# What to do with an iMac G4 (Lampshade Model)



## jwootton (Dec 4, 2009)

Hi All,

I have inherited an old iMac G4 and am trying to figure out if I have any use for it. I have a Macbook as my personal computer and an Apple tv for media streaming. I was thinking about using it as a server for some home automation, but still have to do some research on that stuff. I will set it up in my office, but would rather have a use for it than it just being an extra computer.

Any interesting ideas on what I might use it for?

Thanks


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

It's far too pretty - a work of art! - to stick in your office. Put it in your living room, use it as a cool digital photo slideshow device. Slap a card reader on it and script iPhoto to automatically import the photos, which then become part of the slideshow.

I have a friend who wants to offload one of those too... thinking of picking it up for my parents, whose blueberry iMac is just not cutting it anymore...





+
YouTube Video









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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*TechEBlog 6 Strange and Creative Lamp Designs*





> There's no better way to recycle an old gadget than by turning it into something else that actually works, like the Apple iMac G4 lamp above.


(TechEblog)


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## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

that's pretty neat


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

I went back and followed the source link... this was made by a guy in St. Louis named Randall180, who has an Etsy store listing for "repurposed Macs". He also makes clocks and other interesting things out of old Mac computers. Smart dude!


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

kloan said:


> that's pretty neat


+ 1 that lamp is very cool.


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## MacMagicianJunior (Nov 28, 2010)

CubaMark said:


> *TechEBlog 6 Strange and Creative Lamp Designs*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Now I have to try that...


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## lreynolds (Dec 28, 2005)

Would love to use a G4 iMac for the kids, or as a kitchen computer.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

yeah I snagged a g4 17" 800 for a good price last year and although I don't use it much (school) I do, when I can play old OS 9 games. It also runs tiger nicely. I hacked a lucent silver card so it has wireless internet and so I use it as a jukebox with those orb speakers and an iSub


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Did I mention how much I love that lamp... it is a work of art. Seriously.


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## BlueMax (Aug 8, 2005)

I'm running my G4 1.25GHz 17" lampshade in my kitchen to view a quick email, but mostly to play some movies while I cook/clean. It looks SO GOOD in my white kitchen and takes up so little space! I don't even need speakers thanks to the internal audio!


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## gwillikers (Jun 19, 2003)

A friend of mine brings his lampshade iMac to me for upgrades etc., and I really like it. I look at them as collector items, although they're still totally viable as a home computer for most needs.


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## Niagaramark (Jul 20, 2007)

I have 2 of these iMacs (17" and 15")
Still in daily use for email etc.
Hard drive is failing on the 17" and I'm trying to figure out what the largest size HD is that I can drop into it. Would also like to bump the RAM (has 768 mb).


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## kelman (Sep 25, 2010)

Niagaramark said:


> I have 2 of these iMacs (17" and 15")
> Still in daily use for email etc.
> Hard drive is failing on the 17" and I'm trying to figure out what the largest size HD is that I can drop into it. Would also like to bump the RAM (has 768 mb).


I don't think there is a limit to the size of HD you can put into the 17" G4's, it's only the first year 15"s that are limited to 128g unless you are running 10.2 or higher. Limit might only be what you can find in a 3 1/2" IDE drive.


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## Niagaramark (Jul 20, 2007)

I saw a PATA 500 GB at Bestbuy yesterday for $69.
Wondering if that will work.


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## kelman (Sep 25, 2010)

I would say to go for it, if it only recognizes some of it, partition, but everymac seems to say it should be good. Just make sure it's IDE (PATA) not SATA
iMac G4/800 17-Inch (Flat Panel) Specs (iMac 17" Flat Panel, M8812LL/A, PowerMac4,5, M6498, 1936) @ EveryMac.com


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

Niagaramark said:


> I have 2 of these iMacs (17" and 15")
> Still in daily use for email etc.
> Hard drive is failing on the 17" and I'm trying to figure out what the largest size HD is that I can drop into it. Would also like to bump the RAM (has 768 mb).


"Officially, Apple says that Macs running MacOS X 10.2 or higher released after June 2002 can use "big drives" -- those larger than 128 GB -- which would exclude the original iMac G4/700 (Flat Panel) and G4/800 (Flat Panel) models. However, third-parties have discovered that all iMac G4 models will support big drives running MacOS X 10.2 or later. For earlier versions of the MacOS -- including MacOS 9 -- a third-party driver, such as those from Intech or GenThree are required to use hard drives larger than 128 GB. ..."

How do you replace or upgrade the hard drive in the iMac G4 models? Which models support "big drives" and which do not? @ EveryMac.com

Edit: I forgot to add the Newertech ministack that makes a nice complimentary HD for the FP iMacs with the additional advantage of faster 7200 RPM drive, which may be too warm to install internally, and there's NO drive size limit with externals, provides extra FW and USB ports and they come with some useful software and not much more than a good quality external.


PS: They don't seem to supply the V2 model any more and I just bought one a few months ago for a clients G4 Mac mini.

External Hard Drives by NewerTech® - miniStack® v3 for any Mac or PC


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## BlueMax (Aug 8, 2005)

Pity they couldn't use SATA - imagine the speed of a SSD on it!  

Heeeyyy... what about those IDE-to-flash drive converters I've seen? They were cheap and you could use a big ol' 32GB CF card on it. That would be a nice speedboost, right?  

I need to trade my extra 1GB DDR-400 module for a laptop one so I can bump this iMac to the full 2GB!


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

BlueMax said:


> Pity they couldn't use SATA - imagine the speed of a SSD on it!
> ... ...


They can. See my just edited post above and use the Newertech ministack or another enclosure and stick in a SSD drive.

Even a small 2.5" enclosure would work.

CanadaRAM sells Laptop SATA Hard Drive Enclosure, External Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drive
Laptop Hard Drive SSD, 2.5” Solid state drive , SATA Laptop Drive, ssd Serial ATA From CanadaRAM


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

pm-r said:


> They can. See my just edited post above and use the Newertech ministack or another enclosure and stick in a SSD drive.
> 
> Even a small 2.5" enclosure would work.
> 
> ...


But maybe just replace the original internal drive with a SSD PATA/IDE unit, but doing a quick search, they seem to getting a bit harder to find and may not be available in the fairly near future.

So maybe I should consider such a drive for our still very much in use G4 MDD dual boot 1.25GHz 2003 Mac as it still has room and support for a few more drives and the larger power supply, especially with an Acard 6280M ATA Controller card installed -assuming it supports SSD drives.

Hmmm... that could possibly provide quite a speed boost and Christmas is on its way - and we HAVE been good!!! ;-)


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## BlueMax (Aug 8, 2005)

Not interested in external drives, myself.  Internal flash could be done the way I suggested... I think.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

I stuck a 250 gig 7200rpm maxtor drive with 8 meg cache in the imac g4 and it makes a big difference in speed. I also made two partitions on it as one is for OS9 and one is for Giant Tiger....


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## kelman (Sep 25, 2010)

imactheknife said:


> and one is for Giant Tiger....


the store?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

pm-r said:


> But maybe just replace the original internal drive with a SSD PATA/IDE unit, but doing a quick search, they seem to getting a bit harder to find and may not be available in the fairly near future.
> 
> So maybe I should consider such a drive for our still very much in use G4 MDD dual boot 1.25GHz 2003 Mac as it still has room and support for a few more drives and the larger power supply, especially with an Acard 6280M ATA Controller card installed -assuming it supports SSD drives.
> 
> Hmmm... that could possibly provide quite a speed boost and Christmas is on its way - and we HAVE been good!!! ;-)


But why try and go SSD when you are limited to the speed of the PATA/IDE bus?... seems like overkill to me. The drive would also be worth more than the computer. Your overall system speed is also going to be limited by the relatively small amount of RAM you can put in the machine which even in the last gen lampshade was 2GB and only 1GB for earlier iterations. Also only a 167 MHz system bus 64KB front side L1 cahce and 256k backside L2. With all these system wide speed limitations I just can't see where any real world speed gains would be worth the cost of an SSD even assuming you could get an SSD to work... Just my way of looking at things.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

kelman said:


> the store?


no, just a lame attempt at some computer humour in ontario...no it's for Tiger 10.4 OSX


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

imactheknife said:


> no, just a lame attempt at some computer humour in ontario...no it's for Tiger 10.4 OSX


Completely off topic... cool new "avatar" image imactheknife.


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## rodkin (Jan 7, 2003)

Niagaramark said:


> I have 2 of these iMacs (17" and 15")
> Still in daily use for email etc.
> Hard drive is failing on the 17" and I'm trying to figure out what the largest size HD is that I can drop into it. Would also like to bump the RAM (has 768 mb).


I did an upgrade on a 20" 1.25GHz iMac, installing a 500GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM. That gave the old lamp shade a bit more life.


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## Niagaramark (Jul 20, 2007)

Was it hard to upgrade the non-user accessible RAM?
I have a 512 in the user accessible slot I think.
Would probably be a good idea to do the RAM and HD upgrade at the same time.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

screature said:


> Completely of topic... cool new "avatar" image imactheknife.


cool thanks! I like the picture too...


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

Niagaramark said:


> Was it hard to upgrade the non-user accessible RAM?
> I have a 512 in the user accessible slot I think.
> Would probably be a good idea to do the RAM and HD upgrade at the same time.


It really isn't that bad but patience is the name of the game..and being careful. I could almost do this blindfolded now! The upper ram and harddrive are not bad at all to replace one your in there. It's all those fandangled connectors that give the most grief.


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## rodkin (Jan 7, 2003)

Niagaramark said:


> Was it hard to upgrade the non-user accessible RAM?
> I have a 512 in the user accessible slot I think.
> Would probably be a good idea to do the RAM and HD upgrade at the same time.



Upgrading the non-user accessible RAM to 1GB is a good idea if you're going to upgrade the HD, since you're going to be in there anyway. However, patience is required. One thing is imperative - you must clean off, then put new thermal grease on the heat pipes before putting the bottom back together. Otherwise, it'll overheat and do serious damage.


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