holding up fine. I keep them in the fully-vertical position most of the time, to reduce strain on the arm (though I'm not sure how it works internally).
  - crims0n 2y ago
    This happened to mine... am sad.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    More anecdata -- mine's still great, bought when first released, in use till recently. // But now turned off and reboxed along with an Apple //c, SE/30, the cube, the first Intel cheese grater, etc. Someday...
- freediver 2y ago
  Sitting on my desk constantly reminding me what timeless compute (it can still receive software updates for OSX Tiger it runs) and timeless design (need I say more) is.
- 2y ago
WoodenChair 2y ago
This is a great comprehensive article on the "why" and there are good YouTube videos on the "how." What the article is missing that makes it even better is putting an SSD in which makes it even faster of course. You can get an untested Mac mini G4 for about $60 on eBay and the rest of the parts (SSD, PATA-mSATA adapter, RAM if less than 1 GB, power adapter, any missing screws, clock battery, etc.) will run you another $60 to make the ultimate Mac OS 9 machine. If you're comfortable taking things apart and putting them back together it's not too bad. A quick tip: be sure to reset the PRAM with command-alt-p-r holding down during restart until you hear 3 chimes. Then while the machine is booting hold down command-alt-o-f and type "reset-nvram" and then "set-defaults" and then "reset-all" (all of this is in open firmware) before installing Mac OS 9 to make sure firmware is in its original state. I came across this idea of SSD upgrading and installing Mac OS 9 in April 2024 and bought three broken ones to build one for my son. [0] When the first one worked, I ended up figuring, why not just finish the other two and sell them on eBay? That led me into a hobby business. I've now cleaned, upgraded with SSDs, and sold about 70 of them. The "business" basically breaks even, so it truly is a hobby. In fact I invested so much in inventory buying 90 of them in a lot at the end of 2024 that I am negative right now. I will probably turn a slight profit in 2025. But it's fun and if you want you can buy one from me at: https://os9.shop https://os9.shop Sorry for the self-promotion, but very relevant! 0: https://x.com/davekopec/status/1795872492386398683 https://x.com/davekopec/status/1795872492386398683
- haunter 2y ago
  How fast do modern SSDs die in older systems without TRIM?
  - WoodenChair 2y ago
    I am yet to hear about 1 dying from a customer. But I can't give you a scientific answer to that and I've only been doing this since April. There's a whole community of people doing these upgrades. You can find them at https://macos9lives.com https://macos9lives.com That's where the hacked Mac OS 9 comes from and there are threads about Mac mini SSDs. There are also threads at https://68kmla.org https://68kmla.org I would ask there.
empressplay 2y ago
I have an eMac G4, can't beat that CRT!
- inversetelecine 2y ago
  I had one back when they were new / for sale. Wish I kept it. I remember toying with the idea of doing a soldering hack that was floating around in order to overclock the system. I imagine it was moving some resistors around or something. Never did it though.
- pndy 2y ago
  I've got one few years ago - sister was using it for a bit till something else could be managed. It came with a replaced hdd and removed airport card, and old battery. I managed to install Lubuntu side by side with 10.4 but mid-pandemic decided to try some retro fun and deployed dualboot with MacOS 9.0.4 and dug thru Macintosh Garden depths. What's interesting is that machine managed to download updates for 10.4.
p_ing 2y ago
I picked up a G4 Cube for retro-gaming. It'll run what I'm interested in (Sim City, Sim Tower), is compact, and I've got the ADC monitor to go with it. Upgraded to 1.5GiB RAM and replaced the spinning rust with an SSD with an IDE bridge. I even have the working Apple USB speakers that it came with! Repaired the disc drive and it is good to go. Installed OS X 10.4 for kicks (will go back to 9.2) and wow, what a different OS that was from today's macOS. Brings back memories of my PB G4 Ti. What an awesome laptop that was.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  10.4 was where I started; it’s what came on the first gen white polycarb MacBook that I got in 2006. And I used that as my main machine for like eight years and then had two different MBPs afterwards, so I saw quite a span of OS X versions, and I remember most of the changes feeling fairly iterative, at least when going just one to the next. What was it that stuck out out to you when making such a large jump back in time?
  - p_ing 2y ago
    OS X 10.1 - ~10.4 had a different root directory structure. Right click menu is unrecognizable. Dock behaves a bit different. The Directory Access utility (renamed to Directory Utility) contained Netinfo, the local directory, I believe sourced from NeXTStep. Lots of various other utilities were discontinued or changed into something unrecognizable. Early OS X felt like a proper UNIX distribution. Modern macOS, not so much.
    - jamesy0ung 2y ago
      I agree, my first OS was 10.5 Leopard, and I absolutely loved its graphical design—something truly special. It also had a genuine Unix feel to it, which, as you mentioned, seems to have been lost in more recent releases.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  As someone who grew up on Macs and missed out on games like Alice and Arkham Asylum that weren't released on Mac when they were popular on Windows, I'm kind of shocked to see such enthusiasm for the Mac as a retro gaming platform. I know a lot of them did eventually get Mac ports. I remember playing Braid on my iMac with a Wiimote in the early 10s.
rollcat 2y ago
I have a 2002 TiBook[1]; it officially supports MacOS 9.2.2, but also every OS X release up to 10.5.8. I've been surprised to find that the retail copy of StarCraft that I bought in 2009 not only includes an OS X build, but also supports PowerPC! [1]: https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ I'm not sure if it can be made to run m68k apps "natively", but on the other hand you can emulate just about any classic MacOS in a modern browser[2]. [2]: https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/ https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/
- Fnoord 2y ago
  Warcraft III (I don't know about I and II) was also for PPC (PowerPC / POWER). Why? Well, MacOS / Mac OS X was at some point PPC only. Apple did the conversion from m68k to PPC. Actually, for a while, it was quite tough to get these games working well on Mac Intel machines. Why? Well, the installer would only work on PPC. They didn't make it into a universal binary.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    There's a similar problem with some older Windows games - the games are correct 32 bit applications and will run on modern Windows versions - but the installers are WIN16 and fail to load on Win64. Various tricks exist to get them installed and then migrated to run.
wslh 2y ago
There are other operating systems supported for the Mac Mini G4. For example, NetBSD and Linux.
- p_ing 2y ago
  NetBSD yes, but 32-bit Linux distros are getting rare. Adélie Linux is one of the few that has current releases of software. https://www.adelielinux.org/download/ https://www.adelielinux.org/download/
  - bodyfour 2y ago
    A few months ago I happened to install Debian/unstable on a G4 mini. ppc32 is no longer a supported architecture -- purely "what you get is what you get". Still, the process was mostly painless. Everything I needed worked out of the box.
    - deaddodo 2y ago
      This is the exact same transition process 68k went through for most platforms it was on. Just left it in the build process and as packages were unable to be built for the arch they just delisted them from the builder until core packages no longer functioned; at which point total support was removed: https://people.debian.org/~cts/debian-m68k/etch/ https://people.debian.org/~cts/debian-m68k/etch/
  - filchermcurr 2y ago
    Gentoo is there for you!
  - inversetelecine 2y ago
    I have an iMac G4 800Mhz and I could never get linux to install as the boot screen (that loads the installer) would always be solid white with light pink text. I imagine it had to do with the nvidia GPU but never bothered to debug. MacOS X and 9.2 worked fine.
- duskwuff 2y ago
weare138 2y ago
The 2002 Power Mac G4/1.25 Dual Processor (MDD) is a good option too. It has dual PowerPC 7455's w/ 2MB L3 cache, supports 2GB RAM, 4 PCI slots and a 4x APG slot that came with either a 64MB ATI Radeon 9000 Pro or a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti. Plus there's a ton of after market upgrades for these. https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_1.25_dp_mdd.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powerma...
johnklos 2y ago
The depth of this article is wonderful. The PowerPC line did have lots of good things going for it, and the Mac mini G4 is a good example of how much you can get done with modest space, power and heat. I'm still using Mac mini G4s in several places, both for Mac OS X (legacy Final Chop) and as small, low power servers running NetBSD. There are really only two drawbacks to the Mac mini G4, in my opinion: Gigabit ethernet would've been a dollar or two more? Being stuck with 100 Mbps, or around 300 Mbps if one uses a gigabit USB adapter, isn't fun. If the DIMM slot could take 2 gig DIMMs, this'd be a perfect machine. Other PowerPC Macs could take 2 gigs - heck, even the older PowerPC 604e Power Macs 9500 and 9600 could take 1.5 gigs - so being limited to 1 gig is a bit unfortunate, especially considering that 2 gig DDR DIMMs are a thing (later Xserve G5 units could take 2 gig DDR DIMMs). Still, the Mac mini G4 is the only computer aside from SBCs that I've bought brand new, and I have always been very happy with my decision.
jamal-kumar 2y ago
Does anyone remember how Steve Jobs kind of hated video games? Even though him and woz worked on 'breakout' which I thought was kind of funny. I guess John Carmack was a huge fan of NeXT, having developed Doom on that platform, which is wild because he wanted the branding of that OS right on the title screen and the request was denied (Would have been a tiny thing that could have changed the regard of that system alot) [1] [1] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825593223&id=100006735798590 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825...
wiredfool 2y ago
Huh. I sent one of these to ewaste in the last 6 months.
- amatecha 2y ago
  Macs have amazing resale value - IMO never scrap one. People will buy ones that need repair, even. Post on CL or FB marketplace and someone will snag it for sure. Just don't list a machine in disrepair for $400 like some people like to do because they saw a ridiculous listing on ebay :)
ajross 2y ago
PowerPC/USB/new-world-ROM macs are "classic" now?
- mbrubeck 2y ago
  The Mac mini G4 turned 20 years old yesterday. It’s about as old now as the original Mac 128k was during the G4 era.
  - ajross 2y ago
    It ran OS X!
- mrkpdl 2y ago
  The word classic has a bevy of meanings in the Mac world. There’s the “classic Mac” era, the “Macintosh Classic” which bears the name, and of course “Classic” mode in early OS X. But some things are just… classics. Like the g3 and g4 era, which saved the Mac from death.
- dangus 2y ago
  Welcome to being old!
nsxwolf 2y ago
I have 2 and I found them almost unusably slow since day 1. I’d hate to try running even a very old version of MAME.
- mrkpdl 2y ago
  Which version of Mac OS are you running? Early versions of OS X were quite slow, but OS 9 should run like lightning on these.
  - nsxwolf 2y ago
    They have 10.5. Yeah, that makes sense that these would be good OS 9 machines.
- amatecha 2y ago
  Swap the spinning rust for an SSD and you'll be blown away at the difference. the HDD is absolutely the bottleneck in these machines.
jasoneckert 2y ago
I did the same, but with my old 12" PowerBook G4 when it became obsolete. I replaced the PATA HDD with a PATA SSD for speed, and removed the problematic cells in the original battery (so it must run with the power supply attached). This made it incredibly lightweight (most likely lighter than the Mac Mini G4), and more portable (it doesn't need to be plugged into a screen, although it could be).
GeekyBear 2y ago
There were some small indie shops that put out fun arcade games back then. Cassidy & Greene's Crystal Quest is excellent. Ambrosia Software had shareware versions of arcade classics as well as original concepts. Escape Velocity is still talked about today.
- virtue3 2y ago
  Using and then programming my own mods for EV is what got me into programming. Really thankful for that game.
amatecha 2y ago
One of my favorite machines for classic Mac gaming is the first iteration of the iMac G4 (700/800mhz) , which allows booting into OS 9. Not only is it an amazing form factor, it's got a great screen and the official speakers are really nice. It's the complete package for a great gaming experience. The machine is powerful enough to run any game prior to its release (and so many after, of course). It's also a great conversation piece when it's not actively in use! :)
- inversetelecine 2y ago
  I have one, and love it. Sadly no place to display it so it sits in my closet looking lonely and sad. Maybe someday...
nemo 2y ago
I have an iMac G4/800 that can run 9.2 as well as OS X. It's not as fast as the later G4s, but it's performant enough, the flat-panel is nice, and the all-in-one design makes thing really delightful to work with. Replacing the HDD with an SSD isn't fun since iMacs are unpleasant to work on, but is crucial. It's great for old games.
scarface_74 2y ago
In my early years I had an Apple //e, a Mac LC II with an Apple //e card, a PowerMac 6100, some PCs and the Mac Mini G4. My mom still has my old Core 2 Duo Mac Mini. It’s running Windows 7 now. But I could put an old version of OS X that still runs PPac apps. All that being said, I can run old Mac apps on new Macs via emulation. Why would I want an old Mac
system7rocks 2y ago
Yes, the Mac Mini G4 is an amazing machine to own. I sold mine. I am sad. I would like to have another, but the one I had was falling part and someone gave me like $50 for it. It is extremely versatile though.
chongli 2y ago
If you’re going to the trouble to buy retro hardware for retro gaming, you probably don’t want to be settling for emulation. While Apple’s built-in 68K emulator for PowerPC is remarkably fast and compatible with a lot of software, there are plenty of games that freeze or crash on PowerPC chips or newer operating systems for various reasons (non-protected memory, many operating system APIs in ROM, breaking changes, etc). Thus I think if your retro-gaming dream includes lots of 68K Mac games (especially black and white ones) then you’ll probably want to pick up a 68K Mac as well. Not to mention how cool it looks to have a B&W compact Mac on your desk, such as the Mac SE/30 (one of the best computers Apple ever made).
voltagex_ 2y ago
$200-300 in Australia, so I'll just keep hoping emulation improves.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
eadmund 2y ago
I feel like ‘classic’ in the context of a Mac ought to refer to the Macintosh Classic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic) or Classic II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic_II), or one running the Classic Mac OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS). Key items should be the lovely bitmap graphics, the iconic case and the thoughtful UI which changed the world. Oh yeah, and an OS written in Pascal, of all things! Something in colour, on a PowerPC chip, running Mac OS X, just seems too modern.
simonjgreen 2y ago
Ah those videos of Marathon, Sim City 2000, AoE2, and Deus Ex bring back such memories. Fantastic games. The G4 PPC series were great, such an upgrade from G3 and really solid performance at the time.
cmiller1 2y ago
I use an eMac for this purpose. Available in similar configurations to the mini, the 1 ghz combo drive model and below can boot os 9 natively without the hacked os9lives version, and it comes with a beautiful 17 inch trinitron CRT built in!
Kbbt 2y ago
One can also have a look at ScummVM if they want to play "new-old" games on OSX PPC (mostly, but not only, adventure games and RPGs). Releases are still being made in 2025 for your G3/G4/G5s running OSX 10.4/10.5, yes :)
Fnoord 2y ago
How much energy does it use?
- WoodenChair 2y ago
  Not much. It's an 85 watt power supply.

244 points by freediver 2y ago

Some other classic Mac OS 9.2 compatible games from that era, ranked: 1. Command and Conquer 2. Rainbow Six 3. Total Annihilation 4. Unreal Tournament

bsimpson 2y ago
MacMall accidentally sent my dad a box of Marathon games, probably meant for a store's shelves. Marathon ended up being one of my favorite games from that era. The Windows kids had games like Doom and Quake, but we had Marathon. Mac marketshare was so small at the time that there was an implicit craftsmanship that came from anyone targeting Mac - you expected higher quality, because they cared enough to use Macs in the first place. (Some of that mentality lives on to this day.) Of course id made great games too, some of which did eventually come to the Mac. Marathon is a first person shooter, set in space. It has a compelling storyline, as well as fun art and weapons. My dad's office had an AppleTalk network, which was kind of like Ethernet but strung together with regular phone cables. I used to bribe my little brother to commandeer the network with me and play Marathon. There were ultimately 3 Marathon games, that were eventually open sourced and ported everywhere. You can find them online and on Steam as Aleph One. Fun fact: the game that launched the Xbox was originally made for the Mac. Bungie, the creators of Marathon, showed off their new game Halo at the Macworld conference. The hype train went through the ceiling, and Microsoft bought it as a launch title for their new gaming project. Since then, Sony bought the rest of Bungie and is preparing to launch a new game in the Marathon universe.
- amcaskill 2y ago
  I found the demo version of Marathon so terrifying at that age that I never pursued it! I will have to give it another go.
goda90 2y ago
I got into Escape Velocity and EV Override on my brother in law's Mac. Since I had a PC at home, I was really excited when EV Nova was also released for Windows. Recently I picked up Endless Sky which is inspired by those games and is open source.
- chongli 2y ago
  Absolutely love EV and EVO. I played a bit of Nova but it didn’t grab me the same way (perhaps it was too many years later, although I did replay EV much more recently and loved it). This is the second time today I’ve seen someone mention Endless Sky. It looks really interesting to me. Have you started playing it yet? I think what makes or breaks these games is the quality of writing and the effort and detail that goes into the different planets, factions, missions, and story.

thepryz 2y ago

While the Mac mini is nice due to its size, personally, if you're choosing a hardware over emulation, I'd rather have an iMac G4 simply because of the aesthetics. It's amazing how well that design holds up even today.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago
The arm holding the monitor was the weak point on those machines. They all seemed to droop after a while. Fixing the problem was near impossible.
- freediver 2y ago
  Counter point - mine still holding strong after 20 years.
  - amatecha 2y ago
    Same, I have two of them and the arms are holding up fine. I keep them in the fully-vertical position most of the time, to reduce strain on the arm (though I'm not sure how it works internally).
- crims0n 2y ago
  This happened to mine... am sad.
- Terretta 2y ago
  More anecdata -- mine's still great, bought when first released, in use till recently. // But now turned off and reboxed along with an Apple //c, SE/30, the cube, the first Intel cheese grater, etc. Someday...
freediver 2y ago
Sitting on my desk constantly reminding me what timeless compute (it can still receive software updates for OSX Tiger it runs) and timeless design (need I say more) is.
2y ago

WoodenChair 2y ago

This is a great comprehensive article on the "why" and there are good YouTube videos on the "how." What the article is missing that makes it even better is putting an SSD in which makes it even faster of course. You can get an untested Mac mini G4 for about $60 on eBay and the rest of the parts (SSD, PATA-mSATA adapter, RAM if less than 1 GB, power adapter, any missing screws, clock battery, etc.) will run you another $60 to make the ultimate Mac OS 9 machine. If you're comfortable taking things apart and putting them back together it's not too bad. A quick tip: be sure to reset the PRAM with command-alt-p-r holding down during restart until you hear 3 chimes. Then while the machine is booting hold down command-alt-o-f and type "reset-nvram" and then "set-defaults" and then "reset-all" (all of this is in open firmware) before installing Mac OS 9 to make sure firmware is in its original state. I came across this idea of SSD upgrading and installing Mac OS 9 in April 2024 and bought three broken ones to build one for my son. [0] When the first one worked, I ended up figuring, why not just finish the other two and sell them on eBay? That led me into a hobby business. I've now cleaned, upgraded with SSDs, and sold about 70 of them. The "business" basically breaks even, so it truly is a hobby. In fact I invested so much in inventory buying 90 of them in a lot at the end of 2024 that I am negative right now. I will probably turn a slight profit in 2025. But it's fun and if you want you can buy one from me at: https://os9.shop https://os9.shop Sorry for the self-promotion, but very relevant! 0: https://x.com/davekopec/status/1795872492386398683 https://x.com/davekopec/status/1795872492386398683

haunter 2y ago
How fast do modern SSDs die in older systems without TRIM?
- WoodenChair 2y ago
  I am yet to hear about 1 dying from a customer. But I can't give you a scientific answer to that and I've only been doing this since April. There's a whole community of people doing these upgrades. You can find them at https://macos9lives.com https://macos9lives.com That's where the hacked Mac OS 9 comes from and there are threads about Mac mini SSDs. There are also threads at https://68kmla.org https://68kmla.org I would ask there.

empressplay 2y ago

I have an eMac G4, can't beat that CRT!

inversetelecine 2y ago
I had one back when they were new / for sale. Wish I kept it. I remember toying with the idea of doing a soldering hack that was floating around in order to overclock the system. I imagine it was moving some resistors around or something. Never did it though.
pndy 2y ago
I've got one few years ago - sister was using it for a bit till something else could be managed. It came with a replaced hdd and removed airport card, and old battery. I managed to install Lubuntu side by side with 10.4 but mid-pandemic decided to try some retro fun and deployed dualboot with MacOS 9.0.4 and dug thru Macintosh Garden depths. What's interesting is that machine managed to download updates for 10.4.

p_ing 2y ago

I picked up a G4 Cube for retro-gaming. It'll run what I'm interested in (Sim City, Sim Tower), is compact, and I've got the ADC monitor to go with it. Upgraded to 1.5GiB RAM and replaced the spinning rust with an SSD with an IDE bridge. I even have the working Apple USB speakers that it came with! Repaired the disc drive and it is good to go. Installed OS X 10.4 for kicks (will go back to 9.2) and wow, what a different OS that was from today's macOS. Brings back memories of my PB G4 Ti. What an awesome laptop that was.

mikepurvis 2y ago
10.4 was where I started; it’s what came on the first gen white polycarb MacBook that I got in 2006. And I used that as my main machine for like eight years and then had two different MBPs afterwards, so I saw quite a span of OS X versions, and I remember most of the changes feeling fairly iterative, at least when going just one to the next. What was it that stuck out out to you when making such a large jump back in time?
- p_ing 2y ago
  OS X 10.1 - ~10.4 had a different root directory structure. Right click menu is unrecognizable. Dock behaves a bit different. The Directory Access utility (renamed to Directory Utility) contained Netinfo, the local directory, I believe sourced from NeXTStep. Lots of various other utilities were discontinued or changed into something unrecognizable. Early OS X felt like a proper UNIX distribution. Modern macOS, not so much.
  - jamesy0ung 2y ago
    I agree, my first OS was 10.5 Leopard, and I absolutely loved its graphical design—something truly special. It also had a genuine Unix feel to it, which, as you mentioned, seems to have been lost in more recent releases.
bsimpson 2y ago
As someone who grew up on Macs and missed out on games like Alice and Arkham Asylum that weren't released on Mac when they were popular on Windows, I'm kind of shocked to see such enthusiasm for the Mac as a retro gaming platform. I know a lot of them did eventually get Mac ports. I remember playing Braid on my iMac with a Wiimote in the early 10s.

rollcat 2y ago

I have a 2002 TiBook[1]; it officially supports MacOS 9.2.2, but also every OS X release up to 10.5.8. I've been surprised to find that the retail copy of StarCraft that I bought in 2009 not only includes an OS X build, but also supports PowerPC! [1]: https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ I'm not sure if it can be made to run m68k apps "natively", but on the other hand you can emulate just about any classic MacOS in a modern browser[2]. [2]: https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/ https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/

Fnoord 2y ago
Warcraft III (I don't know about I and II) was also for PPC (PowerPC / POWER). Why? Well, MacOS / Mac OS X was at some point PPC only. Apple did the conversion from m68k to PPC. Actually, for a while, it was quite tough to get these games working well on Mac Intel machines. Why? Well, the installer would only work on PPC. They didn't make it into a universal binary.
- bombcar 2y ago
  There's a similar problem with some older Windows games - the games are correct 32 bit applications and will run on modern Windows versions - but the installers are WIN16 and fail to load on Win64. Various tricks exist to get them installed and then migrated to run.

wslh 2y ago

There are other operating systems supported for the Mac Mini G4. For example, NetBSD and Linux.

p_ing 2y ago
NetBSD yes, but 32-bit Linux distros are getting rare. Adélie Linux is one of the few that has current releases of software. https://www.adelielinux.org/download/ https://www.adelielinux.org/download/
- bodyfour 2y ago
  A few months ago I happened to install Debian/unstable on a G4 mini. ppc32 is no longer a supported architecture -- purely "what you get is what you get". Still, the process was mostly painless. Everything I needed worked out of the box.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    This is the exact same transition process 68k went through for most platforms it was on. Just left it in the build process and as packages were unable to be built for the arch they just delisted them from the builder until core packages no longer functioned; at which point total support was removed: https://people.debian.org/~cts/debian-m68k/etch/ https://people.debian.org/~cts/debian-m68k/etch/
- filchermcurr 2y ago
  Gentoo is there for you!
- inversetelecine 2y ago
  I have an iMac G4 800Mhz and I could never get linux to install as the boot screen (that loads the installer) would always be solid white with light pink text. I imagine it had to do with the nvidia GPU but never bothered to debug. MacOS X and 9.2 worked fine.
duskwuff 2y ago

weare138 2y ago

The 2002 Power Mac G4/1.25 Dual Processor (MDD) is a good option too. It has dual PowerPC 7455's w/ 2MB L3 cache, supports 2GB RAM, 4 PCI slots and a 4x APG slot that came with either a 64MB ATI Radeon 9000 Pro or a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti. Plus there's a ton of after market upgrades for these. https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_1.25_dp_mdd.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powerma...

johnklos 2y ago

The depth of this article is wonderful. The PowerPC line did have lots of good things going for it, and the Mac mini G4 is a good example of how much you can get done with modest space, power and heat. I'm still using Mac mini G4s in several places, both for Mac OS X (legacy Final Chop) and as small, low power servers running NetBSD. There are really only two drawbacks to the Mac mini G4, in my opinion: Gigabit ethernet would've been a dollar or two more? Being stuck with 100 Mbps, or around 300 Mbps if one uses a gigabit USB adapter, isn't fun. If the DIMM slot could take 2 gig DIMMs, this'd be a perfect machine. Other PowerPC Macs could take 2 gigs - heck, even the older PowerPC 604e Power Macs 9500 and 9600 could take 1.5 gigs - so being limited to 1 gig is a bit unfortunate, especially considering that 2 gig DDR DIMMs are a thing (later Xserve G5 units could take 2 gig DDR DIMMs). Still, the Mac mini G4 is the only computer aside from SBCs that I've bought brand new, and I have always been very happy with my decision.

jamal-kumar 2y ago

Does anyone remember how Steve Jobs kind of hated video games? Even though him and woz worked on 'breakout' which I thought was kind of funny. I guess John Carmack was a huge fan of NeXT, having developed Doom on that platform, which is wild because he wanted the branding of that OS right on the title screen and the request was denied (Would have been a tiny thing that could have changed the regard of that system alot) [1] [1] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825593223&id=100006735798590 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825...

wiredfool 2y ago

Huh. I sent one of these to ewaste in the last 6 months.

amatecha 2y ago
Macs have amazing resale value - IMO never scrap one. People will buy ones that need repair, even. Post on CL or FB marketplace and someone will snag it for sure. Just don't list a machine in disrepair for $400 like some people like to do because they saw a ridiculous listing on ebay :)

ajross 2y ago

PowerPC/USB/new-world-ROM macs are "classic" now?

mbrubeck 2y ago
The Mac mini G4 turned 20 years old yesterday. It’s about as old now as the original Mac 128k was during the G4 era.
- ajross 2y ago
  It ran OS X!
mrkpdl 2y ago
The word classic has a bevy of meanings in the Mac world. There’s the “classic Mac” era, the “Macintosh Classic” which bears the name, and of course “Classic” mode in early OS X. But some things are just… classics. Like the g3 and g4 era, which saved the Mac from death.
dangus 2y ago
Welcome to being old!

nsxwolf 2y ago

I have 2 and I found them almost unusably slow since day 1. I’d hate to try running even a very old version of MAME.

mrkpdl 2y ago
Which version of Mac OS are you running? Early versions of OS X were quite slow, but OS 9 should run like lightning on these.
- nsxwolf 2y ago
  They have 10.5. Yeah, that makes sense that these would be good OS 9 machines.
amatecha 2y ago
Swap the spinning rust for an SSD and you'll be blown away at the difference. the HDD is absolutely the bottleneck in these machines.

jasoneckert 2y ago

I did the same, but with my old 12" PowerBook G4 when it became obsolete. I replaced the PATA HDD with a PATA SSD for speed, and removed the problematic cells in the original battery (so it must run with the power supply attached). This made it incredibly lightweight (most likely lighter than the Mac Mini G4), and more portable (it doesn't need to be plugged into a screen, although it could be).

GeekyBear 2y ago

There were some small indie shops that put out fun arcade games back then. Cassidy & Greene's Crystal Quest is excellent. Ambrosia Software had shareware versions of arcade classics as well as original concepts. Escape Velocity is still talked about today.

virtue3 2y ago
Using and then programming my own mods for EV is what got me into programming. Really thankful for that game.

amatecha 2y ago

One of my favorite machines for classic Mac gaming is the first iteration of the iMac G4 (700/800mhz) , which allows booting into OS 9. Not only is it an amazing form factor, it's got a great screen and the official speakers are really nice. It's the complete package for a great gaming experience. The machine is powerful enough to run any game prior to its release (and so many after, of course). It's also a great conversation piece when it's not actively in use! :)

inversetelecine 2y ago
I have one, and love it. Sadly no place to display it so it sits in my closet looking lonely and sad. Maybe someday...

nemo 2y ago

I have an iMac G4/800 that can run 9.2 as well as OS X. It's not as fast as the later G4s, but it's performant enough, the flat-panel is nice, and the all-in-one design makes thing really delightful to work with. Replacing the HDD with an SSD isn't fun since iMacs are unpleasant to work on, but is crucial. It's great for old games.

scarface_74 2y ago

In my early years I had an Apple //e, a Mac LC II with an Apple //e card, a PowerMac 6100, some PCs and the Mac Mini G4. My mom still has my old Core 2 Duo Mac Mini. It’s running Windows 7 now. But I could put an old version of OS X that still runs PPac apps. All that being said, I can run old Mac apps on new Macs via emulation. Why would I want an old Mac

system7rocks 2y ago

Yes, the Mac Mini G4 is an amazing machine to own. I sold mine. I am sad. I would like to have another, but the one I had was falling part and someone gave me like $50 for it. It is extremely versatile though.

chongli 2y ago

If you’re going to the trouble to buy retro hardware for retro gaming, you probably don’t want to be settling for emulation. While Apple’s built-in 68K emulator for PowerPC is remarkably fast and compatible with a lot of software, there are plenty of games that freeze or crash on PowerPC chips or newer operating systems for various reasons (non-protected memory, many operating system APIs in ROM, breaking changes, etc). Thus I think if your retro-gaming dream includes lots of 68K Mac games (especially black and white ones) then you’ll probably want to pick up a 68K Mac as well. Not to mention how cool it looks to have a B&W compact Mac on your desk, such as the Mac SE/30 (one of the best computers Apple ever made).

voltagex_ 2y ago

$200-300 in Australia, so I'll just keep hoping emulation improves.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eadmund 2y ago

I feel like ‘classic’ in the context of a Mac ought to refer to the Macintosh Classic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic) or Classic II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic_II), or one running the Classic Mac OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS). Key items should be the lovely bitmap graphics, the iconic case and the thoughtful UI which changed the world. Oh yeah, and an OS written in Pascal, of all things! Something in colour, on a PowerPC chip, running Mac OS X, just seems too modern.

simonjgreen 2y ago

Ah those videos of Marathon, Sim City 2000, AoE2, and Deus Ex bring back such memories. Fantastic games. The G4 PPC series were great, such an upgrade from G3 and really solid performance at the time.

cmiller1 2y ago

I use an eMac for this purpose. Available in similar configurations to the mini, the 1 ghz combo drive model and below can boot os 9 natively without the hacked os9lives version, and it comes with a beautiful 17 inch trinitron CRT built in!

Kbbt 2y ago

One can also have a look at ScummVM if they want to play "new-old" games on OSX PPC (mostly, but not only, adventure games and RPGs). Releases are still being made in 2025 for your G3/G4/G5s running OSX 10.4/10.5, yes :)

Fnoord 2y ago

How much energy does it use?

WoodenChair 2y ago
Not much. It's an 85 watt power supply.