First time mac user

9yrPC2dayMac

9yrPC2dayMac

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I'll try to explain this as best as I can without staying too far.
For years, I've known nothing but PC's and two days ago was given a MAC.
For years I've been labeled "Tecky" when it comes to PC's, but now I feel like I've been placed on another planet. ( MIND YOU THAT THE PREVIOUS OWNER KNOWS NOTHING AT ALL, BUT TO SURF THE NET.)
When I attempt to boot it up, I get a folder with a flashing question mark. So at this point, I can only tell so much of it:

POWER MAC G4
400 MHZ

I learned so far that it's somewhat a dinosaur, but at this point I dont care being that my purpose is to learn more about the mac's inner workings before spending money that I can be using to complete the restoration of my 62 Impala.
I read somewhere online last night that the VERTICLE MIC/AUDIO port position explains alot about the system as well.

There's also a another issue that concerns me. When I open the case, I notice a wire thats not connectedto anything. It looks to be some type of ground of some sort. It sits above an IDE cable connected to the processor and is within a thin aluminum bracket. From plain view, the lower end of the cable is black, which disappears into a whole within the open door of the case itself. The upper end is coated with a silverish coating with a small metal "L-SHAPED" tip. This wire is to short to go many places, but being that I know anyone with a mac, its difficult for me to look inside theirs to compare.
If you know what it feels like to be gratified by the defeat of a unknown technical issue, you can surely understand why I am embracing this challenge and not focusing on a new/faster mac without issues. PLEASE HELP!

BTW, NO I DONT HAVE AN OS DISK TO INSTALL AT THIS POINT. Previous owner believs it was running MAC OS 9.2.2 (But she's not sure). I also looked this up and found that if this is true, I can aslo install OS 10.5. But this remains to be seen.
 
First, OSX 10.5 requires a processor faster than 867 MHz, and a minimum of 512 MB RAM.

The wire that you described, near a metal bracket, is likely the antenna wire for an Airport card, which can be inserted into that bracket. You'll see the connector that it would slide into - a double row of pins.
So, no Airport (wireless) card, and that antenna simply is not connected to anything.

The flashing ? means that your Mac can't find a bootable system. It could mean that the hard drive is missing or not working - or is completely blank. Or, the operating system is corrupted, or the file system is not allowing boot.
 
I did'nt get an opportunity to read your reply until I returned from the apple dealer near where I am presently. Though I was just explained the exact same thing, I truly appreciate your timely response . I have learned that it is a 7400 series and that wire was as you said for wireless net. As for the Harddrive, I am not sure what shape it's in, so I decided to reformat one of my others that I knew was in fairly new shape. The guy "MIKE" in the apple dealership,
( http://www.riks.com ) said the following:

"Legally, I have to sell you v10.5, being the latest OS, But I recommend that you go with v10.4
I can sell you v10.5 for $120.00 plus $20.00 for a copy of v10.4
Cost to install will be $50.00, unless you choose to do it yourself."

Now this is why I decided to begin my journey from this position. This is not to say that your info is wrong, nor anyone elses, but It is all conflicting and if the average consumer is dealing with this, it can be somewhat impossible to figure out unless your bank account looks like a stimulus package. MINE DON'T...lol
Not that i don't mind spending money, but had I bought v10.5 & v10.4 as earlier quoted,. Get back home to install myself for the learning curve and to only realize the possiblity of as you say, " Won't run in my system".
I suppose I'm gonna setup a marker board for the project...lol..SERIOUSLY!
Even though I'll find out before I hear from you again, I'll still ask, "CAN I RUN v10.4 or SHOULD I BEGIN MY FOCUS ELSEWHERE WITHIN AN EARLIER VERSION." Not that it will hurt to become frequent with most of them in a sense, But having this conversation gets me immediately within the right frequency.
 
Yes, you can run 10.4.

Make sure the disks for 10.4 that were sold to you are retail disks (they're black in color) -- if they're grey in color, then they're model-specific disks and probably will not install on your computer.
 
Since my last post, I've recieved a retail copy of Mac OS X 10.4
I've since then updated my systems. I also tried using the dual layer DVD durner from my PC into my mac and it worked perfectly fine. When i bought the burner, it was the cheapest that bestbuy had a couple years ago (16X writing speed). Burner came with nero for PC, now using roxio toast 9 w/HD plugins. GREAT. I also installed Logic express 7 ( including all JAM PACKS) and ran it until I was warned about over loading the system (This done without using logic's freeze feature). Although this is considered to be slow, I don't see it yet. Though I am looking to upgrade the processor to 1.6Ghz & max out my ram 1.5GB-2GB ( Can't recall which one when running OS 10.4 )
But if I must get OS 10.5 for my 0.5 extra GB to be recognized, I will do all I can to achieve that. Before I forget, I also replaced the smaller 10 GB HD with an 80 GB HD.

PowerMac G4 PowerPC AGP (Sawtooth)
Apple Logic Ver.2 Motherboard (820-1094 A)
400mhz / 100mhz
512mb sdram (pc100)
1mb L2 Cache (per CPU)
80GB/20GB HD's
OS 10.4.11

I'll update you guys again. If I have'nt already...THANK YOU !!
 
Oh nice, it's working nicely for you now :)
It's amazing how sometimes the generic DVD burners for PCs work as plug as play on a Mac - I was surprised when my Dell Mini's external burner worked better than the internal burner on my MacBook Pro.
 
Nice it is. upon first glance, the drives look intimidating being that those of us switching from pc have never seen such a shiny surface on anything within the towers. MAC users only learn this after upgrades/replacements (If done personally) or being bored/curious enough to dig around to learn something new or unheard of by the average user. I'm sure that everything won't be as easy a task, but I am thankful for this one. Just as I Acknowledge and Appreciate the Mac community. Apple is definitely a brand that stands alone (by choice) outside all others.
 
And you've found a nice place to ask if you'll find something new :) so stick around and learn (and in no time you'll be a pro too)

It's usually amazing how much faster OS X is to pick than... well, some Linux distros, or Windows, or many other OS. After trying to use Windows productively for two years now at work (I was more or less looking for man pages in Windows when I started there), I still don't see how I can ever get a day of using it without feeling frustrated a number of times with it. (outlook interrupting work, applications hijacking the window I was working with, dlls all over, stupid error messages, application logs that don't have grep etc etc).
 
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