Hey greg - thought you might be kicking around here too! 
Both seem to have sucky optical drives - neither iMac likes booting from these. So it's time to drag my old FW DVD burner, and see how it fares. I suspect I'll be able to get a really nice machine out of these two for my parents to use.
My other half has been kicking along with an iBook 500@600 for years now, which is of a similar ilk in terms of performance, and she is more than happy with it. Since her iBook is now near dead (display issues at startup - ugly path to logic board failure), she might also take a liking to this!
JB
Both seem to have sucky optical drives - neither iMac likes booting from these. So it's time to drag my old FW DVD burner, and see how it fares. I suspect I'll be able to get a really nice machine out of these two for my parents to use.
My other half has been kicking along with an iBook 500@600 for years now, which is of a similar ilk in terms of performance, and she is more than happy with it. Since her iBook is now near dead (display issues at startup - ugly path to logic board failure), she might also take a liking to this!
JB