iMac G4 Jukebox (Part 1)

For a relaxing weekend project, I unboxed this eBay-acquired iMac G4! Join me as I assess its current state, and perform a deep cleaning of the included A1048 keyboard.
Read about this specific model here: everymac.com/systems/apple/im...
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[@sokoloft3]

Seen people do a bunch of things with these. I saved one from the scrap heap. 17 inch 1.25ghz 768mb. My piston is a bit droopy and the whites yellowed. Would love to make some stealth build out of it but I like keeping things original. Hard to destroy it in that way. Seen someone put an intel NUC in one and completely retrofit it. Pretty neat. I'd like to restore mine. Last I booted it the HDD clicked and hummed. Didn't boot the first couple of times but eventually did. Unsure as to how I would clone it. I don't have anything to interface with ide rn as well as what software would I use. Curious to see how you get the install media. I don't know how to quite set it up but you can also run os9 applications in some comparability environment. Can't wait to see the progression!

[@NerdOnTheStreet]

The NUC conversion was tempting, but I don't trust myself to do it nicely right now, haha. If yours is intermittently booting and you suspect the hard drive, I'd suggest replacing the hard drive (or just taking it out and seeing if you get the "no OS found" icon consistently) to confirm that's the issue. As far as install media goes, it's easy enough to find from unofficial sources-- I don't want to link anything here, but I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if you post about it on the NOTS Forums. Glad you're enjoying the series!

[@sokoloft3]

@@NerdOnTheStreet Haha watching your part 2 rn as well as a friends stream. I think the rest is software but you forgot the thermal paste between the upper and lower piece. There are two spots. Anyways, I actually tested mine some a couple weeks ago and cloned it's HDD to a USB drive. Turns out it has a hitachi drive, not sure if it's original or not. I'll see, but on cold boots it makes this very strange buzzing noise. I'm unsure as to what it is. Here's a video of it on my dropbox if you'd like to check it out. I tried googling it some and didn't see much on it. Just some old dead forum posts. Excuse the dry ree. www.dropbox.com/home?preview=VID_20200925_131636.mp4 As well as you inspired me this vid to clean up that G3 keyboard I had sitting for a while. Omg was that a nightmare. Stripped out two screws, got one out and had to file the head down on the other. Would love to find like a 200 pack of those plungers. Mine are pretty worn. I also bought 2 mice off ebay from someone locally for $10. Now I just need a new screen/digitizer for my OG iphone and I'd have some cool old apple tech lol. cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/613310681554485249/755240828481437766/IMG_20200914_213630.jpg cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/613310681554485249/755843650289795073/IMG_20200916_133227.jpg Enjoy it! I plan on updating mine from 10.3 to 4 at some point. Retain that os9 comparability mode. Will be a sweet system to use as a dummy terminal/jukebox. Kinda shelved for now since I'm moving but can't wait to take it apart and clean it up some.