Today's Freebie-iMac G4

[bunnspecial]

I saw this sitting out in the hallway today, and a few minutes after asking the right people(and being careful not to ask the wrong ones) I was loading it in my car.

This one is basically identical spec-wise to my other iMac G4(at least before I upgraded it). I'm guessing that both were ordered at the same time, as they came from the same person(who left the department to become a monk). It's a 1.25ghz 17" with 1gb of RAM from the factory and an 80gb HDD. Basically, the only box that didn't get checked was the one for the Airport Express card, which is easy enough to fix. The only noticeable difference I see in the specs is that this one appears to have bluetooth(at least as per the menu bar)-something which my other one lacks.

I got a much more complete set-up with this one than the last one, though. I was able to get the white keyboard, Mighty Mouse, Pro Speakers, and the original white power cord. In addition, I got the restore disks and a full set of Panther disks.

As if that wasn't enough-the PRAM battery was even still good! It had the correct time and date when I turned it on despite being unplugged for a long time(as I mentioned, there's no airport card and I didn't have it connected to a wired network).

It booted right up to Panther, although I'm currently installing Tiger(the minimum version of OS X I consider viable now).

Overall, I'm tickled with this one, and I can't beat the price . All it cost me was a few cents worth of gas to back my car up to the loading dock.

 

[ardchoille50]

Nice find! I really like the older Macs, wish I could get hold of one.

 

[weckart]

Worth grabbing just for the speakers and keyboard. Those fetch enough on their own. Makes for a nice iTunes jukebox. I would have been tempted to ask the right people if they were throwing anything else out.

 

[A.Goldberg]

Wow, nice find! Good specs too.

I'm starting to wonder where you keep all of these Macs Bunn. I am guessing your next purchase will be a warehouse to store these finds.

I'm still looking for a deal to come up so I can do my iMac G4 to DVI monitor project.

 

[bunnspecial]

Worth grabbing just for the speakers and keyboard. Those fetch enough on their own. Makes for a nice iTunes jukebox. I would have been tempted to ask the right people if they were throwing anything else out.

I actually knew about this iMac and have had my eye on it for a while. I told the office occupant to let me know if she was ever tired of it sitting there, and that I would take care of it. She said the word, and also told me who to go talk to.

The only other thing of note in that office is an serial Laserwriter, which I'm going to snag for my office. It was buried pretty deeply, but I've been assured it's safe. We've been dealing with flooding lately in the basement of the building. The entire campus is built in a swamp and has pumping stations all over the place, but heavy rain overwhelms them and tends to flood. Underpasses flood frequently(often with catastrophic results for drivers who don't know campus, as they don't realize how deep some intersections are, even though there are depth markers painted on pretty much every place possible). In serious situations-like 3" of rain an hour for an hour or two as we had a few weeks back-our building floods. We had 6" of water in the basement. This often happens-sometimes to a better or worse extent-2-3 times a year. Whenever it happens, they bring in an outside flood clean-up company and pay them to work around the clock for a few days(they go all out, and this last time ran ducts outside the building to an air treatment/recirculating truck). They pulled out two feet of sheetrock all through the basement-you could look in the bathrooms and see the toilet seats(needless to say those were out of service) that then had to be replaced and repainted. I've made the argument before that fixing the problem would probably be cheaper in the long run than going through this song and dance a few times a year(not to mention the lost instructional and productivity time) but they don't pay me for my opinion on things like that.

Fortunately, everyone got smart a long time ago and stopped putting important stuff directly on the floor. All the instruments and everything sit on a pallet where they need to be on the floor, and as much as possible is on tables.

 

[davidg4781]

Nice finding one with BT. Be careful if you open it up. The one I purchased had been opened and when put back together the BT and WiFi cables were pinched in half. I ordered a replacement WiFI.. and pinched it again. I have not been able to find a BT and have moved on. For now.

 

[bunnspecial]

Nice finding one with BT. Be careful if you open it up. The one I purchased had been opened and when put back together the BT and WiFi cables were pinched in half. I ordered a replacement WiFI.. and pinched it again. I have not been able to find a BT and have moved on. For now.

I learned the lesson about the WiFi antenna on my first G4. I had it apart about 4 times, and managed to pinch the antenna somewhere along the way. I didn't realize it until I installed the Airport card and couldn't even pick up a signal from my Macbook Pro sitting right next to it. Fortunately, like you, I was able to change the WiFi antenna(I think it was $5 or $6 on Ebay) although it was not an easy repair(as the logic board has to come all the way out). Then there's that whole repasting thing every time you open one up.

When I get a chance, I'm going to stick a 250gb HDD in this one, so it is getting opened at some point. As I said, I learned a LONG time ago about watching all the cables.

 

[davidg4781]

I learned the lesson about the WiFi antenna on my first G4. I had it apart about 4 times, and managed to pinch the antenna somewhere along the way. I didn't realize it until I installed the Airport card and couldn't even pick up a signal from my Macbook Pro sitting right next to it. Fortunately, like you, I was able to change the WiFi antenna(I think it was $5 or $6 on Ebay) although it was not an easy repair(as the logic board has to come all the way out). Then there's that whole repasting thing every time you open one up.

When I get a chance, I'm going to stick a 250gb HDD in this one, so it is getting opened at some point. As I said, I learned a LONG time ago about watching all the cables.

I really wish I could find an inexpensive BT cable, so I only have to open it once. I've already upgraded and cleaned everything out inside.

They're great machines, but I kind of wish they were smaller. I'd love to put that somewhere in my living room or kitchen to act as a music player. Right now it's sitting in my spare bedroom.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I had the exact same machine a few years ago - be mindful of the odd audio connector, after a while, something went wrong with the socket and the speakers couldn't be plugged in.
I was so frustrated and angry I trashed the thing...which I regretted immediately as I also had the USB Soundsticks that would still work fine with it

 

[bunnspecial]

I had the exact same machine a few years ago - be mindful of the odd audio connector, after a while, something went wrong with the socket and the speakers couldn't be plugged in.
I was so frustrated and angry I trashed the thing...which I regretted immediately as I also had the USB Soundsticks that would still work fine with it

Funny enough, I plugged the speakers into my Quicksilver for a while last night. I don't have the "proper" desktop speakers with the long cord, but set one of them on top of the QS and the other on top of the 9600 tower on the other side of my desk.

I noticed initially that the left speaker wasn't working. I jiggled the connector around a little bit, and after some tinkering and funny noises from the speakers but that got them working.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Funny enough, I plugged the speakers into my Quicksilver for a while last night. I don't have the "proper" desktop speakers with the long cord, but set one of them on top of the QS and the other on top of the 9600 tower on the other side of my desk.

I noticed initially that the left speaker wasn't working. I jiggled the connector around a little bit, and after some tinkering and funny noises from the speakers but that got them working.

They are great little speakers though. The first Mac I ever bought new was the older 700Mhz iMac and amongst other things, the quality of the speakers amazed me.
My problem on the 1.25Ghz though was the jackplug would no longer go in - it just seemed a ridiculous problem to come out of nowhere and for no reason.

 

[comda]

Im so Jealous right now! I posted about this a few months ago when this model was being offered to me for $50.. IM so jealous that you got it for free!