whats good to do with used old Power Mac G4 that someone is giving away?

I don't see the point of keeping it and assigning one of those specialty tasks to it, since any newer computer will accomplish them better.

It would not handle OS X 10.5 Leopard too well, but 10.4 Tiger should run great.

I usually give my older Macs away to a relative -- someone who doesn't need the latest and greatest software. Old macs are great for someone who doesn't know a whole lot about computers, being immune to 99.9% of viruses/adware/etc.

Mirror drive door model? Server.

Anything else? Throw it at someone.

or off something!

Could you give some more details as to what kind of G4 it is? There were several. Is it single/dual processor? How much RAM, etc..

As for what you could do with it, as aibo mentioned, it could be good for internet use if you like to browse but don't like the virus/adware/spyware factors. If you wanted to invest some money into it, you could buy a CPU upgrade, max out the RAM, add SATA drives through a PCI card, upgrade the video card, etc.. This would be kind of a hobby thing, though, as maxing out all available upgrade options could run between the price of a high Mac Mini to a low iMac. Still, if I had the money to put into it, I'd do exactly that to the G4 I recently acquired, simply to see how it would perform...kind of like being a 1950's grease monkey, souping up his model-T.

Check out http://www.lowendmac.com for more info about your G4. TONS of info concerning older Macs. You might even find a buyer there if you wanted to sell it.

supernova87a said:

nope -- it has a plain gray cd drive front, and what I think may be a floppy drive (shudder) slot.

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I'm guessing that's a ZIP drive slot. They could hold 100 MEGABYTES of storage! Wooohooo! I have one of these G4s sitting around collecting dust in my office. I'm putting it up on CraigsList in a day or two ($50 or best offer). If that doesn't work, it's going to the recycler.

I have 933MHz G4 (not mirror) running Leopard Server just fine. It's headless, so I don't need to worry about Flash performance or the like.

I've had a G3 B&W running Jaguar Server for 5 years 24/7. The Mail services are cranky sometimes (that's why the upgrade to the G4 and Leopard), but otherwise, runs just fine (Apache, routing, FTP, etc.).

Just because it's not the latest and greatest, doesn't mean there's not a task suited for it. Check out the prices for the G4s - they demand more than $50 anywhere - especially for those capable of running 10.5 (>=867MHz).

supernova87a said:

Hi all,
I'm a PC user since forever, but someone a few doors down is getting rid of an old Power Mac G4 (from the label on the back). I have never really used a mac besides when I have to, as a linux surrogate for research. I wonder, should I even bother with it even if it's free? What can you do with such a machine? Garageband? video editing? or just web browsing, and that's it? Can it handle the latest OS X (?), which I assume it will need?

Thanks!

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That all depends on things you haven't mentioned - like what speed CPU does it have, how much RAM, what video card, and whether or not its IO has been enhanced with PCI cards (like USB 2.0). Even free, it probably isn't worth sinking a lot into upgrading it, but if it already has some decent specs then there's a lot that can be done with it.

aibo said:

It would not handle OS X 10.5 Leopard too well, but 10.4 Tiger should run great.

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That depends on what speed CPU it has and how much memory. I run Leopard on my PM G4 w/ 1.0GHz CPU and 1.3GB RAM and its performance is similar to Tiger.

supernova87a said:

nope -- it has a plain gray cd drive front, and what I think may be a floppy drive (shudder) slot.

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The PM G4 never had a floppy drive, unless somebody added a USB floppy. It could be a Zip drive.

media server!

Eric S. said:

That depends on what speed CPU it has and how much memory. I run Leopard on my PM G4 w/ 1.0GHz CPU and 1.3GB RAM and its performance is similar to Tiger.

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I guess it's all subjective if you still find it useable because after installing Leopard on my Digital Audio G4 with 1.33GHz/2MB L3 upgrade, Radeon 9800, 1.5GB RAM, eSATA, etc and it was painfully slow -- it's what pushed me to finally buying a Mac Pro. Lots of beachballs which I attributed to the increased Leopard RAM footprint. There aren't many G4's out there faster than what I had, so I totally advising against going with Leopard.

Whats good to do with used old Power Mac G4 that someone is giving away? you ask...

Well,

They're too big for paperweights,
Too cumbersome for a door-stop,
Not heavy enough for a boat anchor,
Too uncomfortable to be used as a stool,

Hmm,

You could put it in a catapult and start a new fad to see who's design can chuck it the farthest.
You could use a fastax camera and film a 50 caliber bullet blowing it to bits at 36,000 frames per second and you-tube it.
You could throw it at an annoying cat when it screams in your yard at 4 AM - you might need to practice with a PC a bit 1st tho.
You could send it to a needy child in poorest Africa but they have no electricity to use it with.
You could fill it with Coke and poor Mentos into the CD slots.
You could experiment with thermite and see how long it took to melt completely through.
You could burn it in a ritual fire to the surfer god but I'm not sure the surfer god is that kind of a surfer.

I'm stuck. You'll think of something I'm sure.

aibo said:

I guess it's all subjective if you still find it useable because after installing Leopard on my Digital Audio G4 with 1.33GHz/2MB L3 upgrade, Radeon 9800, 1.5GB RAM, eSATA, etc and it was painfully slow -- it's what pushed me to finally buying a Mac Pro. Lots of beachballs which I attributed to the increased Leopard RAM footprint. There aren't many G4's out there faster than what I had, so I totally advising against going with Leopard.

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I suppose it depends on what apps you're running, but I never see beachballs. I guess it is subjective but I see no difference in response time between Tiger and Leopard.

grue said:

Mirror drive door model? Server.

Anything else? Throw it at someone.

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I have an old dual-500 Sawtooth that I use for encoding for DVD. Sure it takes longer but the quality in the older Compressor is better. Still runs like a champ.

Tesselator said:

Whats good to do with used old Power Mac G4 that someone is giving away? you ask...

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always good for a laugh Tess lol.

DoFoT9 said:

always good for a laugh Tess lol.

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Hehe, Pika and my grandkids get it.




Excellent shot BTW Pika!!

Tesselator said:

Hehe, Pika and my grandkids get it.

Excellent shot BTW Pika!!

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im glad you get it.. because i certianly dont!

DoFoT9 said:

im glad you get it.. because i certianly dont!

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Those are three Macs motherboards on the wall there being used as "art".

Tesselator said:

Those are three Macs motherboards on the wall there being used as "art".

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well i got that part lol...is that a GPU i can see right up the top??

I use my old Sawtooth as a file server.