First of all, thanks to all three of you for your input. It means a lot to me.
isiolia wrote:I don't think it makes a lot of sense to use the shell as a monitor only - seems like a lot of effort to get back to the same functionality that the monitor itself has, only in a much larger enclosure.
Perfectly valid point. In this case the iMac enclosure would be purely cosmetic. I would lose all other functionality. You're right, it is a lot of effort just to get back to being a monitor. Maybe I was over-thinking it; I tend to do that.
isiolia wrote:Personally, I also wouldn't consider it for running OS X either, since (as you likely are aware) 10.7.5 will be stuck running old versions of everything.
Yes, I'm very familiar with the software limitations of early Intel Macs. I own more than one of them (more on that later).
isiolia wrote:Instead, I'd maybe look at doing something like running Emulation Station on Debian - it's still got more substantial hardware than a Raspberry Pi 3 would for RetroPie, doubly so if you could play original discs (not sure if that'd be the case).
Neat idea! I do have a DVD drive in here. I suppose I could make this bad boy an emulation box. Emulation Station looks like a neat front end. I'll check it out when the time comes to cross that bridge.
isiolia wrote:I actually have a similar-ish thing sitting in my basement - 20" iMac from the next big revision (so an aluminum one) that had some damage from humidity. The the LCD works, but a layer of it crinkled, and there's corrosion on some parts, like the metal strip on the back of the glass. Got it for free, just never did anything with it. In that case, the LCD seemed like it'd be very pricey to replace.
Well, if this project pans out, I might be looking for another iMac project. I would take it off your hands for you.
fastbilly1 wrote:It is very tricky to make old imacs work without the built in monitor. If you can make it work I am very interested in knowing your findings. I have only had this work on a G3 and it was alot of soldering.
C'mere fast, I got something to show you...
Here's the iMac in question sitting on my workbench next to his older brother, the G4. I also keep a couple Mac Pro towers nearby to drive this array of monitors. I'm typing this sentence on one of those Mac Pro towers right now.
In addition to a cracked LCD, my iMac also has no hard drive. This is a standard data security precaution for used computers.
Here's the back of the broken iMac. The port on the far right is a mini-DVI output. I'm using an adaptor to connect it to another monitor via VGA. I'm connecting a Firewire 400 cable from this iMac to one of my Mac Pro towers. Don't you just love Apple's proprietary connectors?
I'm booting one of my Mac Pro towers into target disk mode by holding the T key at boot. Next I boot the iMac and hold the Option key. My broken iMac shows bootable volumes.
I'm lucky that so much of the LCD works! This is more than the 1/2 pixels I had previously estimated. If my LCD was completely dead, I would need to take a few extra steps. I would remove all but one drive from my Mac Pro tower so that EFI only sees a single boot option. Then I would use the keyboard to select the single bootable drive and proceed. I'm choosing to boot to the drive called "tensix" here. That's my shorthand for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Here is my iMac on the right booted up with an external monitor in the middle. The monitor to the far left is connected to the Mac Pro in target disk mode. In this instance, the external monitor is displaying in "extended desktop" mode, but I could switch it to "mirrored mode" by using the Command + F1 keyboard shortcut.
And here are the modest specs of this early Intel iMac in case anyone is interested.
CRTGAMER wrote:The G3 CRTs have an auxiliary VGA output, at least in the later series with slot loaders that I have. Is your G3 a tray loader? I swapped out the internal CDR over to a DVD Rom and kept the CDR. Not an issue since an external USB CDR works just fine.
I think those tray-loading G3 iMacs are cool because they have a VGA connector on the INSIDE of the computer. How cool is that? If all iMacs had been designed that way, screen replacement would be much easier!