I'd love to hear from those who are placing Old Macs. What they're
doing, how and where.
This list is far from active enough.
Hoping to inspire, I wanted to let you all know about the Macs I use
daily:
1. At Home, a G4 Dual 450mhz. Main dog that keeps my P III PC off the
table and on the floor.
2. At Ready, a G3 "Smurf" cloned to be identical to the G4 should it
turn up toes and stop. it
would stand in while I rebuilt the G4.
3. A Home Fall-Back. a sometimes used G3 500mhz. iBook also cloned to
the G4 for
portable work.
4. At Work, a "Pismo", my main machine. The workhorse through which I
place items on eBay
and answer emails, etc. during the very busy days at NextStep
Recycling. As expected, my
absolute favorite computer, bar none.
5. At Work, a Beige G3 Tower running a 333mhz. CPU. The mule that
burns CDs for me,
tests monitors, helps me refurbish Old Macs that end up on eBay,
and other odds and ends.
I am very comfortable with these machines. They're not obsolete as
long as they will run O.S.
Ten, and have the speed that satisfies me in what I do with them.
No inspiration needed by me. As a Christmas present to deserving kids
in the Eureka area, I refurbished six G3 clamshell iBooks. All were
stock 300 MHz Blueberry machines with 3 GB hard drives. I upped the
RAM to at least 96 MB, bought $15 AC adapters for 5 of them, wiped and
tested the hard drives, cleaned them inside and out, and loaded OS
9.2.2 and my special kids' games/learning pack. I made sure all Apple
updates were done; interestingly, all required a firmware update.
Since the iBooks were repurposed as stand-alone kids' games/learning
machines, there was no need to do anything about the original and very
dead batteries other than leave them in place as ballast to keep the
iBooks from tipping over. I did include a USB hockey puck mouse for
those kids who can't quite manage to use a track pad.
As with many of the more than 600 Macs I've given away, I received
very excited and heartwarming feedback from the kids after Christmas.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Jim Scott
The Old-Mac Guy in Cutten
P.S.: My personal stash of Macs -- all used regularly by me or family
members -- includes an LC III, two Pismos, an iBook G4 logic board
test bed, a G4/500 Cube, a 1.25 GHz 17" G4 iMac, a Tangerine iBook G3
running 10.3.9, a PowerBook 12" 1 GHz, a PB 15" 1 GHz, a PB 15" 1.5
GHz, a Snow G3/600 iMac, an aluminum13.3" 2.4 GHz MacBook with LED
backlit keyboard and LCD, a mid-2007 20" aluminum iMac, and a couple
of iPod Shuffles and a first-gen iPod Touch. Plus a pile of parts for
all kinds of Macs, and 8 G3 400 iMacs ready to go to new owners in the
days and weeks ahead. I should be getting back a 5200/180 with stuck
hard drive this week that I'll refurb and pass on again to a new owner.
> I'd love to hear from those who are placing Old Macs. What they're
> doing, how and where.
> This list is far from active enough.
> Hoping to inspire, I wanted to let you all know about the Macs I use
> daily:
> 1. At Home, a G4 Dual 450mhz. Main dog that keeps my P III PC off the
> table and on the floor.
> 2. At Ready, a G3 "Smurf" cloned to be identical to the G4 should it
> turn up toes and stop. it
> would stand in while I rebuilt the G4.
> 3. A Home Fall-Back. a sometimes used G3 500mhz. iBook also cloned to
> the G4 for
> portable work.
> 4. At Work, a "Pismo", my main machine. The workhorse through which I
> place items on eBay
> and answer emails, etc. during the very busy days at NextStep
> Recycling. As expected, my
> absolute favorite computer, bar none.
> 5. At Work, a Beige G3 Tower running a 333mhz. CPU. The mule that
> burns CDs for me,
> tests monitors, helps me refurbish Old Macs that end up on eBay,
> and other odds and ends.
> I am very comfortable with these machines. They're not obsolete as
> long as they will run O.S.
> Ten, and have the speed that satisfies me in what I do with them.
> No inspiration needed by me. > As with many of the more than 600 Macs I've given > away, I received > very excited and heartwarming feedback from the kids > after Christmas.
I've gotten 4 good working Beige G3 motherboards I am trying to fit
into PII cases that came in for recycling.
I just got back a B&W that has gone out 4 times now, always coming
back to me after the person gets the bug and buys a new Mac, or at
least a newer one. This time I think it will be going to live as a
free internet access point at a local pizzeria.
I am in the extreme SE corner of South Dakota.
Steve
On Dec 28 2008, 7:11 pm, jeffy <garriso...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd love to hear from those who are placing Old Macs. What they're
> doing, how and where.
> This list is far from active enough.
> Hoping to inspire, I wanted to let you all know about the Macs I use
> daily:
> 1. At Home, a G4 Dual 450mhz. Main dog that keeps my P III PC off the
> table and on the floor.
> 2. At Ready, a G3 "Smurf" cloned to be identical to the G4 should it
> turn up toes and stop. it
> would stand in while I rebuilt the G4.
> 3. A Home Fall-Back. a sometimes used G3 500mhz. iBook also cloned to
> the G4 for
> portable work.
> 4. At Work, a "Pismo", my main machine. The workhorse through which I
> place items on eBay
> and answer emails, etc. during the very busy days at NextStep
> Recycling. As expected, my
> absolute favorite computer, bar none.
> 5. At Work, a Beige G3 Tower running a 333mhz. CPU. The mule that
> burns CDs for me,
> tests monitors, helps me refurbish Old Macs that end up on eBay,
> and other odds and ends.
> I am very comfortable with these machines. They're not obsolete as
> long as they will run O.S.
> Ten, and have the speed that satisfies me in what I do with them.
> I've gotten 4 good working Beige G3 motherboards I > am trying to fit > into PII cases that came in for recycling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a fellow slicer-and-dicer I like hearing that. We just recycled an HP tower that had a white Apple sticker on it. Had my hopes up until I saw the P4 motherboard. =^(
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> I just got back a B&W that has gone out 4 times > now, always coming > back to me after the person gets the bug and buys a > new Mac, or at > least a newer one. This time I think it will be > going to live as a > free internet access point at a local pizzeria.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My oldest Mac Freak Friend, who also works here at NextStep Recyling, passed on a G3 500mhz. ZIF CPU to me which I promptly slid into my Blue and White G3. I am websurfing in style with it using 10.4.11. I won't be giving that up any time soon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep it going, Steve! I like hearing these random In-Field Reports on older Macs pulling their weight.
I just sent an old acquaintance a floppy with 6.0.7. and the drivers for an Asante EN/SC SCSI to Ethernet adapter. He wants to make his Mac Plus talk to his iBook.
