8.6 on an eMac

[meancode]

Hi,

I have a very unique situation.

i need OS 8.6 for two reasons, an Oki Microline 321 printer and PowerPrint 4.5.7. I am upgrading our advertising office computers from 1999 iMacs to 2 yr. old eMacs (400 Mhz G4).

Our advertising software does not run in OS X, and neither does the Oki printer without GIMP-PRINT and some work.

I would have to buy a new printer and PowerPrint 5 to work in OS 9. I don't want to do that, as the printer would be around $500 and PowerPrint with the new cable that is needed is $110.

Like I said, I have a unique situation.

So, is it possible to install OS 8.6 on this eMac. I have to find an 8.6 install disc, of course. All I have is an iMac install CD that has 8.6 on it, and the eMac cannot boot from it.

Thanks for your help.

Ken

[morphis]

Short answer: NO.

Long Answer: the eMac never shipped with MacOS below 9.x . Generally you can not boot a Mac with any OS lower than what it can with.

Sorry

[styrafome]

If you haven't bought the eMacs yet, you could look into buying up some old and very cheap desktop Macs and sticking G4 upgrade cards in them. I was using one until last year, an old Mac that could run 8.6 but had an 800MHz G4 upgrade card in it.

[voldenuit]

Nor has there ever been an eMac slower than 700 MHz.

Retrocomputing is all fine and well while you have components that fit together.

You'll have to look for another solution, questioning how re-designing your workflow might replace obsolete technology such as impact-printers might actually make the whole thing a lot easier.

[meancode]

Oh yea, my bad, its 800 Mhz (been a long week).

These systems did come with OS 9.2.2 on them, and run just fine under it. Before I switched the newsroom to OS X, we used OS 9 on these eMacs for a little while.

The solution that I have come to is leave the secretary's system an old iMac, so we can still print invoices.

Thanks.

Ken