iMac G4 Appreciation Thread

KingDingus

Tinkerer
Jan 16, 2022
86
88
18
Florida
www.hacksmtg.com
iMac G4
Model 4.2
800 Mhz
1 GB RAM
120 GB SSD
Leopard Sorbet 10.12.14
macOS Sierra mask

Absolutely love this machine and form factor. It’s not quite as unique as the cube, but it is certainly a marvel of Steve Jobs era engineering.


F188F956-4ADC-48D7-AFDC-0C52E72E892A.jpeg
 

Patrick

Tinkerer
Oct 26, 2021
434
1
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at least the iMac G4 is still somewhat available to get.

(maybe i'm just not looking at the right places)
 
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ClassicHasClass

Tinkerer
Aug 30, 2022
187
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www.floodgap.com
I still have a 1.25GHz iMac G4 I use for watching DVDs and playing music in the kitchen, and as a security monitor (I have an old video concentrator for the security cameras). It's a 15", so the arm is still great.
 
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Jess-b

New Tinkerer
Jan 13, 2023
10
20
3
Vienna, Austria
4EE10641-324F-4596-B6D7-36A9D3369012.jpeg

This Is Linzey. She's my 700 MHz G4. She was the second machine I bought to add to my then fledgling Mac collection. She was also the first machine that needed repair. I got her for €80 and all that was wrong was that someone had tried to install windows on there! a little disk utility fun later and she's now running 10.4.

despite many machines finding a way to me this past year, the iMac G4 is my, favourite. The design is just fantastic.

Jess B
 

Jess-b

New Tinkerer
Jan 13, 2023
10
20
3
Vienna, Austria
Hahahaha that's hilarious! I'm guessing the guy formatted the drive as NTFS?
Yup. he claimed it had just ‘stopped working’. When I got the machine home, I booted it up and found a copy of Apple’s hardware test in the cd drive. I grabbed a copy of tiger on CD and ran disk utility. Sure enough the drive was formatted NTFS. One quick reformat later and Linzey is alive and well.
 

Trash80toG4

Tinkerer
Apr 1, 2022
797
242
43
Bermuda Triangle, NC USA
I've got the original iLamp I'd love to play with at some point and another that's hobbled by intentional X-ONLY infestation.

For me it's more of a beautiful industrial design curiosity than a usable computer. If I could hack a PCI VidCard into the optical cubic I'd put it on my desk KVM'd to the main setup in a heartbeat. Great adjustable stand set up as a secondary display, otherwise it's basically just a PowerBook on a stand to my way of thinking.

Portrait rotation capability would be a vast improvement, but that's a hack backburnered until retirement in a couple of years. :p
 
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Certificate of Excellence

Active Tinkerer
Nov 1, 2021
639
447
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United Sates
What I wish I could do is use my ADC cinema displays with the imacg4. I have multiple a1006's but it converts to DVI and when I slap a DVI to VGA adapter on it, I connect that to the video display port to vga adapter I have coming out the back end of the imacg4 and it outputs garbage unfortunately. I'll need to hunt down a video port to dvi adapter I guess. - Really would like to extend the desktop that way.

Adapter soup lol
 

Trash80toG4

Tinkerer
Apr 1, 2022
797
242
43
Bermuda Triangle, NC USA
My first gen G4/OS9 only supports mirroring at a pathetic 800x600 on that port. Which one are you using and in what generation was extended desktop hacked or released as a standard feature? Are any resolutions supported that would do your Cinema Display justice?
 
Nov 4, 2021
126
98
28
Tucson, AZ
What I wish I could do is use my ADC cinema displays with the imacg4. I have multiple a1006's but it converts to DVI and when I slap a DVI to VGA adapter on it, I connect that to the video display port to vga adapter I have coming out the back end of the imacg4 and it outputs garbage unfortunately. I'll need to hunt down a video port to dvi adapter I guess. - Really would like to extend the desktop that way.

Adapter soup lol
A quick glance through everymac.com suggests that the lamp shades only supported VGA output, so you'd need an active (read: expensive) VGA to DVI(or HDMI) convertor to then feed into the DVI to ADC adapter.
 

Certificate of Excellence

Active Tinkerer
Nov 1, 2021
639
447
63
46
United Sates
A quick glance through everymac.com suggests that the lamp shades only supported VGA output, so you'd need an active (read: expensive) VGA to DVI(or HDMI) convertor to then feed into the DVI to ADC adapter.
Makes sense, however this model only supported mirroring, so Im unable to extend the desktop either way with the 17" unit I was considering. Bummer! :)