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Apple Archive

10 Uses for an Older Mac

- 2001.04.13

If you are visiting Low End Mac, chances are you have an older Mac. You may be unsure of what to do with it. If so, here are a few ideas for you (in no particular order).

Give a kid a computer. Little kids love those little compact Macs, and chances are that little kids are about the only ones who will want them now that the 733 MHz G4 is available (with apologies to the Mac collectors out there). These 8 MHz and 16 MHz Macs aren't fast, don't have big screens, but loaded with Kid Pix and Oregon Trail, a 7 or 8 year old will have a great time with it.
Set up a print server. The SE/30 makes a great print server, because of its small size and it's low price (about $20-$30). An Ethernet card can be had for $10, and you will find that a lot of used SE/30s already have the cards.
Make a Macquarium. If you have a broken compact Mac, this might be for you. I mean, who could resist fish swimming around in an old computer case?
If you make websites, you might want to keep an older Mac around to check compatibility with older browsers and older systems.
Use an older compact Mac in the kitchen to hold recipes. There are a number of programs that will do this; Mangia is one.
If you have several compact Macs, stack them up and run screen savers on them. Why? I don't know; it just looks neat.
If your "older" Mac is more recent (say, a Quadra or early Power Mac), you might think of using it as a secondary Internet and email machine.
If you have a Power Mac, consider using it next to your stereo to play MP3s.
If you have a PowerBook and it has a colour screen, you can use it as a digital picture frame. If you don't need one of those, or your machine has a grayscale screen, you might consider giving it to a student to use in school. PowerBooks can be very helpful for people who have trouble with organization. I tend to organize my hard drive very neatly, but can't find anything in my binder, so it really helps me.
If your "old" computer is a G3, it can be very useful for connecting older SCSI, serial, and ADB peripherals. Since the G3 is a fast processor, you can still be comfortable doing some graphics work with it as well. I use my G3 for a bit of graphics work and to run my scanner. You could do this on a non-G3 as well, but if you plan to do Photoshop work, you really need something fast, like a 9600 or G3.

If you decide that selling might be the best thing, take a look at Selling Your Older Mac. You can also see what other people's computers with similar specs to yours are selling for by looking in the local newspaper or on eBay.

Older computers can be very useful. I only listed a few of the things you can do with an older Mac. There are many more useful projects for older Macs.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
More in the Apple Archive index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard
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