I Have an Old Apple Computer With No Hard Drive How Do I Get It Working Again

Twelve things to do with an erstwhile Apple figurer

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In this article: Apache, apple, figurer, desktop, digitalpictureframe, hack, Internet, keyboard, laptop, MacBook, macintosh, Media, MediaServer, monitor, old mac, OldMac, powerbook, recycle, server, typewriter, web

Twelve things to do with an old Apple tree figurer

As I type this commodity on my MacBook Pro, I can't assistance only glance over at my poor PowerBook Lombard G3 with its awesome translucent statuary keyboard, sitting in its dusty laptop pocketbook. The battery is long toast. When I last booted it upwards, the clock idea that the system time was shut to 1970 thanks to the internal clock battery no longer holding a charge, and thanks to the fact that it'due south capped at OS X x.iii.9, I can't get a new version of Firefox on it. In short, it's seen better days. Notwithstanding, for all its faults, it'south withal got a decent hard drive and nearly a gigabyte of RAM, and then it can't exist totally useless. This makes made wonder, what can I exercise with this sometime 'Book (or an even more than ancient Mac)? Here are a few possibilities:

• Get-go of all, if you have an older but still functional laptop (like me!), you lot could strip off the plastic, keyboard, etc. and turn it into a hanging digital motion-picture show frame on the cheap.
• Use information technology to surf the web, quondam skool style, with Contiki. Aye, surprisingly, fifty-fifty the sometime Apple IIe can surf the modern cyberspace, though only in text form.
• Plow it into a Personal Webserver. Of course, your newer Macs tin can serve up spider web pages using Apache. Personally, I've had bully success in getting my server upwardly and running (forth with MySQL and PHP to kicking!) using XAMPP, merely if y'all want to really be different, turn that old Macintosh SE/30, IIci or LC into web server.

• Have a distraction-free word processor. You would be amazed at how much you tin go washed when IM, Facebook/Twitter/etc and email are all taken away from yous. Be warned, yous might take some challenges in trying to get your files dorsum onto your main figurer.
• What's that? Take a Mac Mini and an external Apple five 1/iv" floppy drive lying around? Why not pitch the guts of the floppy drive and use information technology every bit a case for the Mac Mini
• That former Mac was good enough to run all your favorite games dorsum in the day, so it should be able to still play those oldies today. And so long every bit yous can observe the disks, finding software is as easy a searching on Google.
• Use it to stream the desktop of another computer. Ok, this ane is hardly useful, but totally worth it when you tell your geek friends that you are streaming from your high-cease Quad Core Vista machine to an Apple II .
• Hand it downwards to someone else. Of course, it's not actually off-white to manus an old IIc to your grandparents hoping that they tin can get information technology onto the cyberspace, but if you're going from an G4 iBook to a MacBook, practice someone a solid and pass information technology on!
• Turn information technology into a media server. Even if the processor and RAM is a niggling on the lower side, a nicely-sized difficult drive can have the load off of your desktop when it comes to transcoding video and serving information technology dorsum out.
• Pair that Mini upwards with an iSight photographic camera and combine 'em into the creepy telepresence robot of your dreams! (or nightmares)
• Put Linux on information technology. Fifty-fifty the lowest and oldest Macs (like the Mac Archetype) tin can have run Linux. The older the model though, the greater the geek street cred of course. If y'all have a newer model, there's always Ubuntu.
• If all else fails, yous can e'er do the responsible thing and recycle it. When you purchase a new computer from Apple, you lot tin opt for them to recycle your old computer for free - they'll even pay for aircraft information technology dorsum to them via FedEx. Even if you didn't buy a new Mac, don't fret, they'll yet recycle your sometime model for $30. Should you become the recycle route, dry that tear you're shedding. Take eye; today's mod computers take the advantage of emulation. Mmmmm... Oregon Trail FTW!

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Source: https://www.engadget.com/2010-04-07-12-things-you-can-do-with-an-old-apple-computer.html

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