The End Of The G3 iMac Story

Blimey, nowthere’s a thing … !

Do you remember that, over the past few year’s, I’ve done a bit of tweaking to an old G3 iMac that I’ve had sitting around … ?

Including, I should add, managing to put a copy of Xubuntu 6•06, Dapper Drake on it: I’d no access to a more recent version of OS X to put on there, as much as anything else …

At any rate, I’ve managed to find a buyer who’s interested in taking it off my hands: and has a copy of a newer version of Mac OS to put on it.

The upside … Is that I’m keeping the old keyboard that came with it.

Actually, that’s kind of nice.

Bar a dodgy ‘c’ key, that keyboard still works.

It even manages to play rather nicely with my Mac Mini, and happily deals with a 4 gigabyte flash memory drive, in the USB port, at the opposite end of the keyboard to the mouse.

And the Power button on the blessed thing still — under OS X 10•6•7 — activates the shut-down menu.

Happy days … !

Keyboards, keyboards, keyboards ...

You know, I’m going to have to rearrange the table and chair in the hallway, I really am.

Or I’m going to have to go on a diet.

I think …

At any rate, whilst Café World’s quietly going ker-CHING* in the background, I’m happily tip-tapping away in the hallway, on the G3 iMac: the one I installed the Dapper Drake version of Xubuntu, a little while back?

The one that needs the new PRAM battery on it, but which has a clock that works fine, so long as it’s hooked up to the net … ?

Yeah, that one …

I’ve got to admit, over the weekend, we had a bit of a … Teacup … incident.

Yes, a Teacup incident.

That’s the phrase ...

A Teacup Incident ...

Remember last Movie Night?

I had a bit of a crowd in, and, while most of us were happily nattering, Sarah, bless ’er little purple hairdo, borrowed the iMac, to check her Facebook and email accounts.

I took her over a cuppa.

Plonked it down on the table.

And promptly it knocked over, all over the original Keyboard that came with the iMac.

Where could I have put my face … ?

I’m not too sure, actually!

But I am sure of what happened when the old keyboard dried out.

I got a hideous beeeeeeeeep noise, as the jammed letter ‘a’ on the iMac’s keyboard repeatedly entered the letter ‘a’ as my user name …

Mmmm …

Not good …

You can imagine how I felt, can’t you?

I had a knackered keyboard, and, as a result, a vintage iMac I couldn’t make use of .

Until, bless her, Allison came to the proverbial rescue!

We were up town, today, organising some paperwork for her - which is a whole other, very time consuming story - and Allison decided to treat me to an early birthday present. And bought me a cheap and cheerful, generic Texet computer keyboard, at the Brentwood branch of Wilkinson’s.

For which she got a suitable effusive ‘Thank You’!

Now, while it’s not an exact match^, I really can’t complain.

After all, the woman I love decided I should have something to say ‘Ta’ for helping her out.





















* On the Mac Mini, running Snow Leopard …

^ After all, most PC keyboards have no USB ports to plug a mouse, or USB thumb drives, or dongles. But I’m not complaining too much!

Ummm …

Hmmm …

I think I’ve just got a touch … well … you know … umm …

Geeky …

Umm …

I’ve actually gone and posted on the Ubuntu Forum’s … !

There’s always something, isn’t there?

In this case, the fact I’m running Xubuntu is raising an … issue …

Not much of one, though, but still something I’d not mind having sorted … !

A couple of day’s ago, I managed to install Xubuntu 6.06 on a vintage 400 MHz G3 iMac, with just under 192 Mb’s of RAM and a 15Gb hard drive.

I don’t intend to use it for much more than backing up the quizzes, and playing the rather good free Ubuntu/GNOME games I managed to get hold of, as well as explore how well GIMP, AbiWord and Gnumeric — and the Xfce desktop itself — actually work.

Quite well enough, for my needs, thanking you very much, as you’re asking!

But the one problem I’m having?

It won’t actually shut down.

Just restart.

That’s a bit of a git.

After all, I don’t have that much money to burn on electricity!

OK, it’s not chewing up that much electricity, compared to the full rig the ever faithful Mini — printer, speakers, exterior DVD re-writer drive, Time Machine, exterior storage, et al — is connected to, but I’d rather not overdo it!

But I’d hate to have it burning away, while I’m not looking.

Any thoughts would be appreciated … !

•••••

Oh, and I’ve got to confess, I’ve had Uncle Brian email me earlier, bless him; he even managed to include a photo of Great Granddad Arthur.

My first though?

Was rather trivial, considering how this all started; was that he looks vaguely like my cousin Mark …