This is one for the guys that have been using OSX a long time. I've been using OSX since the move to Intel happened, though have had a couple of brief forays with PPC units before, but don't know how to do what I want to do...
Basically, today very generously when I told a lady who was asking me about Mac's "don't throw it out, it might be worth something" I got given an old G4 Power Mac.She was just going to take it to the tip, but offered it to me for free instead! Bonus...
So here I sit typing on it now, it's a 2001 Quicksilver machine, with a single 867MHz processor, a Zip Drive, a 60GB IDE HD and 640MB of RAM (upgraded from the 128MB it was shipped with). And it all works very nicely, having been upgraded from whatever version of OSX it shipped with (10.1 or 10.2 I assume) to 10.4 Tiger...
The first problem I have is that I would like to update it from 10.4.3 which it is on now, to the latest version of Tiger, 10.4.11. But... The user account is password protected, and she didn't give me the password, and I'm not likely to ever see her again sadly! Is there any way to get round the password protection at all, so I can update the machine and other software on it? Or do I have to start again? Which then poses another problem, as I have no install media with it at all... I'd need a copy of OSX Tiger from somewhere, just so I could do a fresh install, and that will cost money on ebay... (Anybody got a retail copy of Tiger kicking about they want to lend me for a few quid, or even sell me for not very much?).
The other problem is compatibility with newer things... Now this machine has two USB ports (1 not 2) and 2 firewire 400 ports, and that's it. Obviously I could buy a PCI card with 4 USB slots on it, but if I buy a USB 2 PCI card, will the machine support the USB 2 speed on those slots, or would it throttle them all back to USB 1? And what about Bluetooth? Any way of adding Bluetooth into the machine without going down the route of a USB bluetooth adapter?
Basically, before anyone tells me to stop being nostalgic, and throw it in the bin, I actually have a proposed use for this machine. I'm skint, so is my housemate, he doesn't have use of a computer right now, he needs only basic uses from a machine such as internet, email and MS Office use (it has an old version of Office still installed, Bonus!). It could sit in the living room, plugged into a big telly, where he can then use it very occasionally when he wants to, with a wireless keyboard (if I can get bluetooth on it). I want a media streaming machine, mainly for music and internet radio but occasional ripped DVD's too (ripped using a modern quad core machine mind), and again this would serve a good purpose there. If I can sort it out cheap!
So... Can anyone help at all? Anyone got a copy of OSX Tiger kicking about? Anyone got any PC133 SDRAM (512MB chips preferably) they no longer need? 
