Does anyone know how I can cross-compile software for a 1999 iMac G3 with a PowerPC processor? Are there resources on how to develop for this CPU and is there any community around it?
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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This is quite awesome! Unfortunately as far as servicing goes the machine has been sitting in our basement for years, no work has been done on it. I'm glad its still working, hopefully I can deal with the capacitors before its too late. It has its original hard drive which still works and has some cool old games on it and its running the original MacOS 9.
I have an old Mac Classic from 1990-1991 or so sitting in my basement collecting dust. I need to clean it up and crack it open to do a full recap soon. I’m going to grab a BlueSCSI to replace the internal hard drive with a fast SD card. These old machines absolutely FLY when you get them on solid state storage. It’s pretty amazing how nice they feel to use when everything loads instantly!
Take a look at https://recapamac.com.au/ . The chap is no longer in the recapping business, but offers some helpful resources. Also consider replacing the PRAM battery -- I'm not a vintage iMac expert but know that this has been an issue with other older Macs.
For reliability you should really switch to an IDE SSD.
Yes, they do exist. OWC sells them, albeit in laptop HDD size, so you will need an IDE adapter.