Apple

Thanks, I find yours and for that matter everyones replies very useful.

I think I shall flash an ati card I have lying around, probably after I have upgraded the RAM.

I do have another noob question, are the PCI slots just the same as in PCs?

iirc yes

Yes, they are standard 32bit pci slots.

http://www.everythingusb.com/miglia_tvmicro.html

Looks like the one works on PPC Macs using Elgato Eye 2 or what ever it is. Some more research may be required for the tv tuner options...

I'll have to look into it, I'll see what I can find lying around and experiment, then if that doesn't work I'll have to have a look a purchasing a tv tuner, I would probably also need a new graphics card, the current one only has a 64 MB card, I'll post in the wanted section soon just to see what people have lying around, all the decent cards seem to be in china...

I have also found a copy of the owners manual.

That model shipped with the Radeon 9000. Not a bad card for its era, and perfectly adequate for routine computer use, though obviously you would struggle a bit with frame rates on late generation PowerPC games. Check out the video card benchmarks section at http://lowendmac.com/video/agp/radeon-9000.html , and don't forget to verify that any new card you try is explicitly supported for hardware acceleration by whatever version of the OS you pick. Just because a card will work with a particular version of OS X does not necessarily mean that it will work in accelerated mode.

Ah, good point, I would've over looked that, glad that you raised it, but I think first things first, RAM, I need/would like 2GB, so I can run 10.4, at the moment it is said to be running 10.3.9, but from what I gather there are two types of RAM in regard to the bus speed, 133MHz or 167MHz, so I'll have to see, hopefully it will be the same as what I already have.

But after reading that page you posted, I don't think I will need to upgrade straight away, in one of my older PCs I have an Nvidia GeForce Mx440 (which as I understand it, was the entry level GPU), not the same but a 64MB card never the less, it seems to cope quite well with playing videos, the pc it is installed in is only a low spec machine, 1.2GHz, 1GB of ram and it runs Ubuntu, but on a good day i.e. one where I only run the web browser and no other applications it can even play a youtube video , I am not expecting the mac to be able to do that, but I would like to be able to watch DVDs and downloaded films.

As a note, playing videos is more CPU intensive then GPU intensive. Having a nice GPU doesn't mean you can watch 1080p H.264 videos and the like.

Looks like I learn new things every day , well thats good to know, as the G4 is a dual 1.25 GHz.

I do appreciate all the advice a lot.

Hmm, I will have to do some work on the monitor, I have just been informed that the rear bracket is missing, does anyone have any pictures of the mounts without the rear piece of plastic.

If there are sufficient mounting points I might make up a nice aluminium bracket.

Can't help ya there, I never owned an ACD of any kind.

Edit: Well I guess that would have been a Studio display, not a cinema display, but I can't remember.

You can see the original mount and get an idea of what you'd need to fabricate in the instruction sheet for this after-market stand for the Acrylic Apple Cinema Display: http://www.ergomart.com/Docs/CDA2718_instructions.pdf

If that looks too complicated <or expensive>, this site has the Apple OEM replacement stand for $40 - but you could always use the part numbers they list to look for closer/cheaper alternatives: http://www.welovemacs.com/9225510.html

Its here, I have encountered a few 'niggles'.

When I go to shut it down, it just goes to sleep.

I also do not know the Super User password, is there a way to reset it?

It is os x 10.3

'sudo su' enter your user passwd, then 'passwd' to change the root password.

If you don't know any account passwords: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1274?viewlocale=en_US Scroll down to Resetting the original administrator account password :

So, it is finally up and running.

I just hope that it doesn't get too hot because of where I placed it.

Congratulations. You have to watch for an opportunity to obtain a newer revision of OS X and upgrade <or do a clean install if there aren't any apps installed you can't live without>. OS X 10.5 was the newest revision available last time I had an MDD. 10.5 ran well on that system, but 10.4 felt slightly more responsive <and took less time to boot as well>. Hard to tell from that photo, but it looks like it might not hurt to give it a little more breathing distance from the wall. I had the same model with dual 1.42GHz processors. That one ran on the warm side.

I noticed the previously mentioned missing "leg" for your Apple Display in one of your photos. A replacement, or did you find the original?

Yup, have just moved it a bit further away from the wall .

As for the Apple Display mounting, I am in the process of repairing it .


I will take a closer look on the weekend .

Any pointers?

Right, well I have taken a look into matters, one of the RAM sticks or RAM socket is Kaput, I will try with some other ram I have.

I would also like to get my hands on a Pidgin release for 10.3 but I cannot seem to find one anywhere.

Any ideas?