As the Apple Turns

I'm considering getting a used iMac G4 1 GHz as a second/third computer. How was the quality on these things? Any well-known problems I should know about and look for?

The monitor arms get a bit sloppy. I know mine I have to lift it to access the superdrive.
But other than that it ticks away nicely each day as a lightweight server.
Only real issue was mobo fried by modem line spike early in it's life.

We also have one at work on reception which works every day and doesn't have any issues other than a gummed up superdrive, but it's not worth us getting the drive dugout to replace it.

I know a few others that still tick along nicely.
Doesn't the Capacitor problem the G5 iMac had
and who doesn't want to own a computer that iconic

Thanks. I'm considering getting one as a sort of backup, as well as being able to run Classic, so I can put the G5 somewhere else. It doesn't quite fit on my desk anymore, with the new iMac being so freaking big.

I want one too, but I don't have the desk space for it (and also I don't really want to spend the money.) *sigh* I miss you, Mac OS 8.

I miss System 7.1, but then I guess I'd drive myself insane attempting to get IP to work on it. MacTCP is not an aspect of it that I remember with pleasure.

I haven't bought anything yet. There is one at a good price on one of the local eBay wannabes, and the person who has it is on my way home from work, so it's convenient. The problem is that it's the 1 GHz model that won't boot Classic, which might be useful. The main reason I'm looking in to is old games that I sometimes want to play through, but it might be that I can make them work in DOSBox instead. Tried a few yesterday - MoO and MoO2 - and it seems to work. Now if I could get EV working again - some license garbage, and the email I used to register it isn't active anymore, etc.

Escape Velocity runs just fine in OS X, at least on my machine.

A few weeks back, I bought a very old off-lease PC for the express purpose of playing old games. That don't run on Windows XP. I installed Windows 98. Blast from the crashy past, there.

EV Nova runs fine in OS X, but it refuses to acknowledge my license. I can't use the automatic update (because that old email address is no longer valid), when I try to email I don't get a response. Same thing has happened with some other old Ambrosia games that I have registered. I have the email receipts and everything, and basically I just need to chase them a bit more. I'll get around to it.



If they're DOS games, try them in DOSbox/boxer on any Mac. It is very convenient, and the emulation is perfect. If the box crashes, then so what? Games for Win 95 or Win 98 often run under XP if you fiddle with the settings in the Properties tab, and some have even be updated to run on XP. Try this site, for instance.

They're Windows games, and they don't run under XP--I've been trying to get them working for a decade. I finally caved. Now I play them on my big screen TV in kinda-HD! Woot.

What games are those?

Mostly Settlers III and Klingon Academy. I think I've mentioned this before.

gog.com has Settlers 1 and 2 in XP-compatible versions, and they've said that 3 is coming. Klingon Academy I've actually never heard of.

Well now they do. Sadly, I already spent the money. ;p

My parents use a 15" iMac G4 running at 700 MHz as their primary machine. It suits their needs and gets the job done. It's not very good at YouTube or other Flash content, though.

my old machine is a 1 Ghz machine with 768 MB of RAM and is still functional. It does have trouble with CNN and YouTube video, but that might be the problem of the AT/T DSL.

Youtube is quite demanding. Have you tried ClickToFlash? It reroutes Flash video to Quicktime, which can help immensely. The next Flash version (10.1) is also supposed to be much faster.

That will be an interesting experiment. I'll have a brother or nephew do it.