What immediately follows was added 12/1/2010 (further additions were made 19/1/2010):

This page had last been edited in 2001.

Apple provides awful Customer Service.

It was January, 2010, when I discovered that the problems which I had encountered in 1999 with my Apple computer were inherent problems. This coumputer, a Beige G3 266 mhz Apple desktop CPU, despite being advertised and promoted as having (among other features) the capacity for installation of additional storage devices (HDDs) was not actually capable of accomplishing what Apple claimed for it.

Apple computers, Australia, told me (in 1999) that Apple didn't have to fulfil any of the claims Apple made about their product. The problem, in 1999, was that the computer could not run/recognise an additional HDD which was installed in one of its internal "expansion bays". Apple insisted that it was a problem with the HD that was installed and therefore not their problem. All along however, the machine I had purchased was never capable of achieving what Apple claimed.

Below is a screenshot of a page from "Low End Mac": http://lowendmac.com/roadapples/g3-reva.html

"Apple used two different motherboards [logic boards] on the beige Power Mac G3.the Rev. A ROM doesn't support the use of slave drives, which was a common characteristic of earlier Macs…unless one was also willing to buy a third-party IDE controller."

Apple (in 1999) refused to acknowledge that there was any problem with their product at all. Apple did not even point me to a 3rd party IDE controller that I might have used to remedy the problem, because they claimed that no problem existed. Because of the technical (technological) nature of the issue, the Office of Fair Trading (in Victoria) could not pursue Apple who insisted that it was the 3rd party HDD manufacturers who were responsible for whether their drives work on Apple machines. So, I was stuck with a machine which Apple misrepresented, which Apple continued to misrepresent. Apple have never apologised. These problems were encountered when the machine was still in warranty. And Apple shirked its legal obligations. Apple is a company which has no ethics. AVOID APPLE IF YOU REQUIRE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I should mention however, that the machine, with its original 4 gig Western Digital HDD still works. The screesnshot below, taken 13/1/2010, is of the G3 machine with the "System Profiler" open showing the dud ROM revision logic board:

In December 2009 I purchased a (2001?) Maxtor 20 gig HDD (which has original Apple stickers - meaning it came out of an old Mac). In January 2010 I purchased OS X Jaguar instal CDs. (OS 10.2 is the last OS that can be installed on the machine). This HDD and Mac OSX Jaguar, 10.2.8, were installed on the G3 17/1/2010:

BELOW: the original part of this page.

the G3 Powermac specifications

Above are scans of Apple's literature which formed the basis of the purchase of the Apple computer in the last week of 1998.

The highlighted parts read:

"Outstanding flexibility
• Provides three standard 12-inch PCI slots for easy expansion of system functionality

• Includes expansion bays for additional storage devices

Storage
• Expansion bays for additional storage devices

Interfaces
• Three 12-inch PCI expansion slots compatible with PCI2.1-compliant cards."

However, in mid-1999 we purchased an additional hard-drive to take advantage of the expansion bay. This was a failure. Peter Green of Apple Australia (Frenchs Forest, Sydney) advised that Apple did not have to run any non-Apple hard-drive even if the fault was not with the non-Apple product. Asked what hard-drive Apple manufactured so I could instead install that I was advised there was none!

In the last month of 2001 we finally decided to take advantage of one of the three PCI expansion slots to install a card to accommodate usb devices.... It was a repeat of 1999.