[wolf8963]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and new to mac - therefore I'm not sure if this post would be better in hardware or software - please redirect me if appropriate.

My daughter has recently acquired a Powermac G5 with OS X 10.3.9 on it.

She has a genius mousepen i608 graphics tablet that I am trying to get to work on it. I haven't really worked on a Mac before so I am just stumbling my way around.

I went to the genius website and located a driver for OSX 10.4, but couldnt find anything for 10.3. I installed it anyway but it doesn't seem to recognize the tablet at all.

I have tried it in Gimp, and in Pencil with no luck.

Is it possible to make this combination work? Does anyone have it currently working? What should I try next?

Thanks for any help you can give.

w

[Typhoon14]

Within the Mac upgrade cycle, Mac OS 10.3 is hopelessly outdated. You'll be hard-pressed to find much of anything that still works on it.

To a certain extent, that goes for the whole system. If your G5 came with OS 10.3, it's either a 2003 or 2004 model, so we're talking a system that's nearly a decade old. This is not what I would consider a particularly good introduction to the Mac platform.

The latest OS your system can run is Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard". This is two releases behind the latest release of the Mac OS (soon to be three releases behind). If you install OS 10.5, you should be able to use the tablet driver you have. Apple no longer sells OS 10.5, but you can find copies on places like eBay (albeit at inflated prices.)

[wolf8963]

Typhoon14, on 07 May 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Within the Mac upgrade cycle, Mac OS 10.3 is hopelessly outdated. You'll be hard-pressed to find much of anything that still works on it.

The latest OS your system can run is Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard". This is two releases behind the latest release of the Mac OS (soon to be three releases behind). If you install OS 10.5, you should be able to use the tablet driver you have. Apple no longer sells OS 10.5, but you can find copies on places like eBay (albeit at inflated prices.)

Thanks for the info Typhoon. I was able to find a driver that worked for the pad on the manufacturers site - it just wasnt a direct path - you know how that goes - but persistence paid off!

Thanks for the upgrade info. I didn't know how upgradable its current os was.

I know the g5 is pretty outdated - but then so are all of our computers - - so it's speed, etc seems reasonable. The price was right - free - just required some effort to get everything happily working.

My daughter is interested in graphic arts so I thought it would be good for her to have some exposure to the apple platform and this is an inexpensive path to get there.

I have downloaded and installed Pencil and Seashore. Anyone have any other ideas for good free graphics programs for 10.3.9? (BTW is that technically Lion?)

I'm going to have to figure out how to create desktop shortcuts on this computer and how to clean up the stuff I've downloaded that doesnt work, too.

Thanks again for your help,

W

[JackMac]

wolf8963, on 08 May 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

Typhoon14, on 07 May 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Within the Mac upgrade cycle, Mac OS 10.3 is hopelessly outdated. You'll be hard-pressed to find much of anything that still works on it.

The latest OS your system can run is Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard". This is two releases behind the latest release of the Mac OS (soon to be three releases behind). If you install OS 10.5, you should be able to use the tablet driver you have. Apple no longer sells OS 10.5, but you can find copies on places like eBay (albeit at inflated prices.)

Thanks for the info Typhoon. I was able to find a driver that worked for the pad on the manufacturers site - it just wasnt a direct path - you know how that goes - but persistence paid off!

Thanks for the upgrade info. I didn't know how upgradable its current os was.

I know the g5 is pretty outdated - but then so are all of our computers - - so it's speed, etc seems reasonable. The price was right - free - just required some effort to get everything happily working.

My daughter is interested in graphic arts so I thought it would be good for her to have some exposure to the apple platform and this is an inexpensive path to get there.

I have downloaded and installed Pencil and Seashore. Anyone have any other ideas for good free graphics programs for 10.3.9? (BTW is that technically Lion?)

I'm going to have to figure out how to create desktop shortcuts on this computer and how to clean up the stuff I've downloaded that doesnt work, too.

Thanks again for your help,

W

10.3 is "Panther". "Lion" is 10.7. I have a PowerMac G5 that I used happily for at least 7 years and still use from time to time these days. I replaced it with a new iMac but my flatbed scanner won't work with the iMac so the G5 lives at least until I get a new scanner. Even though Apple doesn't support it any longer, as you have found, some manufacturers have drivers that will work if you look hard enough.

This post has been edited by JackMac: 08 May 2012 - 10:57 AM