Other ways to blow off an entire day, long into the night

First, decide to set up that slide scanner you got at that garage sale a month or so ago.

Sounds simple, right?

That SCSI card you installed in that G3 you got a couple of months ago should be fine to run it through. Hook it up. Install the software. Install Photoshop Elements so there's a program to host the the scanner plug-in.

Whoops! The G3 doesn't see the scanner. On second thought, the G3 doesn't see the SCSI card. It sees it, only it doesn't see anything connected to it. Try other SCSI cable. Same deal.

Spend unspecified time fiddling with SCSI ID numbers. Reboot after each failure.

Finally give up and decide to try the whole process in the G4 you also got a couple of months ago. Install the SCSI card in it. This time Photoshop doesn't even seem to be able to find the plug-in. At least the G3 did that.

Perhaps it's that the whole process needs to word under OS 9, and the G3 was upgraded to OS 9.2.2. Proceed to upgrade the OS 9 part of the G4 from OS 9.1 to OS 9.2.1 to OS 9.2.2.

Still doesn't see the plug-in.

Hit the net. Search up specs on G3, G4, Dimage DuaL Scanner, SCSI. Hmmm.

Looks like the scanner uses SCSI 2. Looks like the cards (you tried two, remember?) are SCSI 1. Could this be the problem?

Try installing Photoshop Elements, since that found the plug-in on the G3. You're asked for the password. Password! Must be an OS X thing. Hmmm. You remember that little scrap of paper that was stuck on the G4 when you got it. The guy you bought it from had put down "administrator" as the login name, and some four digit number as the password. 1,2,3,4. That was it. Right? Right.

Try it. "Incorrect password." Try 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4. "Incorrect password." Try every known permutation of those numbers. "Incorrect password."

Commence search of surrounding area, despite everything having been moved several times in the last month. Futile.

It's late. You're tired. You give up.

Oh, look! It's 1am! An entire day has been shot!

Ah, computers....labor and time saving devices.