www.wasabiflux.org
The Powermac 9500 was never given a real name. It's always been called "The 9500" or "The Server." The 9500 was the computer that started it all. Back in the fall of 2002, I had some birthday money left over, and got tired of my slow 280 MHz G3 Supermac (upgraded), which was my main computer at the time. I got into eBay and put together a nice upgraded Powermac 7500 that surpassed even the iMac DV downstairs in gaming.

A while later, I began to yearn for the 6 PCI slots that a 9500 or 9600 could offer. I found a good deal on eBay, and bought the 9500 in a fairly bare condition, without a hard drive. I quickly swapped all the components from the 7500 into the 9500, and had room to spare. I eventually installed Mac OS X 10.2 Server, for fun, and started serving FTP and HTTP to some of my online group. When I was given Tibook for Christmas, the 9500 went on permanent secondary duty, and ran as a server for a long while.

During the summer between high school and college, I experimented with Linux, and installed Yellow Dog Linux on the 9500. I learned how to use the console, and got comfortable with it. The 9500's last operating system was Gentoo Linux 1.4, under the 2.4.22-gentoo kernel. Since I bought Hull and NIC, the 9500 just hasn't had enough use to be worth the extra noise or heat in my closet. I had plans to reinstall OS X 10.2 Server and run it as an iSight webcam server, but my install CD went bad, and I haven't been able to obtain a new one. So the 9500, the original server, sits unused in my closet, waiting until it can be used again, or stored elsewhere.

The 9500's hardware manifest is:

  • 400 MHz G3 ZIF processor on an XLR8 adapter daughtercard
  • 352 MB FPM RAM
  • ATI Rage 128 Orion 16MB video card
  • Promise ATA-66 PCI card
  • 10 GB 5400 RPM ATA-66 hard drive, scavenged from an iMac
  • 10/100 Apple Fast Ethernet card
  • USB and Firewire PCI cards

The 9500 is currently inactive.