Which Firmware should I use and other questions

do not under any circumstances get OS 10.0. It was junk. 10.1 is widely regarded as the first useable version of OS X. Even apple thought so since they gave it away as a free upgrade to 10.0 users.

But even then, why not go higher. Slot loading iMAcs with firewire work with 10.4. Ones without firewire work with 10.3. That will be a more staisfying experience.

YOu realize you can't just swap processors between iMAcs right? For slot loaders, you need to swap the entire logic board. OF course, that presumes you have a slot loader already. if you have an older machine, you can't do it.

The correct firmware for a slot loader is firmware update 4.1.9. But if you swap the logic board, you'd need to do it again, since that is where the firmware is located. Here's the link: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130

IN regards to question 2, yes you can do that. A slot loading iMac can take up to 1 gig of ram. OS X should run ok with 320 megs, but more is always better. check out ramseeker.com for prices and vendors. Crucial.com and datamem.com as well, which have good reps around here.

You should have an apple audio player on the machine, but iTunes should work fine as well. When you say it "doesn't read it" what happens exactly? Why did you click on iDisk when dealing with an audio CD. Do you have .mac, cause if not, iDisk isn't going to work.

You can't burn CD's on your computer unless you have a CD-Burner. the later iMAcs (600 mhh and up I believe) had CD-RW's. Anything earlier than that, and you'd need an external drive that iTunes supports.

I just saw on another post of yours that you have a 333 mhz tray loader.

IN that case, a fwe things change.

YOu cannot swap processors with a 400 mhz machine. You can't swap logic boards either. They are entirely different.

As for ram, tray loaders support up to 512 megs. You say you ahve 64, whcih is likely in the form of two 32 meg modules. YOu will need to remove one and add a 256 meg module. You can remove both and add two if you like as well. See djonmac.com for upgrade instructions. Same websites I refered you to before are good places to buy ram.

It also gets a different firmware update. You need firmware update 1.2 for that machine. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60384

When you are asking about the ram requirements, you mean what kind fo ram does a tray loader take? In that case, it uses SODIMM PC66 ram.

As for Cd-Burners, externals would have you limited to USB 1 connections since you ahve a tray loading iMac, which is a max 4x speed (slowwwwwww). wegenermedia.com sells an internal replacement if you wanted to go that route, but you're starting to talk about putting a lot of money into an old machine at that point.

You don't need 9.2 to install OS X. The only thing you need to have done is the firmware update.

If you used firmware update 1.2 and it said you may already have newer firmware, then you probably ran it a long time ago and forgot. If you check your apple system profiler, I believe its supposed to say the boot rom is version 3.03f.

10.3 shouldn't be any slower than 10.2 I don't think. Apple's done a good job optimizsing each version of OS X better than its predcessor. But 10.2 was a fine OS as well and can run most OS X software.

external hard drives, like the CD-RW drive option, would be limited to USB 1 speed, which is good only for backup purposes. a better option would be an internal upgrade. see http://www.djonmac.com for instructions.

I understand your concern about buying things with your credit card online, but here's the reality of that situation: far and away most idendity theft occurs from people going through your trash, or using "phishing" email scams, or from friends and relatives. Many of the high profile credit card company breaches have been at the credit card processors themselves, so whether you used your card online or not didn't make a difference to those security breaches. You could get scammed by the employee at a physical store as easily or easier than an online store in many cases. Buying from the internet is safe when you buy from reputable sites with secure pages (indicated by the little yellow lock at the bottom of your browser). if you feel really unsafe about it, some credit cards offer random one time use number generaters for buying online, or you could get a visa gift card or secured credit card which would prevent anyone from having access to any more money than you have on there.