Boomer down! Boomer down!
So, after 4 and a half years, Boomer (G3 800MHz dual-USB iBook) has finally died. It has been suffering from backlight issues for a while (the backlight would turn off intermittently when moving the screen - rectified by putting the machine to sleep, then waking it up); but a few days ago the screen image began to distort and flicker strangely and now the display refuses to come on at all. Listening to the boot sequence and blindly logging in, the machine still seems to be functioning (I can even hear the alert noise when Google Notifier finds new mail). I had hoped it was merely a hinge cable issue (common on this model apparently) or that the LCD had died, but the external video also appears to have failed, leading me to suspect it's another of the common failures of this model; Logic board failure (partial). Annoyingly, the Apple repair program for this issue ended in July this year, meaning I'm probably looking at about £300+ for an official repair. Even carrying out the replacement myself, working logic boards for this model are selling on eBay for hundreds of pounds - not worth the cost for a machine so old (it has never been able to play H.264 and YouTube videos smoothly).
I hadn't backed up my purchased iTunes tracks for a while, but luckily the machine still boots into Firewire target disk mode, meaning I can connect it to another Mac and copy across anything I need from Boomer's hard drive. With the machine itself still functioning, I'd like to find a use for it - perhaps using it as a local server of some kind, but not being able to see the interface, I'm unable to configure anything on it directly (and unfortunately, SSH access or other forms of remote access were not enabled).