- Joined
- Sep 11, 2009
- Messages
- 9
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- Location
- England
- Your Mac's Specs
- MBP 15" Unibody 2.4
Hello there, community - it's my first post!
I just wanted to let you all know about some fun I've been having with an old machine.
I am a convert from PC. Bought a MBP early this year and am now wishing I'd made the switch a few years ago instead of buying a Dell.
I'm fairly ok at pulling things apart, so having seen an ancient iMac on eBay not long ago and picking it up (locally) for a song (3.70 GBP!) I thought I'd have a go at seeing what it would do. The object would be to let my 9 year old daughter play with it (another PC convert!) and get her used to using a Mac before getting her something faster for her 10th birthday.
It had been slightly upgraded in the past, and the all important firmware had been upgraded, which was good, as I didn't find out about that bit untill I'd actually started loading OS X!
It had 160Mb of ram, and a 10gig hard drive. It was running OS9 and seemed very useable. The original mouse just needed a clean, but the keyboard was a little unresponsive and I couldn't find the right sized allen key to get into it, so I ended up using a white kb and mouse I'd bought earlier to use with my MBP. Easy plug and play.
Then I found a PDF of the take-apart, and decided to upgrade the ram and HD. I thought I'd have a go at putting the PC100 sticks out of an old Compaq Armada laptop (2 x 256) my daughter had been using. To my delight the Bondi machine booted with the new chips. I also had a 60Gb 7200rpm ATA drive out of my old Dell 8200 and that went in, partitioned 7.5Gigs for the system (old iMacs need that apparently) and the rest for storage.
OS X 10.3 runs pretty brilliantly, all things considered. Of course it's a bit slow here and there, and it hates video intensive tasks, but compared to the Compaq laptop she used to use, my daughter thinks it's great. I've learned a lot by 'tinkering' about with an old machine, not worrying about messing anything up or breaking anything as it's basically worthless! I've got a bit of Vram coming over via USA eBay through a mate of mine who lives in Virginia and buys things and sends them to me, so we'll see if that helps it play youtube vids but I'm not holding my breath! In any case though, I'm impressed at the 233MHz machine and can't quite believe it runs in such a 'modern' way. The Compaq has a much faster processor at 650MHz, and was using the same memory but it struggled with XP and was painfully, annoyingly slow. To it's credit though, it played DVD's for her. Just.
One thing I was surprised at; I had read that I needed a USB 2.0 machine and OS X Tiger for her to use her iPod shuffle Mk2, but this little Blue iMac handles it fine. Even with software upgrade limitations now it's no longer supported.
I've now bought a USB 2.0 eMac ready for her 10th birthday and will max it out on the memory (thanks to my mate in the 'states again!) & set it up with Leopard before I give it to her. It should do everything she needs for now. I can't see her editing any video somehow! It'll be internet, itunes and pictures.
She will, in time, no doubt inherit the late 2006 MacBook I just brought back from the dead for her older brother. But - that's another story, for another post!
Cheers!
I just wanted to let you all know about some fun I've been having with an old machine.
I am a convert from PC. Bought a MBP early this year and am now wishing I'd made the switch a few years ago instead of buying a Dell.
I'm fairly ok at pulling things apart, so having seen an ancient iMac on eBay not long ago and picking it up (locally) for a song (3.70 GBP!) I thought I'd have a go at seeing what it would do. The object would be to let my 9 year old daughter play with it (another PC convert!) and get her used to using a Mac before getting her something faster for her 10th birthday.
It had been slightly upgraded in the past, and the all important firmware had been upgraded, which was good, as I didn't find out about that bit untill I'd actually started loading OS X!
It had 160Mb of ram, and a 10gig hard drive. It was running OS9 and seemed very useable. The original mouse just needed a clean, but the keyboard was a little unresponsive and I couldn't find the right sized allen key to get into it, so I ended up using a white kb and mouse I'd bought earlier to use with my MBP. Easy plug and play.
Then I found a PDF of the take-apart, and decided to upgrade the ram and HD. I thought I'd have a go at putting the PC100 sticks out of an old Compaq Armada laptop (2 x 256) my daughter had been using. To my delight the Bondi machine booted with the new chips. I also had a 60Gb 7200rpm ATA drive out of my old Dell 8200 and that went in, partitioned 7.5Gigs for the system (old iMacs need that apparently) and the rest for storage.
OS X 10.3 runs pretty brilliantly, all things considered. Of course it's a bit slow here and there, and it hates video intensive tasks, but compared to the Compaq laptop she used to use, my daughter thinks it's great. I've learned a lot by 'tinkering' about with an old machine, not worrying about messing anything up or breaking anything as it's basically worthless! I've got a bit of Vram coming over via USA eBay through a mate of mine who lives in Virginia and buys things and sends them to me, so we'll see if that helps it play youtube vids but I'm not holding my breath! In any case though, I'm impressed at the 233MHz machine and can't quite believe it runs in such a 'modern' way. The Compaq has a much faster processor at 650MHz, and was using the same memory but it struggled with XP and was painfully, annoyingly slow. To it's credit though, it played DVD's for her. Just.
One thing I was surprised at; I had read that I needed a USB 2.0 machine and OS X Tiger for her to use her iPod shuffle Mk2, but this little Blue iMac handles it fine. Even with software upgrade limitations now it's no longer supported.
I've now bought a USB 2.0 eMac ready for her 10th birthday and will max it out on the memory (thanks to my mate in the 'states again!) & set it up with Leopard before I give it to her. It should do everything she needs for now. I can't see her editing any video somehow! It'll be internet, itunes and pictures.
She will, in time, no doubt inherit the late 2006 MacBook I just brought back from the dead for her older brother. But - that's another story, for another post!
Cheers!