I had trouble finding any practical suggestions for what exactly and what doesn't, that I'm posting just to share what worked for me. 
So this time, no complaints or questions from me.
So, iMac G4 with Tiger 10.4.11, no Bluetooth. I wanted to connect a wireless keyboard because it's so hard to find wired keyboards that have no num pad but do have Mac friendly key labels as well as scandies.
From what I read, people were basically saying that "any random bluetooth dongle would work" to give this computer support. But when I looked up any random bluetooth dongles, they all looked very similar but the descriptions of many would even specifically state that they would NOT work on a Mac. That, or, no mention of Macs at all. When looking up info on the actual chips used in these dongles, even Broadcom's website was a bit "Mac hostile". What to trust?
I ended up getting a very generic looking, small and cheap dongle in its package, from eBay. The description said that it would work on Macs, and in the picture of its packaging, there was a row of Windows OS symbols as well as a blue smiling Finder icon but on it, no mentions of which version of "smiling Finder" it would play along with. I had seen other Bluetooth dongle packages that looked the same with the exception that it was just a row of Windows OS logos and smiling Finder in the lineup.
I got my dongle today. Interestingly, its package is what I saw a lot of: Featuring a lineup of Windows OS logos, NO smiling Finder like in the eBay article! In the back, it lists specifications as follows:
Now I think if you're looking for a dongle and the ones available mention what chip they're based on, anything using BCM2070, probably should work then.
I plugged in the dongle and powered up the G4. It automatically opened Bluetooth assistant to search for input devices. I pressed the pairing button on my Logitech K760 solar keyboard, the G4 saw it, asked me to type in a shown number sequence to confirm pairing, and it was done. K760 allows 3 devices to be paired simultaneously and you can use three buttons on it to hot-swap input into another device; I think one of these days I'll test what happens if I've paired my G4 as well as my newer Mac to different layers of that keyboard, how well it responds if I toggle input between the two computers on the go. That will actually probably be fine... But there might be problems if I pair one to G4 and one to Bootcamp Windows on another computer, and try to toggle between those. Windows has been terrible at handling BT devices, basically forcing you to re-pair the same devices almost every time.
If you've added Bluetooth to your computer that didn't have it, feel free to post and describe what worked for you so there's specific info floating around. If you don't know what chipset your dongle uses, I think it might be viewable via About This Mac > System Report.
So this time, no complaints or questions from me.So, iMac G4 with Tiger 10.4.11, no Bluetooth. I wanted to connect a wireless keyboard because it's so hard to find wired keyboards that have no num pad but do have Mac friendly key labels as well as scandies.
From what I read, people were basically saying that "any random bluetooth dongle would work" to give this computer support. But when I looked up any random bluetooth dongles, they all looked very similar but the descriptions of many would even specifically state that they would NOT work on a Mac. That, or, no mention of Macs at all. When looking up info on the actual chips used in these dongles, even Broadcom's website was a bit "Mac hostile". What to trust?
I ended up getting a very generic looking, small and cheap dongle in its package, from eBay. The description said that it would work on Macs, and in the picture of its packaging, there was a row of Windows OS symbols as well as a blue smiling Finder icon but on it, no mentions of which version of "smiling Finder" it would play along with. I had seen other Bluetooth dongle packages that looked the same with the exception that it was just a row of Windows OS logos and smiling Finder in the lineup.
I got my dongle today. Interestingly, its package is what I saw a lot of: Featuring a lineup of Windows OS logos, NO smiling Finder like in the eBay article! In the back, it lists specifications as follows:
- Bluetooth 3.0+EDR, compatible with Bluetooth 1.2/2.0/2.1
- Full-speed USB 2.0 Interface, USB 1.1 compatible
- System support: Win98/Win2000/XP/Vista/Win7/Win8/Win10
- Can work with 7 devices at the same time
- Can work with bluetooth printer and stereo headphone
- Supports Bluetooth voice data
Now I think if you're looking for a dongle and the ones available mention what chip they're based on, anything using BCM2070, probably should work then.
I plugged in the dongle and powered up the G4. It automatically opened Bluetooth assistant to search for input devices. I pressed the pairing button on my Logitech K760 solar keyboard, the G4 saw it, asked me to type in a shown number sequence to confirm pairing, and it was done. K760 allows 3 devices to be paired simultaneously and you can use three buttons on it to hot-swap input into another device; I think one of these days I'll test what happens if I've paired my G4 as well as my newer Mac to different layers of that keyboard, how well it responds if I toggle input between the two computers on the go. That will actually probably be fine... But there might be problems if I pair one to G4 and one to Bootcamp Windows on another computer, and try to toggle between those. Windows has been terrible at handling BT devices, basically forcing you to re-pair the same devices almost every time.
If you've added Bluetooth to your computer that didn't have it, feel free to post and describe what worked for you so there's specific info floating around. If you don't know what chipset your dongle uses, I think it might be viewable via About This Mac > System Report.
