(last updated: 21-Jan-2016)
The machine is as it was acquired, except that I have installed a hard disk since the original was not included, and I have installed an Airport Extreme 802.11g wi-fi card.
Apple Keyboard (A1048) (s/n KY5470CYQUABA) (USB)
Apple Pro Mouse (M5769) (s/n ZH226DFLDKD8A) (USB)
07-Aug-2012
This system was found at the University of Utah's surplus store and was purchased, without hard disk as is the U's policy, for $60. The price sticker had one hidden underneath with a price of $100. Today was the first day of the "Public Sale" and since I wouldn't expect this type of system to last long on the shelf, I went for it. Of course, as is the usual with computers sold by the U. of U., the hard disk has been removed, so I will need to find one and install it.
07-Aug-2012
Very clean. As is my usual habit, I cleaned all surfaces with Windex, and removed a few extraneous stickers. It looks brand new!
07-Aug-2012
Without an installed hard disk it is impossible to check this system, but it does power up, give the power up chime, and if I press CTRL-Z I can break into the Open Firmware mode. So, the system is alive, the CPU is working, all looks good on screen.
I was successfully able to boot from a Mac OS X 10.4 installation DVD. Using the Unilities->SystemProfile I was able to examine the hardware configuration, confirming most of what I had already figured out by looking at the unit. Now, I need a SATA hard disk!
For kicks, I also booted from a Debian 5.0 "Squeeze" CD which brought up the installer just fine. I also tried my NetBSD 3.1 CD, but no luck. I think NetBSD installation require going into Open Firmware and booting the CD from there. Interestingly, the system doesn't seem to want to boot from the CD or DVD unless the disk is already inserted into the drive before power-up. The discs are not recognized if I put it in after the system has powered and showing the '?'. Well, maybe. Perhaps I just need to wait longer. On this system, I had no trouble booting the Mac OS X 10.4 DVD-R or DVD+R copies that I have. However, I could not boot the Mac OS 9 CD that I have.
08-Aug-2012
I dropped by the local computer recycler store today and picked up an 80GB SATA drive. Installing it was straight forward, using a PDF downloaded from apple.com regarding replacing the hard drive. The inside of this system is pristine, not a spec of dust inside at all. It must have been used very lightly in it's time. I booted up the OS X installation DVD and used the System Profiler to confirm that the drive was detected and active.
08-Aug-2012
With the drive installed I was ready to install the Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger". I was booted from the install DVD, but when I proceeded with the installation sequence and was asked to select a target device, none were shown. Mmmm.... I seemed to recall that I had this problem when installing the OS to a hard disk in my Power Mac G4 that had been previously formatted with Windows. In that case I removed the device and used a PC to zero the first few sectors. In this case, I have no other machine that supports SATA devices. What I ended up doing was launching the Disk Utility, deleting all partitions, then creating a single HFS+ w/ Journalling partition on the drive. As soon as that was complete the Installation window presented the drive as a choice, and I was off and running. The only thing about the installation that deserves comment is that page that requires registration information. I laid in some bogus information and move forward. After that, the installation was automatic and hands free. In about 25 minutes, the system rebooted and I was live.
31-Aug-2012
Browsing the local Utah Valley University surplus sale, I saw this white mouse available for $1. I picked it up to complete my system, now all in white. Also, 80GB SATA drives were on offer for just $5 each. I picked up two of those, to hold as spares.
31-Aug-2012
As with my Power Mac G4, I wanted to install Mac OS 9 (called Classic when run inside Mac OS X). Reading my notes from that system indicated no difficulty installing; simply that I inserted the Mac OS 9.2.1 Installation CD and followed the prompts to install. With this system, it isn't that easy.
When I insert the CD and launch the MacOS 9 installer, I see a popup indicating that the version of QuickTime on the CD is too old and that I should update it. Fine, I think, I'll update when I finish the installation. Clicking to continue, I receive another popup that says that I cant install because the target system is read-only. Hmmm.
I tried several times, including the installation and fresh wipe of one of the newly acquired hard disks, reinstallation of Mac OS X "Tiger", but still I saw the same results. A little web browsing found this:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2523974?start=0&tstart=0
which talks about this very issue, installing Classic (Mac OS 9) on an iMac G5 with Mac OS X 10.4 installed.
The solution it seems, at least for this system, is to bypass this entire issue, simply by copying the Mac OS 9 System Folder from another machine that already has Classic installed. I happen to have that on the Power Mac G4, so I copied three folders from that system, each of which seemed related to Classic:
/System Folder /Applications (Mac OS 9) /Desktop (Mac OS 9)
Indeed, this method works! After a reboot, I see the Classic control panel in System Preferences and can launch Classic without difficulty. As it turns out the folder "Desktop (Mac OS 9)" magically disappeared after the reboot, but this doesn't seem to create any difficulty.
01-Sep-2012
Probably because this G5 iMac cannot boot Mac OS 9, it behaves differently in terms of getting it installed. Well, now that I have manually "side-loaded" Mac OS 9 (9.2.1) from my Power Mac G4, I need to update it to the latest version which is 9.2.2.
Browsing the apple.com website turned up a few knowledge base articles about doing the upgrade, and downloading it, but I was not able to download the 9.2.2 Update package. I kept getting redirected back to the top page for support. Somewhere along the way, I also learned that the Software Update system has been discontinued for all OSs before 10.4. Anyway, I struggled to find the 9.2.2 update package.
As it turns out, my iMac G3 also has Classic installed in its 10.3.9 installation. Browsing that system turned up the 9.2.2 Update .smi file! I copied that over to this system and launched it. It is some kind of disk image file, so a folder opened with the contents of the update. I started Classic first manually, then clicked on the Install icon. I was prompted that a restart would be necessary and to close all applications, and I clicked through this and let it install. Worked like a charm. Now I'm updated to Mac OS 9.2.2 as my Classic environment.
21-Apr-2013
I picked up a couple of 500GB SATA drives at the UVU Surplus sale, $35 each. I am making these notes late (2016) but I believe that I cloned the original drive to an external drive (1TB) but kept the partition size as is. Then I shut down the system and installed the 500GB drive. Then I booted to install media, and using the Disk Utility, cloned the external drive to the now-installed 500GB drive. Either in the same operation, or as a second step, I increased the partition size to fill the 500GB disk. With that, I was back in business without having to re-install the whole operating system, applications and data files.
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