[phayek]

I admit this may be a dumb quesiton, but here goes:

I know most people right away transplant the guts into an ATX case, and hack it up to use an ATX power supply.

But I wonder, if for now, if it's ok to power up, and even use, my iMac as is?

... that is, with its own power supply intact, and with the CRT now removed, and front and top housing removed.

Eventually I guess I'll do the full ATX conversion - but for now I just want to use the darn thing with an external monitor.

Any reason I shouldn't? Seems to me I could reassemble the bottom components and go, no?

[firefly]

As long as you know what you're doing (as far as your safety is concerned), go for it.

[Tuoder]

I would be concerned about things falling into there or pets, kids, etc. putting their hands in there. I'll bet a powered up flyback transformer would kill a child or pet if they touched it. It would shock the heck out of a full grown adult. But that is only if you are dumb enough to stick your hands in it while it's on. If there are no kids around, I'd say fire it up.