recheck the iMac ram - I have a 600mhz G3 iMac at work and it only has TWO slots in it. I have 512meg PC100's in each and the gig works nicely. Check out a local computer store for their 'old ram' - PC100 was common on PCs and not in vogue anymore, you ought to be able to get a better deal.
Know any place I can get a cheap slot-feeding DVD reader for it? 'Pulls' are hard to come-by these days (it's gotta have Apple ROMs on it so it'll be bootable)...
I've heard that *some* of the iMacs will take the 512mb in both slots (I think over on http://www.LowEndMac.com/ ) but have been reluctant to take this apart. I have the book "My iMac" which shows how to take apart and put together for RAM and hard drive upgrades, and presumably for Harmoni, which is getting cheaper suddenly. A couple of companies made internal CD burners for the "mezzanine", tray-loading iMacs such as I have, and a few months back I found a source of at least one type.
Probably the best bet is to upgrade the PowerMac 7600 across this room. Sonnet makes an 800 Mhz G4 upgrade, and I found an online source which is selling it with a Firewire, or FW/USB adapter, as a bundle. I want to use the ADS Dual Drive case (which got hard to find all of a sudden; it is FW/USB and comes with Mac software) and plunk in a DVD burner, probably from Sam's. Backing up drives won't be such a chore then.
CD (not DVD) slot-loading burner for original iMacs:
http://www.mcetech.com/imacrw.html
http://www.technowarehousellc.com/incddrivfori.html
DVD burners for your iMac:
internal:
http://www.mcetech.com/dvdrwimacsl.html
external:
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SD16FWUSB2-D&Category_Code=STORFWCDDVDRW&Product_Count=2
The analog TV signal will cease on December 31, 2006, IOW a little over a year from now. By that time those of us without cable or satellite will need a converter box. I first heard of this changeover in the late 1990s, but have lousy analog reception, so I started to look into it tonight, and found out the date, which I couldn't recall.
http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO-rgbtcspd/learningcenter/home/tv_hdtv.html