I thought of some more things to try overnight.
The is a reset button amoung all the ports to the right on the iMac g3 233.
Here is how to reset the logic board. Scroll down for the imac g3
http://www.macusersguide.com/2009/05/resetting-pram-nvram-pmu/
Here is the mac alternative to bios.
Magical Macintosh Key Sequences
http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.html
http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.pdf
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
Startup keys
http://macs.about.com/od/macoperatingsystems/qt/osxstartupkeys.htm
I have a list of magical boot key sequences:
Key Combinations-- Effect
* mouse down -- Eject removable media ( I think Boot ROMs prior to 2.4f1 excluded the CD drive )
* opt -- Bring up OF system picker on New World machines.
iMac g3 400 or newer machine
* cmd-opt -- Hold down until 2nd chime, will boot into Mac OS 9 ?
* cmd-x (or just x?) -- Will boot into Mac OS X if 9 and X are on the same partition and that's the partition you're booting from.
* cmd-opt-shift-delete -- Bypass startup drive and boot from external (or CD). This actually forces the system to NOT load the driver for the default volume, which has the side effect mentioned above. For SCSI devices it searches from highest ID to lowest for a partition with a bootable system. Not sure about IDE drives.
* cmd-opt-shift-delete-# -- Boot from a specific SCSI ID # (# = SCSI ID number)
* cmd-opt-p-r -- Zap PRAM. Hold down until second chime.
* cmd-opt-n-v -- Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in Open Firmware.
* cmd-opt-o-f -- Boot into open firmware
* cmd-opt-t-v -- Force Quadra AV machines to use TV as a monitor
* cmd-opt-x-o -- Boot from ROM (Mac Classic only)
* cmd-opt-a-v -- Force an AV monitor to be recognized as one
* c -- Boot from CD. If set to boot to X and no CD is present, may boot to 9.
* d -- Force the internal hard disk to be the startup device
* n -- Hold down until Mac logo, will attempt to boot from network server (using BOOTP or TFTP)
* r -- Force PowerBooks to reset the screen
* t -- Put FireWire machine into FireWire Target Disk mode
* z -- Attempt to boot using the devalias zip from first bootable partition found
* shift -- (Classic only) Disable Extensions
* shift -- (OS X, 10.1.3 and later) Disables login items. Also disables non-essential kernel extensions (safe boot mode)
* cmd -- (Classic only) Boot with Virtual Memory off
* space -- (Classic only) Trigger extension manager at boot-up
* cmd-v -- (OS X only) show console messages during boot
* cmd-s -- (OS X only) boot into single user mode
Did not work simply 'z'?