Can I use any old keyboard & mouse with an eMac?

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#chaplife
i've managed to blag an eMac from work for free, which is nice.. fair enough, it's old and crusty, and CRTs are so last decade, but this thing is a G4 and will run OS X, so who am i to complain!

thing is, it didn't come with any peripherals.. can i use any old USB keyboard and mouse, or will it only play ball with official apple shiz?

or, by some miracle, does anyone have any old apple peripherals they don't need that would be willing to donate to a fellow forummer? :D

thanks, geeks :D:up:
 
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Silverfish

Well-Known Forumite
Any USB keyboard would do, but you MIGHT a keyboard eject button to get discs out of the optical drive. I believe the eMac has a tray loader, but I don't think there's a physical button on the drive to eject it.

You can use any mouse, and to be honest, you're better off with a two-button model with a scroll wheel than an Apple mouse from back then.
 
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#chaplife
Silverfish said:
Any USB keyboard would do, but you MIGHT a keyboard eject button to get discs out of the optical drive. I believe the eMac has a tray loader, but I don't think there's a physical button on the drive to eject it.
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gaybar, i never thought of that.. thanks for the heads-up :up:

so.. anyone got a spare apple keyboard they don't need? :teef:
 
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Silverfish

Well-Known Forumite
When will you get the eMac? Let me know how you get on with any old keyboard, and if there are problems, I'll see if I can find one.
 
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#chaplife
Silverfish said:
When will you get the eMac? Let me know how you get on with any old keyboard, and if there are problems, I'll see if I can find one.
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really?? wow.. that would be smashing, thanks!

i should hopefully be getting it on thursday, but probably won't have a chance to have a play until the weekend.. i'll be sure you let y'all know how i get on..

thanks silverfish, you've been a great help :)
 
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#chaplife
Silverfish said:
When will you get the eMac? Let me know how you get on with any old keyboard, and if there are problems, I'll see if I can find one.
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well, got my hands on this bad boy.. it looks like a regular 5¼" tray-loading optical drive, but it has a completely button-less facia with nowt but an apple logo on, so i think i'm going to struggle with a regular keyboard.. plus, it won't have apple keys..

do you think you could lay your hands on an apple keyboard for me? i'll happily chuck a few quid in your direction for the trouble :)

:crossesfingers:
 
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#chaplife
Silverfish said:
I'll have a look at the weekend. Are you anywhere near Castletown?
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no, but i know many's a castletonian so can be up that way, no bother :D
 
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#chaplife
argh! i've got today off work, and so had planned on tinkering with this eMac, reinstalling OS X, adding it to my network, etc.. but i've fallen at the first hurdle, because the only keyboard i've got in the house is PS-ruddy-2 :angry:

it's a fancy microsoft multimedia one as well - i just assumed it would be USB! cock piss partridge!!! :gonk:

well, i guess i'll just have to sulk and watch episode 4 of Heroes instead..
 
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#chaplife
well, with thanks to the silvery fish, i now have a bona fide apple keyboard.. emac boots fine, keyboard works a treat, as does my bog standard ms optical mouse.. trouble is, i can't get past the log-in prompt because the mac is no longer on the (work) domain and i don't know any local account credentials! and it looks like the combo drive can't read dual layer DVDs, cos it's not having any of the OS X Leopard DVD :angry:

so.. i'm downloading Tiger, and i can (hopefully) boot from that and reinstall it from scratch..

all good fun! :D
 
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shoes

Well-Known Forumite
I have a bootable Leopard DVD lying around somewhere, pretty sure it's not dual layer. Not legal (and I don't use it) but if you have a licence you're more than welcome to try it.
 
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#chaplife
shoes said:
I have a bootable Leopard DVD lying around somewhere, pretty sure it's not dual layer. Not legal (and I don't use it) but if you have a licence you're more than welcome to try it.
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leopard is only available as a DL DVD, innit :?:

the full leopard iso, including bootcamp, is about 6.8gb, if remember rightly.. or have you got some crazy custom one which has got stuff ripped from it to bring it under 4.7gb? if so, i may be intersted :up:
 
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#chaplife
shoes said:
Does that mean you can download it from apple direct, you just need a licence?
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eh? download what? no, i'm not on about downloading anything from apple.. mac os isn't copy-protected in any way, not even a serial number, so i doubt they would offer the ISOs for download!
 
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shoes

Well-Known Forumite
Sorry my bad, you mean Double Layer DVD not downloadable dvd. Its nearly 5 o'clock, it's been a long hard day of messing about :monkeydance:
 
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#chaplife
jesus - i just cracked this thing open, with the intention of upgrading the RAM and maybe HDD before i start reinstalling Tiger, only to find that it's already been upgraded to 1GB RAM and a 160GB HDD! bear in mind that this is a 4yr old "educational" machine, so that's pretty impressive.. looks like i may be able to use this for more than idle tinkering - i could feasibly do a bit of audio editing and shiz on it, i reckons!

just installing Tiger now.. first time installing OS X for me - woohoo! :dance:
 
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#chaplife
Wookie said:
Make sure you tell us when you're posting from it :)
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well, that'll be now :D

what's the browser of choice for mac geeks? do y'all tend to stick with safari, or are all the cool kids using something else?

i'm well impressed with how quick and painless the OS installation was.. must have taken about 20 minutes in total, if that.. internet worked without any tinkering, and immediately downloaded a handful of updates that all seemed to go swimmngly..

any tips as to what i should do with this baby now i've got it working? it's a G4 1.25ghz with 1GB RAM, so won't be able to handle anything ultra-modern.. i'm thinking i might get hold of some oldish games and see if they play ball.. maybe install an old version of Logic Audio and get my groove on :dance:
 
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