Another success full upgrade. Here we go again.

[macmanmacman]

Well i purchased another mac making this my third one in the last year.

I purchased a

G4 imac (A.k.a ILamp model)

Man there is so much documentation on how to upgrade this machine it is insane.

I started with this.

Imac g4 800 mhz
60 gig hard drive
256 Meg's of ram
no airport
Dead DVD-Rom (and boy was this thing Dead)
running mac os x 10.3

To after upgrading

Imac G4 800 mhz
250 gig hard drive
512 megs of ram
Airport card.
Lightscribe 52 x dvd burner.
running mac os x tiger 10.4.11

the machine cost was $80.00
parts already had them so i didn't really need to purchase anything

So not a bad machine i am kinda glad i saved this machine from the recycler.

It came with the Original keyboard and mac pro mouse.

so i thought cool.

i had to rebuild the keyboard though but not to bad of a issue.

[Bandit Bill]

That's cool. It's pretty amazing that a machine that old can still be quite functional. The specs aren't that far off the original Mac mini 1.2GHz. I had the original 1.42GHz model with 256MB of RAM and used it for about 6 months prior to upgrading the RAM to 1GB. It was still amazingly functional for having that little amount of RAM.

Hey for $80 you can't go wrong (if you're actually going to use it).

Sounds like a fun project (doing the research and the upgrade).

I like the look of the original iMac and I like the way you can adjust the height of the monitor. I truly was the most unique, unusual and elegant computer for it's time. It would look great in a retro style loft.

[macmanmacman]

yea i have to say that for as little less power that it is iT really is quite reliable and quick puts my g4 tower server to shame and it has more memory then this.

But even in a loft i could see someone using this as a photo editing machine or even as a e-mail server for 80.00 not a bad machine at all.

[Fox]

The lamp model was a real design statement; if I recall correctly, it made the cover of Time Magazine when it came out. A friend of mine is still using his.

I have another old "designer Mac" that I have upgraded to death and kept in service - a G4 Cube. I'm writing from it right now.
_________________
Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse

[macmanmacman]

yea

That now is a collectors item's have fun trying to find a g4 cube to many people hold onto them for classic mac app's and games and i wouldn't blame them. nice machines easy to upgrade and all though they have a lot of screws at least you can get it back together.

[JohnnyBoy]

Well done MacMan. I'd happily buy a G4 iMac as a second machine for general computing duties. A second-hand eMac is great value for money, but I think that perhaps the TFT screen on the G4 iMac makes it an even better deal -- especially for $80!
_________________
Intel Mini 2.0GHz C2D (4GB/120GB/SuperDrive/10.5.8 ), 120GB WD Passport, Logitech ergo k/b
iPod Touch (32GB, 3rd gen), iPod Shuffle (512MB, 1st gen)

[macmanmacman]

Yep i am really happy with this purchase and now even more happy today i went back to my local RePc store and purchased a Firewire Mark 1 Ipod the original ipod for the Imac...

and man is this thing fast i never really understood why apple ditched firewire on ipod's i copied my entire library in 2 minutes fast versus my nano which takes 30 minutes.

but not a bad deal for a ipod $50.00 with it's original box manual's charger earbuds whole nine yards...

pretty cool..

[macmanmacman]

UPDATE!!!!

New system spec's

G4 800 mhz imac g4 flat panel.
250 gig hard drive
1 gig of ram
running mac os x leopard using leopard assist.
with mark 1 ipod for music.

just trying to find the old pro speakers.

[Fox]

Good call, macmanmacman; I was just about to ask why you didn't upgrade to more RAM the first time. You don't need it with OS9, but it sure helps with X. I have 1.25gb in my Cube, all of which was lying around from other computers.
_________________
Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse

[macmanmacman]

Well the ram upgrade was needed and at the time when i was running tiger i really didn't need the extra ram but because this machine stays extra cool i decided that upgrading to leopard would be a nice decision because now i have front row where i didn't have it before.

[macmini2010]

Well sounds like you had a great find. What are these machines normally worth? You said it was hard to upgrade? Could you elaborate how long you took. I found one here that's a bit slower and double the cost and only a 15" LCD, but I was wondering if I should replicate what you did or if I should wait. Do you think these machines will be hard to find any time soon?

Sounds great in its current form...

BTW this machine has some memories for me, in the last year of my undergrad my college bought these machines..
_________________
My cat themed collection:
- Mac Mini - Core 2 Duo 2.26/2/160/SuperDrive Snow Leopard
- iLamp 15" - 800/256/60/DVD Tiger
- Power Mac - G4 "Sawtooth" 450/2/80/DVD/ZIP! Panther
- Mac SE/30 192/30/SuperDrive Ocelot

[macmanmacman]

you can do a lot to this machine.

When i mean it is a little tough to upgrade.

is getting the screws out of the bottom without crossthreading them or striping them this is the only thing i had to be careful about.

Key to upgrading this machine is simple look online for tutorial's. There are hundreds of them out there and some extreme mods as well. There is so much for this machine and if you want to use the machine for internet and for e-mail and as a photo editor or rivet to stream to the ps3 or xbox connect to stream to the xbox 360 these are nice machines.