HOWTO: Turn your old CRT iMac into a monitor

[eric2006]

This is what I did with my old iMac a while back, because I couldn't justify having an iMac that was out-of-date taking up desk space. I hooked it up to a monitor/keyboard/mouse switch, and Magic! OS X, Linux, and Windows within a simple knob switch, all on the iMac's monitor

Read the entire article before attempting. For CRT non-slot loading iMacs ONLY.

First, make sure that you're iMac will work for this. Open it up, and it should look like this . See that white cord, that looks like a cross between a VGA and a printer connector? Thats you're video out cable. It's the same type of cable that older macs use. If you don't see it, this won't work.
Ok, now put the iMac back together. You're going to need to buy a converter for that cable. Depending on what setup you want, you'll have to get different stuff.

For converting signal from a VGA output (standard for CRT monitors), you'll need this converter. Example: Windows / Linux box to the iMac monitor.

If you want to make a switch box so that you can switch between your windows and mac computer, you'll need one of these. This will convert the signal out of your iMac to a VGA signal. You can put this signal into a VGA switch box, and then switch between the VGA signals of your PC, and (now) iMac.

Here's some switch boxes.

Now, once everything has arrived, it's time to setup. First, check what setting your monitor is at. You'll need to know what hertz setting it is at, and what resolution. When setting up the iMac as a monitor, you'll have to use the exact hertz setting and resolution, otherwise it will just stay black.

Now, for the iMac's monitor to work with other computers, the iMac has to be on, and the monitor has to be connected to the iMac when the iMac boots up.

Next, take the back cover off the iMac. You will have to keep the iMac on when you do this, or the monitor will turn off. Unplug the white cable we talked about earlier (the monitor will go black), and plug the adapter that converts VGA to the iMac's monitor into this white cable. Now, connect the white cord + adapter to your computer that you want the monitor signal to be coming from. You might need a VGA extension cable, but you can get one at at most computer retail stores. Set the computer to be giving out the same signal as when the iMac was directly connected to the monitor, and it should work! (You might have to connect a regular monitor first, for some reason, my windows box did not recognize the iMac monitor. I connected a regular monitor to it, and it "turned on" the VGA out signal that was going to go to the iMac) You'll probably have to leave the back casing off the iMac for the cables to run through, unless you drill a hole through it, or find some gap.

Please, post if you need clarification. I sold this setup recently, so i can't check specifics, but I remember what I did to get it to work. I bought all the stuff I needed from mcpb.com. They didn't ship the right switch boxes (twice!), but they let me keep the incorrect ones.

[fryke]

(I've only edited the thread title to correct the mistake you've seen after creating the thread and I removed the note about it you put at the top of your post. Hope you don't mind.)

[eric2006]

Thanks.. I'll remember not to trust the built-in spell checker for everything next time..

[thetomester]

I have an iMac G4, flat panel, and I was wondering if this could work for my computer, cause it'll be very cool!

[eric2006]

Originally Posted by thetomester

I have an iMac G4, flat panel, and I was wondering if this could work for my computer, cause it'll be very cool!

I haven't ever opened up an iMac G4, but I would imagine that this wouldn't work on it. The display is probably directly wired to the motherboard. An alternative would be to use a program like VNC to connect to another computer via network, and have a full-screen display, which would look just like a regular computer, and act like one. You won't be able to do graphic-intensize tasks because the framerate will be reallllly low, but office work kinda stuff, no problem.

[thetomester]

First of all, I don't know much about the hardware of a computer, so English please. And next, do you know what other computers it can work with? And do you have to have the big computer box around with you all the time? Also, how would you switch between operating systems?

[eric2006]

Originally Posted by thetomester

First of all, I don't know much about the hardware of a computer, so English please. And next, do you know what other computers it can work with? And do you have to have the big computer box around with you all the time? Also, how would you switch between operating systems?

As far as I know, this only works with the iMac 333, and maeby the 233. You swich between operating systems by a swichbox, that swiches between monitor signals from different computers, and displays one of them on the iMac's monitor.

[keitha]

would this also work with an emac?