Hey. I'm looking forward to upgrading to Firefox and Thunderbird as suggested to me here long ago (May-ish).

Today, I'm taking my first step. A friend gave me two P100 memory cards. I don't know how old or how much each holds.

I've relocated the Apple do-it-yourself guide Robin pointed to in June. So, I'm pretty clear on what I need to do.

My question is...are there any dangers to doing this with unknown memory units? If the memory is bad, will it hurt anything? Is there a way I can look at the card and tell how much is on it?

I see lots of numbers but no Ks or Gs.

My question is...are there any dangers to doing this with unknown memory units?

Not if they are the right style. Putting 72 pin Simms in DIMM slots would be a bad idea, but generally they will react as if they were "bad" if something doesn't work internally.

If the memory is bad, will it hurt anything?

Remotely possible, but unlikely.

Is there a way I can look at the card and tell how much is on it?

Sometimes. Give us a list of anything on stickers, or on the stick itself. The numbers on the individual chips are secondary at this stage.

Thanks for all the iPod cross-formatting info.

Turns out that he already has plugged the PC-formatted iPod into the Mac and it worked fine (it's a 3rd Gen). And it is still working fine w/iTunes on the PC as well. So that answers that question. The only problem remains a good iPod-to-PC ripper.

I'll look into ephpod and/or see if he wants to cough up $25 for the anapod explorer.

Daniel, thanks.

I toddled off and traced the serial numbers. One is this one: MT16LSDT1664AG-10EC7 SDRAM 128MB INTEL SR440BX DESKTOP

The other is 64MB. Probably not much use, right?

I've got 128 on board now. Is 256 even enough for Tiger? The Apple system requirements say yes, but I'm afraid of wasting the slots.

Should I just bite the bullet and buy new memory?

ETA: Oh. Good. Lord. Now I see that Tiger requires a dvd drive to install. I have only cd. The plan was...memory then OS then software THEN drive. Rats. I feel like the MAN is keeping me down. Frak.

Apple did later come out with a three-CD installer set, but if you don't have a DVD drive, yeah. Sigh.

And I would recommend at least 512Mb, more if you can afford it.

What model is your Mac?

My eMac is a 700MHz powerpc G4.

• 256k on-chip level 2 cache
  
• 128MB SDRAM, support up to 1GB
  
• 40GB Ultra ATA hard disk drive
  
• 10/100BASE-T ethernet
  
• CD-RW

Apparently ram for your machine runs around $30 for 256MB sodimms, and $80 for 512MB SoDimms.

For future reference...OWC's page on prices for your model: [link]

Yeah. I'm thinking I need to just go with the 512, but THEN what? Many of the external dvd drives I've seen are just too expensive.

The buckage mounts...100 memory, 200 dvd drive min., 130 Tiger, plus plus.

I was just hoping the upgrade would not cost uphill of $500.

eta: thanks for the link! Sigh.

I've seen specials on external DVD +-R CDRW dual-layer burners with USB and Firewire that are in the $80 range, after rebate.

No WAY! That's a deal I gotta find.