How do you use your old Macs?

[Qion]

Some among us own a variety of Macs, usually older ones. I thought it would be interesting to see why exactly why we hold onto older machines, and what purposes they still serve us.

[nixgeek]

Well, here's one reason: http://mirandafam.ath.cx

And if you look at the next site, you'll see some more classic Macs being put to use. Some of the listed machines are even older than the Mac itself!

http://www.ld8.org/servers/

I also have a Motorola StarMax 4000 PPC Mac clone that did me quite well for a while before I upgraded to an iMac G5. Still looks quite good for an almost-10-year-old computer. It also ran both Mac OS 9.1 and Debian GNU/Linux "sarge" quite well. Now I just need to find a good home for her. If anyone is interested, all you have to pay are shipping costs and it's yours with KB and mouse included.

I also have a PowerBook Duo 230 that I salvaged from a friend before it became "recyclable material." It has a small scratch on the LCD cause from when my youngest son dropped it while playing a kiddie game. Thankfully, it's nothing that obtrusive, but it's there. The battery doesn't work either, but that's easy to replace. I had it mainly for the kids to run Snood, MacMan Plus, and Tuberling.

Both the Quadra (hosting our homepage) and the StarMax were also used for MIDI sequencing and composition using Master Tracks Pro 6.0. I tried that on the Duo but it kept crashing (probably because of the low memory, or probably because of System 7 as well ).

[RacerX]

I don't own a newer system, so my older Macs pretty much do everything for me. My newest systems are from 2000 (a PowerBook Pismo and iMac) and my main two systems are from 1998 (a PowerBook Wallstreet and Beige G3).

Looking around this room at what computers I have in service currently...

• PowerBook G3 Wallstreet (1998, 8 years old)- G4/500 with 1 MB of L2, 512 MB of memory, ATI Rage Lite with 4 MB of VRAM, 40 GB (main) hard drive and 20 GB (expansion bay) hard drive, USB 2 PCMCIA card, CDRW drive (expansion bay), Mac OS X v10.2.8
• Beige G3 Mini Tower (1997, 9 years old)- G4/533 with 1 MB of L2, 640 MB of memory, ATI Rage with 6 MB of VRAM (built in, not in use) and ATI Radeon 7000 with 32 MB of VRAM, 20" display, 80 GB hard drive on an UltraATA-66 card, USB card, CD-ROM drive and DVD-ROM drive, Mac OS X v10.3.9
• SGI Indy (1994, 12 years old)- MIPS R4400/175 with 1 MB of L2, 128 MB of memory, Indy Video and Cosmo Compression cards, 21" display, 9.1 GB hard drive (soon to have a second), CD-ROM drive, ZIP drive, IRIX 6.2
• Power Macintosh 7500 (1995, 11 years old)- PowerPC 604e/210 with 256k of L2, 64 MB of memory, 4 MB of VRAM on logic board, 14" display, 9.1 GB and 3 GB hard drives, CD-ROM drive, Mac OS X Server 1.2 (Rhapsody 5.6)
• Power Macintosh 8100av (1994, 12 years old)- G3/500 with 1 MB of L2, 208 MB of memory, Apple AV card with 2 MB of VRAM, 20" display, 4.5 GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, ZIP drive, scanner, Mac OS 8.6
• Power Macintosh 8600 (1997, 9 years old)- G3/450 with 1 MB of L2, 256 MB of memory, 4 MB of VRAM on logic board and an ixMicro TwinTurbo 128M video card with 8 MB VRAM, two 16" displays, 9.1 GB and 4.5 GB hard drives, CD-ROM drive, ZIP drive, CDR drive, Mac OS 8.6
• iMac/350 (2000, 6 years old)- G3/350 with 512k of L2, 512 MB of memory, an ATI Rage 128 video card with 8 MB VRAM, 30 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive, external equalized and stereo speakers, Mac OS X v10.2.8
• Macintosh Quadra 950 (1992, 14 years old)- PowerPC 601/66 with 1 MB of L2, 136 MB of memory, 2 MB of VRAM on logic board and two Radius display cards, three 21" displays, 500 MB and 9.1 GB hard drives, two CD-ROM drives, ZIP drive, Mac OS 8.1
• IBM ThinkPad 760ED (1996, 10 years old)- Pentium/133 with 256 MB of L2, 80 MB of memory, 2 MB of VRAM, 6 GB (Rhapsody) or 2 GB (OPENSTEP) hard drives, CD-ROM drive, Rhapsody 5.1 (usually) or OPENSTEP 4.2
• Power Macintosh 8600 (1997, 9 years old)- PowerPC 604e/300 with 1 MB of L2, 416 MB of memory, 4 MB of VRAM on logic board and an ATI Rage 128 video card with 16 MB VRAM, two 17" displays, 9.1 GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, Mac OS X Server 1.2 (Rhapsody 5.6)
• PowerBook 3400c (1997, 9 years old)- PowerPC 603e/200 with 256k of L2, 80 MB of memory, 10 GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, Mac OS 8.6
• PowerBook Duo 2300c (1995, 11 years old)- PowerPC 603e/100 with 256k of L2, 56 MB of memory, 1.2 GB hard drive, Mac OS 8.6
• PowerBook G3 Pismo (2000, 6 years old)- G3/400 with 1 MB of L2, 256 MB of memory, ATI Rage 128 Mobile with 8 MB of VRAM, 10 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive (expansion bay), Mac OS X v10.3.9

Almost all of these are old by some people's standards. But they all perform tasks that I need for my work...

• PowerBook G3 Wallstreet- This has been my main system for quite a few years, but it is now my primary internet and writing computer.
• Beige G3 Mini Tower- This system has taken over for my Wallstreet as my main work system running my primary work apps.
• SGI Indy- Has been my main video capture system for about 6 years now. Can capture at full frame size at full frame rate.
• Power Macintosh 7500- originally my main Rhapsody workstation, it is now doing server duties.
• Power Macintosh 8100av- Originally my main classic Mac OS system, it is handing off those duties to an 8600
• Power Macintosh 8600- Taking over for the 8100av as my primary classic Mac OS system.
• iMac/350- Mainly an iTunes system now, it was also the back up system for when my wife used to have an account on my PowerBook.
• Macintosh Quadra 950- Primary system for older apps and games.
• IBM ThinkPad 760ED- Primary mobile system for work, holds documentation on pretty much all Apple hardware. Was also my primary Rhapsody system at one point and is my main OPENSTEP system for running NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP apps.
• Power Macintosh 8600- This is my main Rhapsody workstation were I spend most of my time in Rhapsody. It is the system that I use for working on either my Rhapsody or NeXT web sites.
• PowerBook 3400c- Mainly this system has been put together as a training system. It has a ton of software and documentation/tutorials for teaching people how to use that software. I've loaned it out to clients and friends who needed to learn how to use apps which they didn't already own so that they would have experience with it before being confronted with those apps on the job.
• PowerBook Duo 2300c- Main computer for school. It has copies of most of my math apps and is light enough to fit in my backpack along with a number of books.
• PowerBook G3 Pismo- My wife's main computer.

There are two primary advantages to older systems... usually the hardware is reasonably priced and (depending on the age) the software tends to be relatively inexpensive too.

My PowerBook 3400c is an ideal example of this. Hardware wise, I got it for free from a client (perfect price). Software wise, this system has installed on it:

Adobe Acrobat 5.0, Adobe Distiller 5.0, Adobe Acrobat Catalog 4.0, Adobe Dimensions 1.0, Adobe GoLive 5.0, Adobe Illustrator 8.0, Adobe ImageReady 2.0, Adobe LiveMotion 1.0, Adobe PageMaker 6.5, Adobe PageMill 3.0, Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Adobe Premiere 5.1, Adobe Type Manager Deluxe 4.6, AppleWorks 6.2.8, Apple iTunes 1.0, BBEdit Lite 6.0, ClarisDraw 1.0, Corel PHOTO-PAINT 8 LE, Corel WordPerfect 3.5e, CorelDraw 8 LE, Fetch 3.0.3, FileMaker Pro 5.0, Fractal Design Painter 5.0.3, Kai's PowerTools, Macromedia Flash 5.0, Mathcad PLUS 6, Mathematica 2.2.2, MathReader 4.2, MetaCreations Bryce 3D, Microsoft Excel 98, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1.7, Microsoft Outlook Express 5.0.6, Microsoft PowerPoint 98, Microsoft Word 98, Microsoft Word 5.1a, Mozilla 1.3.1, Netscape 7.0.2, Netscape Communicator 4.8, Nisus Compact 3.4, Nisus Write 4.1.6, Opera 6.0.3, Softpress Freeway 2.0.3 LE, PiXELS 3D Studio 3.7, QuarkXPress 3.32, QuarkXPress 4.11, QuickTime Pro 5, QuickTime 6.0.3, ResEdit, SimpleText, Sound Studio 2.0.7, SoundEdit 16 2.0.7, SoundEffects 0.9.2, Strata VideoShop 4.0, Strata DVbase 5.0, StrataVision 3D 4.0, Strata 3Dbase 3.5, Theorist 2.0.1

All of which I either already owned or was able to find on ebay at very reasonable prices.

To attempt to have that type of software selection on a newer PowerBook/iBook would be prohibitively expensive. One example would be Mathematica. I bought version 2.2.2 on ebay for $50, the current version would have cost me about $1800. Plus I don't own Mac OS X versions of (or there isn't even a Mac OS X version in some cases of) these apps:

Adobe Dimensions, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PageMaker, Adobe PageMill, Adobe Premiere, ClarisDraw, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Corel WordPerfect, CorelDraw, Fetch, FileMaker Pro, Painter, Kai's PowerTools, Macromedia Flash, Mathcad, Mathematica, Bryce, Nisus Write, Softpress Freeway, PiXELS 3D Studio, QuarkXPress, SoundEdit 16, Strata VideoShop, Strata DVbase, StrataVision 3D, Strata 3Dbase, or Theorist

While some people think that only new will do, I've found that by researching the abilities of older hardware and software I've been able to provide myself (and in turn my clients) with functionality that would have cost a small fortune with current hardware and software.

And if anyone is wondering what all this looks like, here is a recent panoramic image of my computer area...

click to enlarge

[mdnky]

The oldest one I have is a Beige G3 desktop (300mHz, 768MB RAM, OS X 10.1.5) that is currently being used as a server for a small real estate office. While their Windows based computers crash and burn regularly, the little Mac has been faithfully chugging along for about 3 years now (possibly, can't remember) with the exception of a few power outages caused by mother nature and one by a six year old child.

[Giaguara]

Impressive RacerX
Currently my oldest running thing isn't that old .. G4 cube. With 10.3 Server - quiet and stable, and ARD to the other Macs of it.
But I do want something to run 7.6.1 and 8.6 in them ...

[fryke]

I've reduced my machine park in the past. Currently, I _only_ actively use my MacBook (see sig). I've got a PowerMacintosh 9500 collecting dust in the attic (it's got Rhapsody DR2 or Mac OS X Server 1.x and Mac OS 8.6 on it) plus my Macintosh Colour Classic, which I occasionally power up to see whether it still runs. Then I usually write a short story on it (because it still runs, obviously), copy that to a floppy, put that floppy into a Sony Vaio external USB floppy drive and copy it to my MacBook. Wow. Lot of trouble to stay compatible. (It's got no network card...)

Generally, I'd say you can save quite some space and energy if you have a newer machine. Keeping one machine up to date is okay, doing that for three or four machines can be too much hassle. In my "best" times, I was actively using a PowerMac 9500 (mentioned above), the Colour Classic (also mentioned above), my TiBook 500, my eMate 300 and an AMD K6/200 running Rhapsody DR2. I can tell you it's more quiet to just use the MacBook for everything.

[Qion]

Well personally my oldest computer is still... shipping. Yes, I actually bought a 233 Wallstreet II in this day and age . I've heard they are some of the best-looking older laptops you can buy, and that they are expandable and upgradable. She should serve me well on my writing escapades and internet traveling at the café!

As for my 450Mhz G4, it serves primarily as backup for my documents. I orginally had 4 hard drives in it, but needed a couple of those for other things. I really wish I had something more productive to do with it, as I can't sell it due to family bonds.

(Oh and RacerX, I think you should put your computer farm in your signature ! Nobody would ever forget YOUR posts...)

[nixgeek]

Yeah, RacerX is well known for his home musuem of Macs. He's blessed to have a wife that puts up with it as well.