Advice needed! iMac SE G3 & OS X?

Hello everyone =)

I am new to this forum - as well as Mac OS X. So, let me tell you about my history with the Mac.

I enjoy both Mac and Windows and own machines from both Apple and Dell. That may be hard for some to swallow, but there are unbiased fans of the two out there! I am not really obsessed with one platform over the other. I think OS X is amazing and wish more developers would support it. I also enjoy WinXP as I think MS really got the new OS (XP) right after all these years of horrendous $100 updates that only made a buggy OS buggier!

I have used Macs for a couple of years at work, as well as windows machines. I have owned a Color Classis and a Quadra (back in the day) running system 7x. My sister has had a bondi blue iMac for the past few years, so I have been showing her the ropes as well as teaching myself Mac OS 8x and then 9x (if you worked on system 7 - this was not a hard task and pretty self explanatory). But while she was using the Mac during the Steve Jobs comeback days - I swayed more towards windows and really lost touch with the Mac platform. I am more advanced on the Windows platform and have complete control over my XP system, but would like to be more advanced with the Mac platform so I am equally as comfortable with both.

Having said all that, I am thinking about purchasing an iMac SE 700MHz G3 to familiarize myself with OS X and to be more advanced with the Mac platform in general. I chose the older model because I still think that is the best design and shape over all. Having had a Color Classic, I always thought of the iMac as a comeback for that awesome classic all-in-one. The new 'Hello' Mac from years ago. Don't get me wrong, I think the new iMac is amazing, but it just doesn't have that iMac appeal as the older ones do. It's like a new model - a great one, but not an iMac. I'd also rather keep my feet wet with a $900 system.

I know the G3 might not be the best thing to get when checking out OS X, so here are my questions to you all:

1. If the iMac has a 700MHz G3 processor and 1GB of RAM, will OS X perform well, or am I wasting my time?

2. The iMac will ship with both OS 9x and OS X. Can I format the HD and perform a clean install using OS X only? I do not want or need OS 9 as I am only looking ahead, and OS X is Apple's future. Is this an easy task?

3. If I can do a clean install, will the provided CD be enough to do so? Or do I need to buy a boxed copy of the OS?

4. After I do a clean install of OS X, do I have to download and install drivers for the iMac components (video card, modem, etc)? Or, does Apple provide the best drivers on the OS X CD? Keep in mind, there will be no 3rd party peripherals on this machine.

5. Do you happen to know if I am eligible for MS Office vX upgrade since I am an Office XP (for Windows) user?

Thanks in advance for any replies. Since I have been out of the loop, I may be asking questions that sound silly to the common user - but new to me. Even though Mac and Windows are similar in some areas, they are two completely different worlds using different logics.

Thanks again!

Thanks everyone for your replies. You've all helped very much. It figures that MS would consider Office XP and Office X as two different programs (even though they really shouldn't since an upgrade is supposed to be for existing Office customers of any kind).

Does anyone know which version of OS X ships with the iMac SE (700MHz G3)? I just want to know which updates I will need (there are so many posted on Apple's site). I understand that there is a special order in which they need to be installed (I will just go by the dates listed). Then again, I thought OS X (like WinXP) has a feature that lets you connect to Apple and download any updates you need? Is there such a feature?

[quote]Originally posted by torifile:
<strong>There's no reason to format the HD just to get rid of classic. Just delete your system folder from your hard drive after you start it up. Are you sure you want to do this, though? Classic takes no resources from your computer (except some HD space) if it's not running. And formatting the computer is not necessary because there's not a whole lot of junk preinstalled on the computer like there is when you buy a windows machine. Seriously, it'd be a waste of time if you did it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thanks for the tip. I actually have no need for classic as I have no classic applications (and to be honest, I am not a huge fan of the older Mac OS). Basically, I am starting over new - just with OS X.

So to completely rid of OS 9 all I have to do is delete the OS 9 System folder? ALL (100%) of the files are in that one folder? There are no shared files being used between OS 9 and OS X? Please forgive me, I am new to the Mac/OSX scene (as I mentioned, my Mac experience came from the OS 7/8 days and not much tweaking was does by me back then).