[tpicco]

I have owned & worked with an 80 gig iMac G4 for 2.5 years and been happy...

Today, as part of a barter deal with a client (because he can't pay me anymore and is closing up shop) I was given a barely used two-year-old G5, a keyboard & a mouse, and no display... (he's keeping the display to use with his PC!) I know this G5 is almost empty except for installed software apps that he almost never used... (he thought he could buy a Mac and do all the art design himself... hahahahahaha... at at least he gave me all the disks with the software apps...)

I'm using OSX 10.3.9 on my iMac and I have reason to believe this G5 is using the previous OSX.

Is it safe to try to hook it up to my iMac? Can it be linked to my iMac? Can it be linked as a spare hard drive, until I can afford a nice wide flat screen display? What potential dangers am I going to risk? Is this a stupid idea? Any friendly warnings?

Any advice is welcome. I'm not a complete tech moron, but I tend to know software apps better than operating systems & hardware...

[mduell]

You can't use your iMac's screen as a screen for the G5, but you can use the G5 as an external disk.

Plug the G5 into your iMac via Firewire, plug the keyboard into the G5, and turn on the G5 while holding 'T'. This will boot the G5 in target disk mode so you can use its disk as a generic external drive.

[sledsbehave]

Originally Posted by tpicco

I have owned & worked with an 80 gig iMac G4 for 2.5 years and been happy...

Today, as part of a barter deal with a client (because he can't pay me anymore and is closing up shop) I was given a barely used two-year-old G5, a keyboard & a mouse, and no display... (he's keeping the display to use with his PC!) I know this G5 is almost empty except for installed software apps that he almost never used... (he thought he could buy a Mac and do all the art design himself... hahahahahaha... at at least he gave me all the disks with the software apps...)

I'm using OSX 10.3.9 on my iMac and I have reason to believe this G5 is using the previous OSX.

Is it safe to try to hook it up to my iMac? Can it be linked to my iMac? Can it be linked as a spare hard drive, until I can afford a nice wide flat screen display? What potential dangers am I going to risk? Is this a stupid idea? Any friendly warnings?

Any advice is welcome. I'm not a complete tech moron, but I tend to know software apps better than operating systems & hardware...

sell yr G4 and buy yrself a nice 20" display

easy

if you can borrow a monitor, you can load the OS and set the hard drive to file sharing, then you can hook the G5 to yr G4 and use it as a hard drive...

seems like a lot of trouble to me though.

[tpicco]

ok... so I am looking at LCD monitors? And I notice ome are described as analog, some as analog/digital... what difference does that make?

[harrisjamieh]

digital will give you a better picture (and uses a DVI plug), whereas analog uses standard VGA connections, and has a lesser quality. Screens advertised as analog/digital carry both VGA and DVI ports on them. I dont know what video card you have in the G5, but IIRC, all the G5s came with at least 1 x DVI port, and then either (i) another DVI port, (ii) a VGA port, (iii) an ADC port. If you can afford it, go for the DVI (digital) monitors, they are far superior

[mduell]

That's a good point. For the resale price of your G4 you could get a pair of 20" LCDs or a 24" LCD from Dell with the usual coupons.

[tpicco]

thaaaaaaankyouverymuch... i may very well sell the G4.& buy the screen...