Cinema Display M8149

Hi

The ADC connector/cable combines power to drive the display, the video signal and USB for the hub in the monitor into a single connector/cable to reduce cable clutter.

To connect it to a graphics card with a DVI port, you need a DVI to ADC adapter. Apple sell one for around $99/£69. It's fairly expensive as it includes a power supply to power the monitor through the ADC cable. Don't confuse it with the cheaper ADC to DVI adapter.

Alternatively, if your G4 is a Gigabit Ethernet model or later, you could try and find a replacement graphics card with an ADC port. The Radeon 9000 Pro (Mac Edition) is one example, although it's no longer available retail but appears on eBay occassionally. Graphics cards with an ADC port draw the power through an additional 'slot' just above the standard AGP slot on the logic board, so no separate power supply is required. However, not all logic boards support this, including the original Sawtooth/AGP Graphics models.

The USB ports on the back are useful for plugging in a (USB) keyboard or mouse, especially if you keep the tower on the floor or some distance away.

I hope this helps.

Hi

Firstly there's an ADC to DVI adapter, the cheaper of the two, which allows you to connect a DVI monitor to an ADC port. It's basically just a cable that extracts the DVI video signal from the ADC port.

Secondly there's a DVI to ADC adapter, the more expensive of the two, which allows you to connect an ADC monitor to a DVI port. It includes a power supply in the form of a white 'brick'. It's available from the online Apple store (UK) for £69 (search for DVI to ADC).

All the G4 towers, with the exception of the FireWire 800 models, use an original Apple Airport card (the FireWire 800 models use an Apple Airport Extreme card instead). Unfortunately the original Airport cards were discontinued some time ago and sell for a small fortune on eBay. I bought one fairly recently and paid much more than a brand new Airport Extreme card would have cost from Apple. Alternatively you can buy (Mac compatible) PCI cards such as the Sonnet Aria:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/aria_pci.html

Assuming you're UK based, the following sites sell Mac compatible hardware including the above:

http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/

To watch TV you'd need some form of TV tuner, either in the form of an internal PCI card or an external USB device. MacHeaven seem to sell some, although the earlier G4 models don't have USB 2.0, so an internal PCI card or external Firewire device would probably be a better choice.

Not a genius, just a Mac man through and through 😉