Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

If you had this... what would you do with it?

R

ReflecTruth

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
16
14
I have 3 Mac computers in my house:
  1. MacBook
  2. MacBook Pro
  3. and a PowerMac G4

The PowerMac is a very dated machine. The specs on it (see below) are very weak. It can't even handle the latest OS, Leopard. The cd/dvd read-only drive no longer works. I keep the G4 running as an "internet browser", but it rarely gets used. It just sits in our office.

Here's my question: If this dated PowerMac G4 was your machine, what would you do with it?

NOTE: I considered using it as a media server, but it cannot connect to an Apple TV. :(

Is the machine worth anything? Could it be sold? What should I do with this thing? Please advise.
 
Don't you dare sell it.

Use it as a file server, and SSH onto it with Chicken of the VNC. Upgrade it so far it thinks it's a PMG5. Paint it or mod it in some way. Give it to the kids. Give it to me. :D Put it in the kitchen to store all your recipes on. Put it in your room so it can be an iTunes jukebox, or put it somewhere else for that same purpose.

Shall I continue?
 
Can't see the specs but you could do what I did to a 733 G4 for home.

Put a SATA card in it, put some big SATA drives in it, put Tiger on it, connect it by 1000 T (gigabit) ethernet to the rest of your network and use it as a storage device for backing up to. I've put mine under my kitchen sink, chained to the pipes, just in case of burglary... if my MBP goes, at least I've got everything backed up.

With Leopard on the other machines, you can view its desktop and control it, via Screen Sharing. You can use any number of backup utilities to use to backup the other machines to it, and you can wake it from sleep using WakeUp.
 
Blue Velvet said:
Can't see the specs but you could do what I did to a 733 G4 for home.
<snip>
Click to expand...
Nice to hear.

I still use my PowerMac 933. I can boot into Tiger and Mac OS 9.2 which is fantastic for me.

Only complaint is that it is a bit noisy. One of these days, I think that I will swap out the power supply for a silent one and get a CPU upgrade for it.
 
sushi said:
Nice to hear.

I still use my PowerMac 933. I can boot into Tiger and Mac OS 9.2 which is fantastic for me.

Only complaint is that it is a bit noisy. One of these days, I think that I will swap out the power supply for a silent one and get a CPU upgrade for it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, these old PowerMacs are rocks. My old machine before my TiBook before my mini before my ThinkPad was a dual 800MHz Quicksilver with 1.5GB RAM, Leopard, and an ATI Radeon 8500. Solid as hell.

Right now I'm trying to set up a hybrid writing machine/server, with a 400MHz Blue+white G3 and a NIB Apple Extended keyboard I. Hope it goes well!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back