My talented son & my messed up imac display!

[mccabe]

I own a 2 year old and an imac. Said 2 year old loves said imac. Two days ago he managed (somehow) to make the display on my imac go from normal colours to what I can only describe as "negative" (like what you would see if you were looking at a negative of a photo). I also have either a stuck CD or stuck foreign object in my slot-load CD drive. So:

-- any ideas on how to fix the display (it may be an OS problem because when I first boot up the imac the blue screen IS blue...weird, unless it's an OS-related thing)?

-- any creative ways to unstick a stuck object from a slot-load drive, preferably without the involvement of lugging an imac and a 2 year old to a repair shop?

Many thanks,

Angela

 

[simbalala]

Check the Universal Access preference panel. It’s probably set to “White on Black”.

Without seeing what’s stuck in the drive I can’t offer any suggestions.

 

[DeltaMac]

control-option-Apple-8 will reverse the screen color.

 

[symphonix]

If that fails, try restarting the two year old.

 

[jbarley]

Actually, it sounds more like it's the 2 year old that needs "rebooting".

jb.

 

[Petermac181]

Have you tried a paper clip in the eject hole of the cd player (small hole on the side)

 

[mccabe]

(and there are some days I wish my 2 year-old came with a reset button or a key combo, CTRL+s+t, for sleep time)

Angela

 

[Giaguara]

Good that it worked
I've seen cats do that too...

 

[jasfa131]

for problem a, just press control, option, apple, 8, at the same time,

 

[pink182]

My 2 year old did the exact same things. I see you figured out the scree problem. My son changed the black on white to white on black and also the contrast. As for the stuck object; use a thin steak knife. I removed credit card & paper clips.

 

[Rhisiart]

My cat tried this. Lack of opposable thumbs ......

 

[ora]

A friend of mine regularly goes into shops with apple machines, switches to 'negative' colours then sets the system font to Chinese. In shops without real mac people it causes total panic!