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What should I do with my 1998 iMac?

E

elmuchoprez

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2007
3
0
A friend of mine was about to get rid of an old 1998 original Bondi Blue iMac, and for some reason, I spoke up and said I'd be more than happy to take it off his hands. I think it was a leftover reflex from when I was a kid and couldn't get my hands on a working machine, so I had to piece together my own creations from old broken computers people were throwing away.

So anyway, now I have this funny looking blue box sitting on my kitchen table and I have no idea what to do with it. It has a 4g hard drive and some minuscule amount of memory. Currently runs a version of OS 8 (which I could upgrade, although the CD drive is busted, so it would be a hassle). Connects to the internet fine.

Anyone have any cool ideas as to what I could do with this giant calculator?

(Oh yeah, I run a PC network at my place, which makes it a pain to connect to anything else considering OS 8.)
 
Donate it somewhere, cause selling it isn't really worth the trouble. Or get it recycled (ultimately it is more of a CRT screen than anything else).
 
I have one of these old iMacs (also a new intel iMac and and intel Macbook) that still works perfectly. I hate to see these machines being recycled when they still do everything they did when new. I have moved mine to a vacant corner of the desk so that when one kid is doing their homework on the new machine the other can play games or one of the other family members can check the weather forecast etc. I'm sure that there are lots of people who would take it off your hands for the same purpose. May be you could load it up with a bunch of simple shareware/freeware kid's games and donate it to a children's charity in your community.
 
can't believe it still runs. we've had 5 of that generation at one point or another...only one of them still boots. the other 4 have been recycled.

3 of them suffered from chronic over-heating (total of 4 Apple-replaced hard drives between them, all physically failed due to overheating). one lost a logic board. The one that still "works" is running os 10.1 and is so blurry (the pixels shake and can't maintain a focus) that it's hard to read stuff even at 800x600.

if we needed a fishbowl...
 
I have a rev. b bondi blue imac in the basement. The cd drive went out in it as well (and also my g4 imac eventually) but you can find some things to allow you to install os x from an external drive. Then I plug it directly into my airport and use it to play my itunes library in the basement as well as safari and mail. Works great!
 
benpatient said:
can't believe it still runs. we've had 5 of that generation at one point or another...only one of them still boots. the other 4 have been recycled.

3 of them suffered from chronic over-heating (total of 4 Apple-replaced hard drives between them, all physically failed due to overheating). one lost a logic board. The one that still "works" is running os 10.1 and is so blurry (the pixels shake and can't maintain a focus) that it's hard to read stuff even at 800x600.

if we needed a fishbowl...
Click to expand...

I was basically given 3 of these with the same problem. What you did was install OSX without updating the firmware! All you have to do is reinstall at least 9.1 download and do the upgrade. Then install OSX and it will work fine! Even apple geniuses call this hardware failure. I guess everyone forgets a typical problem that everyone bitched about 7 years ago!:D

I originally was just going to say this:

There are harmon karmon speakers in that! It makes a perfect itunes box for the porch. If it gets stolen, who cares?
 
1) put explosives in it.

2) threaten to blow it up unless you get cash.

3) depending on how 2 went change to pay me cash to blow this up.
4) give me the money
5) detonate anyways.

6) post video here.
 
Don't blow it up! There are plenty of Dells in the world for that! The speakers really do rock and they are pretty loud!

Itunes box
itunes box
itunes box!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I upgraded one of those for my mother-in-law 4 years ago (she was the original owner, the HD went bad). I put a 30 GB HD in it, some more RAM (can't remember how much, but it was cheap), and installed OS X on it, whatever the flavor of it was at the time. After a firmware upgrade to resolve a video issue, it worked perfectly. Still does, in fact, since all she does on it is play music with iTunes, get e-mail, and browse the web. Certainly not a machine you want to throw away if it still works - there's a million ways you could make someone's life better with one of those.
 
jkaz said:
max out the ram, load the latest version of osx and make a server out of it
Click to expand...

I just found this forum...and was just offered a used 1998 Imac, so was glad for your info.

Can you add memory to it? Can you download Ubuntu to it?
Will it have security problems (like the Windows XP I have suddenly will?)

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
Heck, at this point I'd stuff it in the attic and let it sit for another decade or so. Who knows: since the original iMac is a bit of an icon, it might be worth something to a collector someday. Original, working Apple I's are fetching huge sums these days (close to half a million at auction).
 
Garage Computer ? Swap the insides out for a mac mini and a LCD that fits the opening?

Where there's a will... there's a way to keep that Mac alive, even if it takes a little bit of plastic surgery.
 
If it's still working fine, then making it into a fishbowl is kinda a waste. I would look for a rectrocomputing club in your area, and ask them if they want a donation. there are a lot of geeks out there who collect old computers who would be happy to give a mostly-working bondi blue original iMac a really good home.
 
Sounds like a potential Zoolander situation! :D

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susaninwa said:
I just found this forum...and was just offered a used 1998 Imac, so was glad for your info.

Can you add memory to it?
Click to expand...

You might be able to find some old RAM on eBay that you can add to it.

Can you download Ubuntu to it?
Click to expand...

Current versions of Ubuntu don't support Macs that old. There is an offshoot project called Lubuntu though (the L is for "lightweight") that does support some PowerPC models though, so you might want to to give them a shot.

Will it have security problems (like the Windows XP I have suddenly will?)
Click to expand...

I probably wouldn't do any banking or anything that requires security on whatever old version of Mac OS runs on it. If you can get Lubuntu loaded on there, or something else that's modern, then you should be fine.
 
Do you still have it?

I know this thread is old. But to the creator or anyone who sees this comment: If you have an old imac, I would love to take it out of your hands. One of my hobbies is using old stuff for arts and crafts and if this is just taking space for you, for me its something to have fun with :) So please let me know if you have or know of somebody who has an old 1998 iMac (I could use keyboard and mouse too) please let me know.
Thanks!
 
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