# Mac Pismo with Panther/Office? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 12, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820 "2004-05-12T17:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/1 "2004-05-12T17:35:50Z")
I need Mac to run Jaguar or Panther and Microsoft Office. Will a Pismo: 400 Mhz, 384 MB RAM do for this, or is it too slow? ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/2 "2004-05-12T17:40:31Z")
Works fine with Jaguar. Haven’t tried it with Office. ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/3 "2004-05-12T18:07:02Z")
That’s exactly the config of the machine I’m working on right now. No noticeable problems with speed here re: Office and Panther (10.3.3). ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/4 "2004-05-12T18:11:38Z")
Tech specs for Panther [here](http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/) It looks like you would “technically” be able to run Panther, although some of the features like Quartz would probably not function very well, if at all. Jaguar should definitely work, as would MS Office…especially with the amount of RAM you have on board. ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/5 "2004-05-12T18:34:33Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > It looks like you would “technically” be able to run Panther, although some of the features like Quartz would probably not function very well, if at all. Not true. Everything I can do in 10.3.3 on my G4 I can do on my G3 PowerBook, although of course the G4 is faster. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/6 "2004-05-12T20:27:35Z")
Any computer capable of running Panther at all, even if you need to cheat with the assistance of XPostFacto (as I did in order to get it to install on my WallStreet PowerBook '98), will run faster under Panther than under Jaguar, and significantly faster than under even earlier renditions of OS X. I have read the reports from people who have run Panther on the “Kanga” (the really old G3 PowerBook that looks like a PowerBook 5300, with a 250 MHz G3 and a 50 MHz system bus) and on old 7300s with 210 MHz NewerTechnology upgrade cards, and it’s decently responsive even on those old dinosaurs. Get more RAM. Not because you absolutely have to, but because you can. Your Piz can take a gig, and it isn’t particularly expensive. Regarding Office, I can only report on Excel (having zero interest in any of the others and therefore not owning them): Excel is nimble and nowhere near the RAM hog of some of its MacOS 9 ancestors. _Do_ snag and apply any and all updaters from the MS website, the CD “version x” release was buggy (later-vintage CDs may already have them but find out). ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-pismo-with-panther-office/244820/7 "2004-05-12T22:33:26Z")
> [@sunfish](#): > > Not true. Everything I can do in 10.3.3 on my G4 I can do on my G3 PowerBook, although of course the G4 is faster. That was in reference to Quartz not working. The answer, though, is that Quartz _Extreme_ won’t work. This provides video acceleration for the OS. And if you have a DVD player, it won’t work either for playing DVD’s (works fine for DVD data disks, though).