I've found the "Classic" function to be buggy and unusable. I always have to partition the drive and have two complete OS installs.

Two caveats to that: (1) I do not have a 9.x install disc for reinstallation purposes and (2) my existing drive is 6 GB, so repartitioning could cause serious space problems.

It's running 9.2.2 now, at least. The installers were bombing until I figured out that I needed to download a newer version of Stuffit Expander.

Well, there are <a href=http://www.macwireless.com/html/products/11g_11b_cards/11bUSB.html> this</a> and <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/MacWireless-USB-to-802-11b-Adapter-MAC-Apple-NEW_W0QQitemZ5820513585QQcategoryZ80061QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem">this</a>, among others. I'm just itchy about dropping $70 on such a solution.

And now I've seen it all. One of the OS 9 games I tracked down that looked interesting was Airburst, a novel 360-degree take on Warlords. Ten bucks to register to unlock most of the content, sounded good to me, so I went to the website... and found that the game had been replaced by its successor, Airburst Extreme, which requires OS X, 256MB RAM and a faster processor than I have. Registration links pointed to Freeverse Software, which no longer offered Airburst as an option.

I _wrote to the author_, saying "Hi, I would LIKE TO SEND YOU MONEY in return for a registration code." He wrote back saying "No can do, you'll have to buy the new version to unlock the original or track down a compilation disc."

I would like to repeat this for emphasis. A shareware author _turned down_ the opportunity to have someone register his product and give him money in return.

Hah?

Hail eBay; I picked up one of these for $20 today. We'll see how well it works once my router arrives as well.

That's awesome. If I ever get (or make) a PVR, that could be handy.

I got my 256MB SODIMM in the mail today, opened the system carefully according to Apple's instructions, installed the memory, closed up shop and rebooted.

Started out fine. It loaded right up, showed 320MB (256 Top, 64 Bottom), and ran all right.

Then the crashes started. Sometimes it would lock up on startup with Address Errors or Quicktime Instruction Errors. Sometimes it would load, I'd run certain programs and be fine, and others would screw up. Eventually it got to where every reboot had an error.

I opened it up, took the new RAM out, and rebooted; it seemed to stabilize things.

DAMN. I really wanted extra RAM in this sucker to let me run OS X. Might I have one of the Rev.Ds that can't handle 256MB SODIMMs, might I have inadvertantly fried the RAM despite being careful, or do I need to tweak things in OS 9.2.2 to account for the change in hardware?

Actually, it _might_ be the firmware; I'm reading that 256MB modules may require the 1.2 firmware upgrade.

Now how do I tell what firmware is already installed on this sucker?

EDIT: Booted into Open Firmware, I see 3.0f2 from April 1999, which is apparently the latest available for this model (1.2). Shit.

could be just a dodgy stick of ram....

On the plus side, the seller has offered to send a replacement of a different brand, and the wireless bridge works perfectly. I'm typing this from the iMac with the transceivers 15 feet apart. Just need a router now.

Hurrah, the router AND the replacement RAM worked. iMac now has 320MB RAM (time to dig up Panther) and the two are sharing the DSL connection nicely.