Is my laptop DEAD? I need help ASAP!!!!

Last night I was just getting off the internet and listening to some music in iTunes when my Powerbook G4 decided to go to an all black screen with some text in the top Left-Hand corner of the screen.

This is what it says:

Darwin/BSD (XXXXXXXX-XXXXXX-Computer.local) (console)

login:



Just for security purposes I put X's where my name appears and it's asking for a login. I have tried typing my name and then attempting to put a password in, but it won't let me type anything in for the password. All I can do is hit enter and it says Login Incorrect and flashes a quick line of code or something and goes to the blue screen that you see right after your Mac loads up.

I honestly don't know what's going on. The only symptoms that I can describe that was happening right before this occurred was that the internet on Safari started chugging a little bit speed-wise. When I went into iTunes and was using the scroll bar to go through my music it was going a little slow too. After that I remember hitting the power on/off button to shutdown and moments later, instead of giving me the option to put the computer to sleep-restart-shut down it just did what I mentioned above.

I don't know if this is a virus, if my computer has been hacked or if I'm overplaying this in my mind, but I need the use of my comp this weekend to do work for a research paper and other assignments that have to be completed before class next week.

I know this sounds confusing, if someone needs me to post a picture of this to make any sense then i will try to. If anyone can assist me on this, it would be much appreciated.

Dude, this is going to be where I sound like a noob, but all I can do is hold down the power button to auto shut it off after a few seconds.

The above poster, no, unfortunately I am not running my Powerbook with Leopard. The specs for my comp are too low to for it to run smoothly.

At this point is there any true way I can restart the computer by using some kind of hot key method that I don't know of?

Last question here, when I call Apple over the phone do they charge a premium to get a little help or is it free of charge.

I'm going to assume it's going to cost me a nice penny.

Thanks for all the replies people, I have to leave for class right now, but I will give this all a go and more then likely give Apple a call later if nothing that was mentioned here can resolve the issue.

Thanks again!