Since the Anthology was founded, it has been written and published on a single computer: Donald, our iMac G3. This was delivered to us in the same specification as it left the factory in, bar a slight RAM upgrade to 384MB and the CD-ROM drive being broken.¹ After taking receipt of the machine, we upgraded the RAM further to 512MB, but otherwise left its configuration untouched. However, 20GB of hard drive space was not enough, and that it was inevitable that sooner or later we would need an optical drive for something.

Over the weekend though, our IT guy² obtained the equipment needed to remedy the situation. This included a replacement DVD-ROM drive, bought from America as there was no dealer in the UK that had any in stock; an 80GB hard drive, and a FireWire enclosure for transferring documents over from the old system to the new.

Here you have to understand that upgrading an iMac G3 is not easy. The only upgrade officially classed as user-installable is memory.³ This basically means that upgrading anything else is guaranteed to be really, really difficult.

It requires taking the whole bottom of the case apart, without dropping any of the tiny screws through into the CRT area. From there, a hard-drive upgrade is relatively easy: just unplug and unscrew the old one, then put in the new one. An optical drive replacement is not quite so simple, though: it’s lower down on the logic board, so you have to actually remove the whole IDE cage in order to replace it. To make it even more difficult, the screws for the cage are obscured by the speakers, which can’t be removed.

After installing the new drive, the case was put back together. We dropped a screw inside. Cursing ensued, but no matter: a magnet, no bigger than a pound coin, was found and attached to a piece of flexible wire, before being lowered inside the machine to locate the bugger. We found it, put the machine together again, turned it on and hoped.

Sure enough, a familiar icon appeared on the screen: a folder with a flashing question-mark to indicate that a system folder could not be found. We bated our breath while we slid in the Mac OS 9 CD. The folder icon disappeared for a few moments. Those couple of moments were agonising: everything now rested on one, ten-year-old optical drive. After a few more moments:

Success! The DVD-ROM drive was working! I jumped around crazily as the ‘Starting Up’ screen appeared, gradually loading in the system components needed to install. Then, as the desktop appeared, we found that we had another reason to rejoice: the new hard-drive was also being picked up.

After partitioning, formatting, and installing, we had one task left: to update the computer’s firmware before installing OS X. Somehow, the previous owner had installed OS X without the required firmware update (4.1.9), so we duly installed it, which was surprisingly easy: just download, run the installer, and restart with the interrupt button held down.

Our OS X install was equally easy: we booted from the disk, specified the larger partition, and clicked Go. After spending the next six months in the Software Update panel, we’ll probably be able to finish migrating over our old applications.

Once installed, the computer booted onto its new X installation, and we watched the cool little Welcome video before hooking up the old drive through an external enclosure to allow the Migration Assistant to do its work.

So, now we have a computer that is both faster (at least, it feels that way) and has a larger capacity HDD and a working DVD-ROM. It is not yet known what impact, if any, this will have on the Anthology’s publication schedule, despite the predictions of several blogging pundits that it would increase the frequency of posts to the site. The editor remains unconvinced.