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The eMac was an all-in-one G4-based Mac designed for the education market and released in April 2002. It was the last Mac to use a CRT display and was sold at a low price to schools and other institutions.

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How many OSs can I run?

I have a 1GB 1.42GHz, 80GB Combo, Airport Extreme eMac running 10.5.8.

I was wondering if I could partition my hard drive to run older versions of Mac OS. For example, like bootcamp, you would be able to hold alt at start-up and the different partitions would show.

Would it be possible to have Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8 and so on on separate partitions?

If it's just a case of using firewire target mode or something that would be great.

Also, does anyone know where I could download working builds of old Mac OSs?

Thanks

UPDATE

I have those 19 files now but when I click on the first one it opens a folder with old OS files in. I cannot open them as "the classic environment is no longer supported."

How do I make an image out of them, and how do I partition my hard drive?

Thanks again

Answer this question I have this problem too

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Well technically, you can run as many as you can fit. I believe if you search around you can find os 7 legally, but for the later versions, you can get them cheap off ebay.

Edit: I just realized I have 7.5.3 on my drive which I obtained legally online after much searching a while ago, if you want I can send it to you.

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That'd be really great, how big is it and what file type is it? I assume you mean that later versions still have to be paid for.

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It's 23 mb in 19 images. This was obtained through apple's website, bought later versions can be gotten through ebay or amazon, here are a couple of links

os 8:

http://bit.ly/6Nj1OJ7

http://bit.ly/77Hna8

os 9:

http://bit.ly/5r0SpU

http://bit.ly/5aIkKM

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Actually I just found the place on apples site, here it is from then:

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Sup...

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One last comment (hopefully!), check this link from apple which contains all sorts of updates and applications you may want to take a look at (for older systems)

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Hello! Just for your info, I use an eMac 1.25 GHz with 3 partitions: 10.5.8, 10.4.11, and OS 9 Classic. I'm in education & some of my good programs require OS 9 Classic ---10.4 will still run OS 9 Classic. For example, I switch to my 10.4.11 partition using Sys. Preferences --> "Start Up Drive." Select the the 10.4 drive icon and restart your computer. When you finish using OS 9 or 10.4 in that session, just do the above directions again and return to your main drive. (Apple is so wonderfully logical this way! I'm an Apple user since the Apple IIe! I'll never go PC!) Also, try a company in Oregon called PowerMac for help with finding older program driver sources. They are just as nice as iFixit! Good Luck!

micmon224

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Hi rab, thanks for all this work but the rapidshare site pretends it's busy to try and make me pay money. Can I get it some other way? E-mail maybe. Also, those Apple links say "the page cannot be found".

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Strange, got that for me too, but rapid share I'm sure it works if you just hit free user.

Does this work:

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Sup...

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No, that gives the same page not found message. And rapid share still says sorry our servers are overloaded, unless of course you enter your credit card details. I'd really rather not

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You can also get different distributions of linux for PowerPC as well.

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Yes I was aware. I wasn't actually asking that though.

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I know that OS 9 uses Mac OS Extended formatting- perhaps OS 8 & 7 also run on that?

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Morphos - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorphOS

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You can't normally use an OS that pre-dates the computer. For your model that's OS X 10.4. It won't boot into OS 9 or anything earlier.

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Well technically, you can run as many as you can fit.

Technically, I'm afraid you can't.

Would it be possible to have Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8 and so on on separate partitions?

No. 10.4 is the earliest that your eMac will run.

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