The main reason I suggested alternator is because ive had a few go out on me on various vehicles and they gave the same symptons you are having. On the older vehicles before all of the electronics, it wasnt that bad, you could pretty much run all day long on just the battery, especially if your vehicle used points in the distributor, as long as you didnt need headlights, wipers, radio, etc. The battery alone would power the engine/distributor, blinkers, etc. just fine for quite some time. But on the newer vehicles, if the alternator isnt putting out enough, or any, power and your battery is already drained due to it not getting charged by the alternator, then your engine will idle low and not want to run at all, especially once you pull the jumper cables.
On the other hand, several times, especially here lately, while working on either the wifes vehicle or my own, we had the radio on and ran the battery down completely. Put cables on it and jumped it, and it just fired and died. Did that constantly until the battery actually had a little charge and was holding. So im still guessing alternator or battery.
Would be a good idea too, if you have a charger, to put that battery on charge for awhile and try to fire it up after a few hours or so with a fresh charge on the battery and see what happens. Either way, im curious to see what it is. Hope you get it fixed soon, and cheap!!
(Definitely dont go buy anything until someone trustworthy has tested your current equipment.)
:snacker: