My teacher gave me a while ago an old iMac G3 Tray loading computer running Mac Os 9.2.. Since it was used at school, the kids had some fun ripping out the lens in the cd drive, so now im stuck with no cd drive. And to top it all off, everytime i boot my computer and it goes to the desktop, it takes loads of time to load a single message saying the time is incorrect and set to 1973. After I close this window nothing at all appears. I press everything on the keyboard, and then it asks me (sometimes) what is the password to the internet and since I dont know it forces me to shut down the computer. I was thinking of fixing this thing since it looks pretty cool and all and maybe install a bigger HD and Mac OS X on it. But now im lost....what should i do?
First, replace the PRAM battery so that the clock & settings don't get erased at power off.
About the CD drive problem, just get a standard laptop optical drive (standard IDE desktop drives won't fit your iMac physically or electronically without an adapter) to install Mac OS X, or try booting from an external USB CD-ROM drive.
Unfortunately that tray-loader lacks Firewire, which severely limits your options. With Firewire, you could easily attach a Firewire optical drive, or attach the iMac in Target Disk Mode to a Mac with a working optical drive and install OS X that way. I'm not sure a PowerPC Mac will boot anything over USB, I know they won't boot from a USB hard drive. You can try a USB optical drive, but no promises.
Replacing the optical drive could be a pain. According to Apple's service manual, there is a difference between the drives used by the original "Bondi" iMac, and the "Five Flavors" iMacs that could lead to data loss if you use the wrong one. The easiest thing to do might be to find another, dead iMac of the same type (Bondi or one of the five flavors) and swipe the optical drive from that. You can swap the bezel if you're worried about the color not matching.
Otherwise, you could remove the hard drive from the iMac and put it into another Mac, then install OS X on it. OS X isn't like Windows or Linux, it doesn't notice or care if you move it between machines. Just make sure you're installing 10.3.x (Panther) or earlier, and that the machine you're using to install is also supported by that OS. You'll also want to max the RAM out if you're going to run OS X.
Hmm since I can't really do anything with it and for the price they go nowadays i think i might be better off to pick up the important pieces inside it and throw the rest in the garbage. But I really want to have one so i'm going to try to find another working one. A slot loading one preferably, since they are stronger than the tray loading ones and theres less trouble find some ram for the newer models.
Yes, if you want to have an iMac, I highly recommend looking for a slot loader. Mostly for the Firewire port, and the fact that you can take them all the way up to 10.4.x (Tiger). With Tiger on it, you can run Firefox 3.0 and have a fairly useful little web surfing box.
i have an old iMac g3 that refuses to boot what parts do you need? i might be able to send 'em if you pay for shipping.