Plug the external DVD burner’s Firewire or USB cable into the Mac. If you have a Lombard, you can add Firewire via a PCMCIA card, and for an earlier desktop model, add a Firewire PCI card. If you have a Pismo or a Blue & White Mac, you do not need to do anything else.
USB 1.0 ports are terribly slow, running at only 12 megabytes per second, so a better choice is Firewire, which runs at 400 mps. USB 1.0 ports will operate on System 9.1, but the earlier system software version 9.0 needs a download from Apple. Running earlier versions of the software will make it much more difficult and much slower to burn DVDs on an external unit. For this reason, Mac OS X 10.4 or Tiger is the best choice because Leopard and Snow Leopard are both too new for a G3 to handle in most cases. It is best to use the latest software that can run on your Mac. Install the Mac OS X operating system on your G3 if it does not already run on this software. In desktops, both types of ports arrived in the “Blue & White” models of 1999, but they do have PCI card slots where you can add these types of ports, essential for burning DVDs. In laptops, USB ports were introduced in the Powerbook G3, known as the Lombard, and Firewire ports were added with the next version, the Pismo. These ports were included in later models of both G3 runs.
The Apple Macintosh G3 computer, both desktop and laptop models, were the first to have USB and Firewire ports.
