Upgrade a Bondi iMac G3

The Bondi Blue iMac from 1998 is the one that saved Apple and started the whole colourful iMac craze. If you have one, a few cheap upgrades make it far nicer to use without hurting its value, since everything here can be undone later. Start with memory. RAM is the short-term memory the Mac uses to run programs. The Bondi came with very little by today's eyes, and it feels slow because of it. Adding more RAM is the single best speed boost. The first Bondi models use older RAM than the later fruit-coloured iMacs, so get the right kind. Search for original Bondi iMac G3 RAM and match your exact model, because mixing up the memory type is the most common mistake here. Next, the drive. The old spinning hard drive is loud, slow, and often failing after this long. You can replace it with a solid-state option. People fit an adapter that lets an SD card or CF card stand in for the old drive. CF and SD are flash cards with no moving parts, so the Mac runs quiet and boots faster. Search for an IDE to CF adapter or an IDE to SD adapter, since the Bondi uses the older IDE drive connection, not modern SATA. Then the software. The Bondi can run the classic Mac OS it shipped with, which is the most period-correct choice. It can also run early Mac OS X, though the first OS X releases feel sluggish on this hardware. Many owners stick with the classic OS for speed and the true 1998 feel, and dual-boot only if they are curious. There is no single right pick, so match it to what you want the machine for. Opening a G3 iMac to reach the drive is a known chore, so look up a teardown for your model first. The full spec sheet for this iMac is in the library.