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What to do with an old iMac.

stoid

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 17, 2002
4,312
29
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I recently was given an old-ish 400Mhz Ruby iMac slot-loaded and FW with 128MB of RAM. I already have a 1.25Ghz 15 inch PowerBook, so it is certainly not my main computer. Since it can boot into 9, it is nice for playing some games that require it. What else can I do with this? Is it possible to use it's monitor as a second monitor for my PowerBook. It does have a VGA port (certainly for mirroring) in the 'butt'.
 
I'm not familiar with older Macs, so I'm not sure what 400MHz might do for you.

Maybe you can use it to back up files / music, in case something ever happens to your PB.

You could always go the charitable route, too, and give it away to a classroom or charity that needs it.
 
Duff-Man says....it looks to me like you don't really need it so I would say donate it somewhere...there are lots of places that would get some really good use out of it and you'll get a nice warm-fuzzy and maybe even a tax deduction....oh yeah!
 
I do have a use for it though. Playing my plethora of Mac OS 9 games that don't jive with Classic.

Looks like the only other use would be to perform 'mods' on it I guess. Nothing $$$-wise as I am a poor college student.
 

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fold
give to charity/church/school
mod it
take a sledge hammer too it

comon! use your imagination!

Personally, I would put in a 160 or 200GB hard drive, new speakers, and use it to listen to music/or backup.

If I were you with a PowerBook, I'd use it as a dual display thing you mentioned earlier.
 
musicpyrite said:
Personally, I would put in a 160 or 200GB hard drive, new speakers, and use it to listen to music/or backup.
Click to expand...
Not to be overly picky, but it won't see much over 120GB. Good idea otherwise. Put it on your home network for all your music or something.
 
A 400 iMac is great in every way. It is my ONLY computer presently, and there is nothing I can imagine better for the money than my iMac DV400. YOu could donate it to me, if you are really desperate for something good to do with it, but I am sure that it will be a great computer fopr you as long as you wish to use it.
 
yeah, put that iMac to work! Install Folding@home or even SETI@home and let it run 24x7. Keep a record of the uptime, it'll probably never crash.
 
sigamy said:
yeah, put that iMac to work! Install Folding@home or even SETI@home and let it run 24x7. Keep a record of the uptime, it'll probably never crash.
Click to expand...
Ya never know, with OS 9 :rolleyes:...is there even a folding@home client for OS 9? I know there's a seti client for it though. Personally I would upgrade the RAM (at least to 256 MB) and put OS X on there if you have a copy (besides the one that came with your PowerBook, as that might not work). I used a 400 MHz iMac with 256 MB of RAM for over a year (we still have it, but I have a newer iMac, see the sig), it's not as slow as some people will tell you.
 
ok...
I see you like using it to play your written for OS 9 games, so really selling it when you have a good use for it to me seems kinda like a not so good idea. At that time an iMac wasn't all that poorly performing computer, and if your games are written for OS 9 then they can't have too big and bad of system requirements really, and the iMac should be able to satisfy those adequately. I agree about the hard disk thing, I don't beleive that it will recognize a disk any bigger than let's say there about 120Gb, but really even a 80Gb or 40Gb disk should do you fine, and you can pick them up pretty cheap even from your local PC shop. Then, I would suggest at some point sticking another 128Mb or RAM in it, but not necessarily right away.
To make the machine more useful right away though, you could set up the iMac to act as a file server and acess your data on the firewire disk via a LAN between the two machines. This way, your PBook never has to 'deal' with data storage. Also using it for a jukebox isn't a bad idea.
Just use your imagination and you can make this thing quite useful.
 
FredAkbar said:
Ya never know, with OS 9 :rolleyes:...is there even a folding@home client for OS 9? I know there's a seti client for it though. Personally I would upgrade the RAM (at least to 256 MB) and put OS X on there if you have a copy (besides the one that came with your PowerBook, as that might not work). I used a 400 MHz iMac with 256 MB of RAM for over a year (we still have it, but I have a newer iMac, see the sig), it's not as slow as some people will tell you.
Click to expand...

There is no OS9 client for Folding@Home. Personally i agree, and would perform the upgrades and then run Panther (or Jaguar) I have to say, the G3 will have a hard time folding. I could only run that by itself with my iMac.
 
musicpyrite said:
...take a sledge hammer too it...
Click to expand...

Gee, there's a good idea :rolleyes:

Are you interested in Linux? Partition off the drive and fool around with Linux maybe?
 
ruby iMac

stoid said:
I recently was given an old-ish 400Mhz Ruby iMac slot-loaded and FW with 128MB of RAM. I already have a 1.25Ghz 15 inch PowerBook, so it is certainly not my main computer. Since it can boot into 9, it is nice for playing some games that require it. What else can I do with this? Is it possible to use it's monitor as a second monitor for my PowerBook. It does have a VGA port (certainly for mirroring) in the 'butt'.
Click to expand...

How much would you ask for it?

I have 2 sons and another on the way a crt iMac would be perfect for them.


Just for a reference Apple sells 1 ghz G4 eMacs for $549.



Thanks,


I.
 
Jukebox and LAN games

Those 2nd generation iMacs are really good. They are completely silent, making them ideal as music jukeboxes connected to a hi-fi system.

If you like playing then you can network the iMac with the PowerBook and invite friends to play LAN games on it. Quake 3 and Aliens vs Predator should provide months of amusement. Those iMacs accept Airport cards, Firewire and Ethernet so you are spoiled for networking choices.
 
I am sure that micro$oft will be happy to take it off your hands to use it in there "computers for the poor" or whatever program.
 
If you upgrade the HD, watch out as the cooling is limited down there. I think the model you have takes DIMM RAM, so you can put a 512MB in there and run Panther not too badly. It'd be a good word processor/web machine - heck, it'll run 90% of what people run very nicely.

Plus I might note that the "Ruby" color is somewhat rare. You'll find that this model goes for surprising amounts of money on eBay.
 
partymac

in one word. . . partymac. . . drop in a larger drive (larger than your iPod) and then hook it up to your stereo system. dump all your music on it then listen to the music at parties. and to be really cool, invite all your friends over to drop in their own CDs or mp3s and make a huge party list from all of your friends. you can get some cool vizualizers or just use apple's stock vizualizer to dazel your guests. this way you can have a cool party w/o getting crumbs on your nice 15" PB. . . i just had an airport express party this weekend with my new airport express and my 12" PB. i let people pass around the PB and pick a song to put on the party shuffle. i was sooo worried about my PB . . . with an old iMac you wont have to be worried about something bad happening, and im sure its much easier to fix!
 
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