I’d missed this in my searching around, but there is (going to be) an option for external mass storage on a //c, the SmartPort Virtual Hard Drive, which allows you to plug in a USB thumb drive, with a note from last month saying that deliveries may begin this month. […]
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Well, yes, if “surprise” means “shock and horrify”
Again, do not do these things to hardware that still works. But here’s what someone does with iMac G4s. This beautiful lamp is made from an old iMac G4. Be the envy of your office. Surprise your mac lover. Be the coolest kid on your block. [Photo credit: Randall Littleton; […]
I don’t fully approve
I’d never advise doing this to a drive that wasn’t irreparably dead, and I would actually think it would be a little bit cooler if the drive retained its original look rather than just being turned silver (though I understand how much work went into turning it silver), but—with those […]
More thoughts on HDD replacements, with boring table
I’ve been exploring drive replacement options for the various machines that I have and which might need drive replacements, and I’m finding a surprisingly small amount of information about exactly what all of the drive options really are. This is a much more complex task than I’d originally given it […]
Brainstorming about the iMac G4 as an auxiliary display
So, I have a number of 15″ iMac G4 machines, some of the 800Mhz/512MB variety and at least one of the 1GHz/512MB variety. The 800Mhz machines are capable of booting Mac OS 9.2.2, and are among the last machines Apple made that can, although my G4 MDD is about the […]
Rambling about modern usefulness of vintage machines
So, I’ve been collecting a bunch of vintage machines, mostly because of the nostalgia value, but practically speaking, what good are they? What realistically might ever lead me to turn one of them on? Some of these are just visually appealing (the G3 and G4 iMacs, the G4 Cube), or […]
Polishing the lamps
Things that come from computer recyclers tend to be a little on the grimy side. So, I spent a little while cleaning up all five of the iMac G4s and checking to see if they worked. A couple of them appear not to have hard drives in them. Really, none […]
iMac population explosion
Before today, I had a graphite iMac DV/SE which got pretty badly cracked during shipping. And I had a iMac G4 (which is currently kind of cutely perched atop my IIgs, Snoopy-style). Today’s trip to the computer recycler (a different one from the one I visited last time) yielded quite […]
I should audit that terrarium ][+
Having just learned a little more about how to identify old pieces (from parts of Tony Diaz’s retr0blasting talk from KFest 2010), I’m now seeing that in the pictures I have of the terrarium ][+, it is actually pretty old. I didn’t think the serial number looked that old. True, […]
The Apple ][+ takes a shower
Frustrated with the extent of the goop on the motherboard of the Apple ][+, I started pulling out the chips, with the idea that I would just take the motherboard home and stick it in the dishwasher. There are a lot of chips. Eventually I got them out, with no […]