[G4] Gifted with a G4/500

[John Niven]

1. See if it still works (it turns on, I hear the disk spinning, but I didn't hear the Mac "bong")

This is a little worrying. It should "bong", even without a monitor. Would this machine still have OS 9 on it? It might need a firmware update before converting to osx. This has to be done from os9. So don't wipe the drive yet. Once the firmware update is  done you can junk os9.

I know others like to proclaim the wonders of classic os (I loved os6), but time moves on and unless you have old apps you need to run just go with Tiger. Buy a secondhand retail copy. It will make networking with your MacBook easier also.
Tiger normally comes on a DVD. I assume you have a DVD reader in your G4?

2. Get a monitor (this was already in my plans, because I wanted one for when I need to work for a long time on my Macbook. Can the video card in this computer work with today's monitors?)

What connectors does your video card have? Probably a standard VGA, and maybe a DVI or ADC as well. If you get a monitor with a VGA input, your video card will work up to 1600 X 1200. I would go ahead with the monitor purchase first, because I like to use a monitor with a laptop when not mobile. Maybe you should look for a KVM switch that would allow you to conveniently share a monitor, mouse and keyboard between laptop and G4. 

3. Get more RAM
1Gb is good with Tiger. You should have four slots so you could go for an additional 3 X 256Mb, or even one 256 and one 512. or two 512....... More memory is money well spent.

4. Install Tiger
Yes, but note you might have to use os9 to do the firmware update first.
In your situation, I would aim at using this machine as a back-up for your MacBook. So a priority is one or two big harddrives. These are cheap these days. The limit is two 128GB drives on your internal bus. This means that if you buy 160Gb drives then when you try to format them they will appear as 128Gb. But don't worry about that. I would buy two identical NEW drives and set them up as a RAID mirror. You would then have 128Gb of safe storage.

5. Hard drive? Superdrive? Processor upgrade? 
I suppose the ability to burn a cd from iTunes is useful, but you can do that on your MacBook. If your G4 motherboard can take it, then a dual 500MHz is an easy upgrade, but only worth it for the right deal :-)

You can also look for an original airport card if wireless is an advantage.



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