Want to convert my old imac to WiFi

I own an old imac G4 (the kind that looks like a lamp) and would like to "convert" it to be able to use WiFi. Is there a product I can stick into the USB port that would give it WiFi capability?

Is there a product I can stick into the USB port that would give it WiFi capability?
Yes, but how well it works depends on the exact variant of the imac G4. Early ones had only USB 1.1 ports and a wireless dongle would be very slow, no faster than wireless "b" speeds. Later iMacs had USB 2.0 and with some dongles can achieve wireless "n" speeds, the fastest currently available.
So look at "About this Mac..." in the Apple menu and then click "More Info..." That brings up System Profiler, whose first screen has a precise identifier for your model Look for something like "Machine ID: PowerMac4,2. Post that identifier, processor speed and your screen size and we should be able to figure out if you have slow or fast USB ports
It's very important to understand that few USB wireless adaptors you find in an electronics superstore will come with Mac drivers or have Mac drivers available on the manufacturer's web site. To avoid this deal-breaking problem, I recommend buying online from a known Mac accessory distributor. Were I in the market for such a gadget, I'd buy this one:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MXP2802NU2C/
I've bought thousands of dollars worth of Mac goodies from this vendor over the years and am completely happy with them, their service, and the products. (Disclaimer: I have no connection with this firm other than as a customer)
However, check you OS level BEFORE buying. Every USB wireless dongle I've seen requires Mac OS 10.3.9 to work. Older iMac shipped with a much lower OS level.
Awaiting to hear what you find,
Allan

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Can I convert an old IMAC computer with OS 9 operating system from being "dial up" to high speed?

Can anyone tell me how I can convert my old IMAC from "dial up" to go on the internet as high speed? I have an ISP provider for a more modern computer that I own, but I really would like to use my old IMAC on the internet as well? How can I make it compatible with high speed internet? If I try to go on line, the internal modem "dials up". How can I change that and cause it to communicate with my external high speed modem?

Any iMac can connect by ethernet to the router.
You'll need to disable the modem and set up the network config.
Too long since I used OS9 to guide you on that bit; ask in the correct forum;
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/classic_mac_os or;
https://discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_powerpc

I want to use my old iMac G3 as second monitor to my MacBook Pro, how?

I want to use my old iMac G3 as second monitor to my MacBook Pro, how?
Thanks!

You can't really do it in any normal way; that is, using the MacBook's video output port.
You can use this program
http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html
to make your iMac screen act as a second display, over a network connection. ScreenRecycler runs on your MacBook and creates a virtual second display. It uses the open-source VNC (screen sharing) protocol to serve that second display over the local network. You then run a VNC client program (usually free) on the iMac G3 and display the MacBooks virtual second screen in a window, which you can display full screen. Your iMac then appears to be the MacBook's second screen. You use System Preferences Displays pane to set it up, as you would a real second display.
How well this works depends on your iMac's speed, what Mac OS version it runs, and the speed of the network connection. If you connect the two directly with an Ethernet cable (Cat-5 or better), the network speed should be decently fast (at 100Base-T). If your iMac G3 has Tiger (10.4), you can use this program as the VNC client
http://www.jinx.de/JollysFastVNC.html
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Want to give daughter old iMac

I bought a new iMac this Year, I want to give my daughter my old 2008 24" iMac, I did upgrade to Lion on this machine. Does shes need to buy the Lion OS again once I give the machine to her?
Thanks for the help

I would prep it like a sale.
See > MacTalk - Preparing Your Old Mac for Sale
and/or > How To Prepare a Mac For Sale
Wiping and reinstall either Leopard from the original DVD or Snow Leopard if you have a retail Upgrade DVD.
For two main reasons:
1. It is way easier than trying to remove all your old junk... and
2. She will start with a clean OS X and can decide (with dads help) what to add or move onto...

Setting up a WiFi network from iMac... works on "old" iMac, not "new"

Hello,
I hope I'm not crazy, or even worse, stupid.
I an running two iMacs in my home office. Old one= 21" 2 Ghz PowerPC G5, purchased summer 2005 and still running like a champ. New one=27" 2.7 Ghz Intel i5. Purchased the new one July 2011. I have a cable modem plugged into the ethernet port on the old iMac. I've been accessing internet on new iMac with wifi and the internet sharing network I set up on old one. I also use wifi on my ipad and laptop. I have never had even a single dropped wifi connection on any of these devices.
I pretty much expected the same kind of result and performance when I reset the cable modem and plugged it into the new imac and took similiar steps to set up internet sharing/wifi network on new iMac. This has not been the case.
What's happening is:
The cable modem plugged to new iMac is working fine; verified with ISP. I set up wifi network on new iMac and turn on internet sharing. I locate my network name on ipad, laptop, even the old iMac, and I see the name in the list, so I figure so far so good. The signal icon appears in menu bar as usual. I open a web site to verify it's working. And it's working...for about 20 seconds. Then I get alert messages that there is no internet connection.
After creating a bunch of new networks and changing channels, changing type of security, even passwords, I realized I wasn't going to figure this out by myself. I'm not a technical person; Apple spoiled me and I stopped learning how to do anything except plug stuff in 20 years ago.
I started researching online including these discussion boards and answers have ranged from "It's the iMac! It's a hardware problem they never fixed! The aluminum case gets too hot!" to, "there's no airport card and you have to buy an external router." I gave up and called Apple, thinking surely they'd be able to give me a straight answer. Ha ha. Nope.
Of course the bottom line is I could buy applecare (haven't yet...haven't used the computer hardly and I'm still under warranty), I could buy telephone tech support, or I can take the machine to the geniuses.
I keep thinking this can't be that complicated. When I buy a new iMac--this is my 4th one--I expect things will get easier, not this complicated mess.
Oh, last I want to include I just reversed everything back to the way it was. My old iMac is connected to the cable modem and the old iMac is back to being my wifi network, sharing internet with the new imac, my ipad and laptop. Easy as pie.
I'm making an appointment with the geniuseses but hoping it's just something I'm too dumb to realize I'm doing wrong.
Thank you in advance for your patience; any help is much appreciated!

SuznK66 wrote:
It never occurred to me that the wireless network/internet sharing thing wouldn't work just as well if not better on a brand new machine with the improved technologies I pretty much expect. Metal could be interfering with the signal? The machine is aluminum!! I'm no engineer but that seems kind of...flawed. I just don't understand.
I think the WiFi antenna is near an edge of the computer to avoid being encased in metal. It should work like t did in your old computer, but as I said, the use of a Mac to share an internet signal is much less common than use of a router so even if the newer computers have a non-optimal design, it might not get widely noticed in forums like these.
Sounds like AppleCare is what you want, so I'd get it and then have them check that your Mac is transmitting thru the wireless card/antenna as strongly as it should be. The antenna clearly works as you can RECEIVE a signal, but the transmitter uses different circuitry than the receiver. By the way, I think AppleCare is a good thing to get for iMacs and for laptops as they are very compact and tend to be more prone to thermal problems than other desktop computers.
I have no idea about routers aside from, of course, the apple air port one that the phone tech support guy mentioned. Are there others that are less money and just as good? I don't feel like rewarding apple for selling me a product that doesn't do what the earlier geration machines did without a problem. Seems like they shouldn't make another $200 because of their flaw. My old iMac's wifi signal was strong enough for a 3500 square foot house, 2 laptops and an iphone.
Would getting an external router definitely solve my problem? Which one would you recommend if I go that route?
I also did not understand why the Apple routers (Airport) were so much more expensive than other brands. So I purchased a linksys n router some years ago and it has worked quite well. They are very easy to configure through an ordinary web browser (some Mac folks prefer the Airport utilities that are used to configure the Airport routers, but I find the web browser interface very easy to use for the non-Apple routers), and they are in very widespread use (linksys isn't the only brand that is good for this, there are others, but I've had good experience with both Belkin and Linksys). You can get very high performing n routers from Belkin and Linksys for under $100. I'd get a router that has dual band (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), and I think most include standard features like MAC filtering (a security measure), WPA2 security, and I thiink offering Gigabit ethernet ports would be good also in case you connect something to it like a hard drive server or a printer or want a fast local network sometime in the future.
I think the router will solve your problem and do a better job of wirelessly distributing your internet signal, but if the problem is due to a faulty wireless card (that receives fine but doesn't transmit properly) in the new iMac, I'd want to get that fixed under warranty (or AppleCare) now rather than later.
One more thing: if your wireless card in the new iMac is working properly but the physical layout is such that the internet sharing isn't working well, you OUGHT to be able to eventually get it to work by moving the other devices you are sharing with around to different locations, as eventually one should end up in a spot that works. If nothing can receive the shared internet from the new iMac, even when 3 feet away, then something might well be wrong with the new iMac's transmitter.

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strandra, welcome to Apple Discussions.
Did you add the AppleWorks file extension ".cwk" to the file names i.e., document.cwk)?
A possible alternative - Using AppleWorks, can you save the files in some other format, such as .doc or .rtf?
 Cheers, Tom

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If your iMac has got Mini-DVI, you have a 17, 20 or 24-inch iMac that doesn't support Target Display. Late 2009 and Mid 2010 27-inch iMacs, and iMacs with Thunderbolt can be used as external displays. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
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Why can't Disk Utility wipe my old iMac in Target Disk Mode?

I want to donate my old iMac G3 with all my personal data removed.
As all my old start up disks are long gone I went online and followed advice to wipe it remotely. I connected the G3 via FireWire to my 15" MacBook Pro (late 2008, running OSX Lion 10.7.5) and restarted the G3 in Target Disk Mode. I opened Disk Utility, selected the drive (not the iMac partition), selected Erase, renamed the drive and chosen the 7 pass option. And waited...
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You need to do the following:
Drive Partition and Format
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Only use a single-pass to zero the data. Any more is overkill and will take many hours to complete.

Using MBA to access library on old iMac

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Additionally, am I able to sync my iPhone 4S with my MBA if I’m accessing all the files via my old iMac?
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I don't have a TC but I have seen others talking about how they used theirs for their iTunes library (as well as their backup which is not a good idea since then you don't have a backup for the iTunes library, but I digress). I remember asking in an Apple Store about the possibility of using it as a central file storage for multiple Macs, so it isn't hardwired into just using Time Machine. You'd get more complete and current information from somebody who has a newer computer than my 2002 G4.

Extend my iMac screen to my Old iMac screen | how?

Hi ppl,
I have a new 27" iMac and an old 24" iMac (Mid 2007)
I want to use the old iMac as an extended screen for the new one.
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LT

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Should I just simply sell my iMac and get a good Monitor?

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Want to wipe old iMac hard drive

I have an old iMac (circa 1998) with OS 9.2 installed. The thing hasn't worked for years, and it's been collecting dust in my attic. In fact, I no longer use Mac computers at all. Now I'm moving, and want to recycle the thing. Before I take it in, I'd like to wipe the hard drive.
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2) Use a firewire connection to hook it up to another Mac, boot from that other computer, and erase the hard drive.
I no longer have any system discs, and I have no access to another Mac to connect to. All I can do is look online (using my Vista machine) to find some sort of software/etc to download and then burn to CD or whatever.
So, does anyone have any suggestions of how I might go about completely erasing my iMac's hard drive? I'd prefer to do this without resorting to the screwdriver and sledgehammer, but that's my last resort...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!

There probably is/was a disk utility for your Windows box that could've
wiped the hard disk drive in the Mac, if the old Mac had FireWire ports
and the PC, also. Then, if the Mac wasn't too old to do it, you'd start
the Mac up, in FireWire Target Disk Mode and plug it into the PC via
FireWire. Then run a disk utility to erase or reformat the drive.
A hammer does OK; but still leaves those data platters inside in fine shape.
An expert could take apart a similar hard disk drive and swap out the platters.
If you have a huge electro-magnet, set it on top of the hard disk drive, awhile.
{A buddy has a hydraulic press and a large forge. The aluminum melts easy
and the rest is easily broken into bits or melted into a metal slush puddle.}
What version iMac G3 was that? There's probably someone in a town
near you who would pick it up for free; just run an ad in craigslist. Or,
there are free plans online to convert an iMac G3 into a dry fish bowl
where you can hang cut-outs of paper fish; for real ones, add a water tank.
Glad to hear you were able to make an impact on settling the initial concerns.
Good luck & happy computing!

I have an Intel iMac running OSX 10.6.8. I would like to use Final Cut Pro 10.1. I know I need OSX 10.9 for this. Can I run both 10.6.8 and 10.9 on the iMac ? I do not want to convert completely to 10.9 because of my existing software. Thanks for any help

I have an Intel iMac running OSX 10.6.8. I would like to use Final Cut Pro 10.1. I know I need OSX 10.9 for this. Can I run both 10.6.8 and 10.9 on the iMac ? I do not want to convert completely to 10.9 because of my existing software. Thanks for any help

It would depend on how old your IMac is, how mush memory you have, it it can be upgraded by OWC, etc. I have a 2006 Macbook Pro and would NOT put Mavericks on it or espeacially FCP 10.1.1 on it because the most memory it can have is 4 GB. You need at least 8 GB to work with Final Cut Pro 10.1.1. IMHO.
I would try to find a copy of Final Cut Express perhaps.
Does this answer your question?

Just bought a new iMac, with Lion, for my wife. When is was wifi with her old iMac on line with it's printer, HP C6200, no problems printing. Now that it is by itself it does not recognize the C6200...It recognizes my laser hp 1012 and laser hp 6300

Just bought a new iMac, with Lion, for my wife. When is was wifi with her old iMac on line with it's printer, HP C6200, no problems printing. Now that it is by itself it does not recognize the C6200...It recognizes my laser hp 1012 and laser hp 6300 but will not print to them wanting an autenication

How is the C6200 connected to the iMac, is it via USB or Wi-Fi? If it's via Wi-Fi please make sure it's connected to the router using the printer's Network Wizard. Then click System Preferences - Print & Scan and assuming the iMac is on the same network as the printer, if it is the printer should be seen. If it's not then click the + sign and add the printer. Apple provides instructions in Printing Overview OS X Lion

Advice? Networking Airport Express, old iMac and ethernet converter/switch

Got an old iMac (266 mHz, OS 10.3.9, 384M RAM) I'm trying to get wireless and network with wife's laptop and (in a few weeks) a new MacBook. Internet is from a wireless provider (Clearwire.net) and its modem hooks into iMac's ethernet port. Works great.
Also have an Airport Express and I see two options here: Get an ethernet converter for the iMac or an ethernet switch that would connect to the Airport Express and the iMac (Clearwire modem, iMac and Airport Express are in same room, so wire connections not a problem).
The latter is cheaper (switch vs. converter), but would tie me down to that room. How much of a hassle would it be to network the iMac through the converter since it doesn't have an Airport card? Can I set up Airport Express through the Airport Assistant software in OS 10.3.9 on the iMac even though it doesn't (and can't) have a card?

All I can tell you is how I have my home network setup and hopefully that will give you some ideas. I have DSL at home which came with a DSL modem / Wireless router made by Westell. I have an eMac running 10.3.9 which I have an Airport Extreme card installed. I have my old "Grape" tray-loading iMac running OS9.2.2 for which I purchased an Ethernet-to-WiFi bridge device. And finally I have an ancient Windows ME running laptop on which I have a USB-to-WiFi device (I got it in a trade). All three of these I was able to setup and configure to access the internet via the DSL wireless router.
So to answer one of your questions, yes the Ethernet-to-WiFi bridges work fine, are OS independent, do not require drivers, and won't tie up your valuable USB port instead using the Ethernet port you likely are not using anyway.
However, the one thing I have not bothered to do is to share the computers with each other. In other words, all of them can connect to the internet but none of them are set up to see the others or share files. For what little sharing or file moving I need to do, I just use an USB Flash drive, which all three computers can see/use fine and transfer stuff that way if I need to.
Hope that at least helps a little with your quest,
Patrick

Want to convert my old imac to WiFi

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