What
dpaanlka said -- they're worth nothing in terms of, like, legal currency. In terms of fun and enjoyment, they're worth... about the same
I'll give some advice straight from my soul. You can pass it on to your friend or ignore it.
The simple truth that I have learned is that a decent C2D MacBook or iMac, or a Mac mini is worth what it's worth on the market -- as is a G4 iBook, a NeXTStation, an SGI Indy, and an Atari Mega ST 2. I've owned about fifty computers (last time I counted, I think it was 47, but I don't remember when I last counted), and the ones I've enjoyed most were the newer ones -- the ones that could use modern hardware and software.
I'll give an example. I bought a NeXTStation Mono for $120. This was my first Steve Jobs computer. I'd never even run OS X at that point. It came with 8MB of RAM and a 426MB HD, if I remember correctly, and NeXTSTEP 3.3. It was a lot of fun -- best keyboard I've ever typed on, etc -- except I couldn't do a damn thing else with it. It couldn't mount remote NFS, SMB, or AFP drives because it didn't have certain packages -- which required the CD with the original OS that was too expensive, and required a special CD-ROM. It had a floppy drive, but there was no way I could create a proper NS-formatted floppy, much less fit 3MB and 4MB (at least) programs on it to transfer over. It used ethernet, thankfully, but if I recall correctly it didn't have DHCP and for some reason the networking never worked right, even when I plugged in the values myself. It was a beautiful machine, and the OS was incredible -- but I ended up selling it, and although I've missed it, I haven't really regretted it.
Multiply that by, well, about 40 at this point. SGI machines, Sun machines, Apple machines, Atari machines, PCs, and so on. I've spent an absolutely grotesque amount of money collecting machines, thrown good money after bad trying to fix them up (buying new network cards, buying SCSI CD-ROMs and HDs and obscure RAM, buying display adapters, buying old install media, buying ethernet hubs with coax crossovers... the list goes on and on.
This might all seem irrelevant, or preaching to the choir, or just a bit of bitching and moaning about poor decisions. I don't intend it to be. It's merely cautionary -- tell your friend to keep the values of these machines in perspective and not make a career of almost literally flushing money down the toilet trying to get satisfaction out of these old bastards. Old computers have
character, yes -- but that's really about all they have. Modern machines are more powerful, more versatile, more efficient with electricity and time and resources, and are all around just plain better deals.
</sob story>
