Wrong.Īs it turned out, the Mac OS 9 (9.2.1) retail disk is basically too old for the iMac G4.

Having both OS X Tiger and Mac OS 9 I felt I’m being covered in terms of my iMac G4.

I also snatched an old Mac OS 9 retail CD (unfortunately without the box) for mere $10 at a local store dealing in computer repairs and second hand hardware. I got myself OS X Leopard and Tiger (both retail) for $35 and $28 respectively, but it took close to 3 months to find them at these prices. These gray installation disks however do work with only a very limited selection of Macs, usually the ones they came with and maybe, just maybe and occasionally, other Macs from the same period. In general Apple operating systems are being offered as retail version, but also on gray disks that initially came with a Mac. You also have to pay attention to what you are looking for. You just have to spend a couple of weeks looking for a good find. That doesn’t mean you get your retail version of OS X or Mac OS there for cheap, but sometimes you can spot auctions or ads for far more reasonable prices like $50 or sometimes even less. If you are like me, you are left with eBay and Craiglist or their local equivalents in your country. That in my personal opinion is just too much for an obsolete operating system, especially if you consider that unlike a PC, your old Mac initially came with an operating system that was included in its price. For popular PowerPC operating systems such as OS X Tiger or especially Leopard (the last OS X capable of running on PowerPC Macs) you are often looking at price tags above $200 or even $250. If you look at the prices at some good dealers like LowEndMac or you’ll notice that we are talking serious money here. What you are left with are specialized dealers, craiglist or eBay. Apple obviously doesn’t sell those outdated operating systems anymore. This starts with the operating system itself. Finding software for a vintage Mac is quite an undertaking.

Lunacy 9.2.1 instal the new for apple