And, no, Apple's OS is not downloadable.
Kees
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I have been told that my M5521 All-in-one will run Tiger 10.4 os. When I turn it on I get a little file in the middle of the screen and can hold down Alt and get a couple of boxes with arrows but that's all. Is there some kind of os that I can download just to see if the thing works before I spend $ on Tiger?
My local Apple store says "just bring it in and for $99 we will load your os and let you know if it works." I'm not broke but I ain't stupid either. I'd just like to see what a Mac is all about.
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It is an old version of the iMac that is not really capable of running OS X 10.4 smoothly, if at all.
Versions of the M5521 model iMac had different specs as the production line moved along.
The line started out with a 350Mhz G3 processor and 64MB of RAM and ended up with a 400Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM.
Minimum system requirements for OSX, in 2000, was a 350Mhz G3 processor and 128 MB of RAM. Later versions of OS X require G4 processors and much more RAM to function well.
The best version of OS X for this machine, if the RAM is above 128MB, is 10.3.9
Although 10.4 will actually run on your machine, its performance will be abysmal.
You need to be more specific as to what those two boxes look like. Holding down the OPTION key will bring up the StartUp manager and give you a choice of what disk you want to boot from.
If one of your boxes shows a Blue X, use the mouse to click on it and then hit the Return key.
Did it boot into anything?
OS X, any version, is not available for download and can only be purchased from places like eBay or Amazon, but it is NOT cheap.
$99 is a good price, assuming that your machine meets all the tech specs for running OS X.
However, with a machine this old, what you are attempting to do, "just like to see what a Mac is all about", is rather like you getting an old PC, installing Windows 95, just to see what this Windows 7 is all about.
P