Holding control when I see the apple logo first appear (little smiling computer), or holding command option while starting makes no difference. No matter what it starts up normally, but shows zero menu, or icons on desktop.
I may have a boot disc, as it says boot disk, and someone wrote MDD on it. It may have come from Headgap, the guys who sold me this tiger per loaded hard drive. Maybe there's a way to boot from it, if it is the right thing? Not sure how, but I'll keep searching, and any other advice would be much appreciated.
As noted in the other thread (Keyspan) Chris9lives thoughtfully suggested, if I understand properly, I put a downloadable, from this site, copy of OS9 into a different drive, and then use it to start this G4, but I don't really understand how to do that. I'll look for step by step instructions. Any other suggestions are so very much appreciated.