things eventually went okay.
it refused to fully install 10.3 on my old boot drive, the 55gig. probably because of corrupted stuff on it, or something strange with scsi vs. ide internal drives not getting along.
so, I wiped one of the 9gigs (that sounds like an airplane), and did a clean install on that.
i've never had more discs/drives loaded at once. it's kindof, strange.
also, on the 120gig firewire, I was finally able to recover one of the partitions! it has some of my first mp3's, from 1998 or so. anyone who knows what program's filetype icon that is gets bonus points. it also has all my 1mp digital photos from 2001/2002.
no slot for airport card. no way to (easily/safely) get cabling up to my room. options are pci card or usb dongle.
usb wifi, yes! nothing for mac that's under 70$? fsck...
so I find a site that mentions anything using a certain chipset is cool, because the chipset makers have mac drivers. so i get a list of all models carrying their chipset.
and i go through them, one by one.
four hours from starting, I've purchased this little guy. 25$ at
newegg.com, where it's 39.99+ elsewhere.
(31$ with tax and 3 day shipping. and that was 31$ that was supposed to be part of "alexis stop being depressed, fucking leave the house and go buy a new hoodie and or see a movie" money, but, internet = more required for my life than a jacket/fun.)