i think my mac IIci died. when i start the mac i hear the regular start sound. the screen stays black, and the disk little activty in the HD, and won't act on boot disks. then i get the error sound, uually you get the sick/dead mac screen whit this sound, but my screen is black, and my computer stays inactive, its like its dead.

Sounds like a probable graphics card or VRAM fault. If the VRAM is removable (I'm not personally aware of this) then you might be able to get spares from a second hand computer store. That's the first thing I'd check though and it's far from fatal.