Raspberry Pi in an iMac G4?

[Rolpa]

Hello everybody!

To put a long story short, I got a broken iMac G4 for free off of Craigslist. It should be an insanely easy fix (snapped hard disk cable), but in the event it isn't, I was wondering if a RasPi would do the trick, as there is not a lot of real estate space present inside that case.

This computer would be for my ten year old niece. She's a smart kid who does well in school, and I feel she should have her own computer that she can use without having to share with the rest of the family. Furthermore, I am a computer science student in university, and when I showed her some of my homework, she showed some interest! Therefore, it would need to be able to:

-Do web browsing

-Office functions (word documents, etc.)

-Play music (this is not absolutely necessary, but she is ten, and would probably love to listen to music on it).

Would a RasPi be capable of these functions? The only thing I am a little worried about is the small amount of ram, but perhaps that is not a huge problem. The other thing I was thinking about was setting up Mac4Lin so that it could even look like OSX, even if it is actually Linux.

What are your thoughts on this? Could this work?

[Benedict White]

What drives the display and how much soldering do you fancy doing? It's an LCD, so it depends on how it's driven There is a connector on the Pi for an LCD panel, but you would have to take apart the screen to find out what the panel was and then check the spec sheet.

Can't comment on the mac for Linux look, not used it so I don't know how power hungry a desktop it is.

That said, the Raspberry Pi is tiny and will easily fit in the space.

[Rolpa]

Well, as it turns out, the monitor connects to the logic board using some sort of proprietary connector. After about a half an hour of searching all over my G4's logic board, it seems that the port for said connector was snapped off the motherboard by the previous owner. So I think a RasPi would by the way to go here.

I highly doubt there is a converter for this to HDMI, but as it seems to be some sort of VGA variation, I suspect there is some pinout info online.

[nvoid82]

The lcd for an Imac g4 uses a mipi dsi protocol, which might allow it to be connected directly to the pi.

[Macburn]

The LCD for all three sizes of the iMac G4 uses TMDS signaling.  This makes the LCD directly compatible with HDMI.  You would need to power both the LCD and the inverter, however.  There is no adapter, but the pinout is available and the pins can be adjusted to interface with a DVI connector.  This sounds like a nice project and a very thoughtful gift. I think the iMac G4 looks as great now as it did then.  I'd be happy to offer any assistance should you need.

[cyclesax]

Perfect use for my G4.

[bwoodbury]

Here's a link to someone that did this mod (but not with a Pi)

http://dremmeljunkie.blogspot

[BowlerNona]

Completely possible if you have the patience. You'll need to get an HDMI to DVI adapter and then follow the DremelJunkie guide listed above. This is the exact project I'm working on now. I'll post updates/guide if anyone is interested.

[heat33330]

What's the specs. and the screen size? If it's a 1.25GHz G4 you'd be better off installing 1gb+ of RAM, installing Mac OS X Leopard, install the correct G4 optimised version of Camino(for web browsing) and Bean or OpenOffice or Libreoffice or Microsoft Office 2004(all for office use) then use a fully updated iTunes for music.

[glaz]

Hi BowlerNona

I would like to know if you did your guide?
because I'm very interested by it.

thanks

[koop]

Completely possible if you have the patience. You'll need to get an HDMI to DVI adapter and then follow the DremelJunkie guide listed above. This is the exact project I'm working on now. I'll post updates/guide if anyone is interested.

Hi, BowlerNona.

I started out following the DremelJunkie guide, but then got a bit confused at the pin-out stage (mine is a 15 inch). I just bought a pi and would love to get it working as you've described. Have you had success using an HDMI to DVI adapter? I'd really appreciate any advice you could offer.

[erika_souza]

Hi,
I'm new to this Pi thing but i also have an old iMac G4 that would love to see "working" with a Pi. Did anyone actually make it?

Thanx

[koop]

I haven't, but still have the project tucked away. I bought a 3 that I've been tinkering with in the event that I ever get the display working.

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Can't you simply use an LVDS adapter for this task? Don't know the display but can't imagine it's mare than 8-bit colour (so 3 LVDS data signal pairs + clock signal pair).

[koop]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it shot!

[erika_souza]

I'll try whatever works!!

thanx