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Embracing Early Intel
- Thread starter MacFoxG4
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I have a 2008 mbp, a 2012 mbp and a 2015 mbp
I am trying to find useful, non trivial applications the older two can be used for not that OS support has been dropped
Wha do you use old machines for?
I am trying to find useful, non trivial applications the older two can be used for not that OS support has been dropped
Wha do you use old machines for?
I use many of mine as daily drivers, as well as for a lot of personal writing. My 15” 2008 gets used a lot at school when I need a second laptop for something in my classroom; it can do pretty much any productivity thing my main 13” 2015 can do in there. My 2010 13” gets used a ton at home for browsing, chatting, writing, etc.
A Core 2 Duo isn’t going to be as fast as a modern machine, but with plenty of RAM and an SSD (and maybe some magic from a dosdude patcher), they are still quite capable machines for most tasks today!
Just added an early 2009 Mac Mini to my collection. It arrived in the mail yesterday and I’ve been trying out different OS versions on it. I currently have it dual booted with El Cap and Leopard, but I think I will make it El Cap only since Leopard’s Startup Disk control panel can’t see El Cap and I’d rather not hold down the option key every time I want to use Leopard.
I upgraded the mini’s storage by using the SSD from my MBP, so I’ll have to get a new SSD for the MBP at some point. I put the Mini’s mechanical drive in the MBP.
I upgraded the mini’s storage by using the SSD from my MBP, so I’ll have to get a new SSD for the MBP at some point. I put the Mini’s mechanical drive in the MBP.
Does my Dell Mini 10v count as early Intel?
I'm afraid that only counts as trash, like anything with an Atom in it.
Ouch!I'm afraid that only counts as trash, like anything with an Atom in it.
I used an Atom based netbook for a while with Manjaro Netbook Edition and it was impressively versatile: I was able to watch films and YouTube videos without any glitches like slowdown or frame tearing. Unfortunately it wasn't long before the installation was plagued with problems that were related to major Kernel bugs and there were no fixes in sight. Nonetheless it did demonstrate that good results can be obtained with the Atom.
Well apart from the obvious unmentionable EULA breaker I am dual booting the Mini 10 with Mint 19.3 XFCE, and it runs fine with 2GB RAM
Cheers
Hugh
Cheers
Hugh
I've had a couple of (first-gen) Atoms and they can pull things off to some extent but were too slow for my taste.Nonetheless it did demonstrate that good results can be obtained with the Atom.
The 2009 minis are one of my absolute favorite macs. I had one as my main machine for four years, from 2009-2013, and it never let me down. It remains the only Mac that I’ve ever actually bought new! My 2009 mini is currently set up in my classroom as a headless server for time machine, files, and running old software. They run amazingly smooth with 8GB of RAM and an SSD.
I’m really liking this Mini. I definitely want to put 8 GB in mine at some point, but at 4 GB it’s running El Cap pretty well. I’ve mainly been doing web browsing and YouTube on mine. Office 2008 still runs under El Cap, so I’ve been using that too.
Recalling my experience with trying to run Linux on my 2006 MBP, I remembered the rEFInd boot loader. I installed it on the Mini and now I can switch between Snow Leopard and El Capitan without having to hold down the option key.
Ordered a RAM upgrade to max out the Mini's RAM to 8 GB. Also bought a couple of 16 GB SD cards, one of which I will use to reinstall Lion on my 2006 MBP and the other to, hopefully, install the patched Mojave on my Mini. I use an SD card as the installer medium for the patched High Sierra which I have installed on the Mini, so I am hoping a larger SD card will do the trick for the patched Mojave. I tried a USB flash drive, a separate partition on the Mini's SSD, and the HDD in my MBP and none of those worked so I am hoping an SD card will since that's what worked for me with High Sierra patcher. If this doesn't work, I will just stick with High Sierra on the Mini.
Installed the RAM upgrade in the Mini and put in a new 250 GB SSD in it as well. This allowed me to give the MBP its SSD back and place the Mini's original mechanical HDD in an enclosure. I have the MBP set up to dual boot Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion.
As for the SD cards, they work, but they made no difference when it came to booting the patched Mojave (or Catalina for that matter) on the Mini. I am shocked that no matter what medium I use, I can't get the patched Mojave and Catalina installers to move past the loading screen. I can however boot Linux. I have Ubuntu 20 installed on the Mini and it is running great. I am familiar with Ubuntu since I used to have it as a daily driver on my Lenovo Ideapad from about 2018-2019. I only stopped using Ubuntu because I needed Windows 10 again for one of my classes and Windows 10 becomes unstable if booted from GRUB.
I have Ubuntu dual booted with Snow Leopard via rEFInd. If I swapped out Snow Leopard for High Sierra, I could probably make this Mini a daily driver with High Sierra handling my iTunes library and Ubuntu handling everything else. I would still keep the IdeaPad around, but I would use the Mini whenever I could, such as right now as I am typing this post. I really like having Snow Leopard on here though, and I'm not sure if the SSD is big enough to fit three operating systems plus my iTunes library comfortably.
As for the SD cards, they work, but they made no difference when it came to booting the patched Mojave (or Catalina for that matter) on the Mini. I am shocked that no matter what medium I use, I can't get the patched Mojave and Catalina installers to move past the loading screen. I can however boot Linux. I have Ubuntu 20 installed on the Mini and it is running great. I am familiar with Ubuntu since I used to have it as a daily driver on my Lenovo Ideapad from about 2018-2019. I only stopped using Ubuntu because I needed Windows 10 again for one of my classes and Windows 10 becomes unstable if booted from GRUB.
I have Ubuntu dual booted with Snow Leopard via rEFInd. If I swapped out Snow Leopard for High Sierra, I could probably make this Mini a daily driver with High Sierra handling my iTunes library and Ubuntu handling everything else. I would still keep the IdeaPad around, but I would use the Mini whenever I could, such as right now as I am typing this post. I really like having Snow Leopard on here though, and I'm not sure if the SSD is big enough to fit three operating systems plus my iTunes library comfortably.
Forgot to mention in my previous post that when I tried the new SD cards, the Mini still had 4 GB of RAM in it instead of the 8 GB of RAM. At the same time I upgraded the RAM I also ditched the display port to VGA adapter I was using and replaced it with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter. Since these changes, I have been able to install the patched Mojave and the patched Catalina. I'm not sure if the RAM upgrade helped or if changing display adapters helped.
I prefer Mojave over Catalina. Mojave is faster than Catalina, but a tad slower than High Sierra for me. I also prefer iTunes over Catalina's music app. Not sure if I will stick with Mojave on here or go back to having Snow Leopard. Ubuntu is staying on this SSD regardless of what OS X version I pair it with.
I prefer Mojave over Catalina. Mojave is faster than Catalina, but a tad slower than High Sierra for me. I also prefer iTunes over Catalina's music app. Not sure if I will stick with Mojave on here or go back to having Snow Leopard. Ubuntu is staying on this SSD regardless of what OS X version I pair it with.
Out of interest - does the DPtoVGA thingy work now that Mojave is installed? I had no issues installing it on my 2009 mini with 4 GB, but with a native DP monitor (a retina iPad's LCD of all things).
Haven't tried it. The DPtoVGA adapter is the only DP adapter I have. I don't have any native DP monitors.
I had issues with my DVI cable yesterday, so I temporarily used my DPtoVGA adapter again until I got that resolved. I discovered that Mojave will boot with the DPtoVGA adapter. So it looks like Mojave will only boot from the DPtoVGA adapter after it has been installed onto the HDD/SSD.
Reading through this thread is certainly interesting to me.
When I started here in 2012 or whenever it was with a 1.8ghz single G5, that computer was a workable back-up for my 2011 MBP. There were some work-arounds to get things done, and it wasn't too long before I ended up with a Quad, but it was inexpensive and filled my need for a desktop. At the time, I'd sometimes see Mac Pro 1,1s for then-current MBA prices, and think they were a bargain(MP 1,1s from what I remember started really going down around the time Yosemite came out since Lion was rolling off security updates and it wasn't widely known then that they could be upgraded past Lion).
Back in those days, aside from running Office 2008, Dropbox worked, Youtube was very easy especially on a G5, and a bunch of other things just were still natively supported. You could ALMOST get by then with Safari and Firefox in Leopard, although Tenfourfox was around and at the time had feature parity with the then current Firefox, and Leopard Webkit was very fast and capable.
As I remember, 2015 was about the time stuff REALLY started breaking. I continued to use Dropbox for a while(something fairly important for a lot of uses for me) by spoofing 10.6 though a couple of terminal commands, signing in, and then changing back to 10.5 since the desktop client could still communicate fine but just wouldn't sign in as long as it saw you were running 10.5. There were a few others that fixes popped up quickly as things quit working, but after a while easy fixes became-to-me-tedious work-arounds and more proof-of-concept than things I could just rely on to work(the Dropbox thing was something I'd only have to do on restart, and it would be fine).
Heck, even in 2015 when MR was still on vBulletin, I could browse the site pretty easily(not quickly, but more than tolerably) with my 9600/200MP running OS 9.2.2 and Classilla.
As more and more stuff broke, it became less and less practical to use PPC computers as a primary computer. Several of mine were relegated to specialty roles-I used a dual 2.7 G5 as a scanning workstation up until I got my MP 5,1 in I think 2018(and I'd only been using it for a year or so, replacing a dual 1ghz Quicksilver), but it wasn't easy to navigate the web and do other things, and it increasingly became "sandboxed." I enjoy seeing the efforts to make things work in 2021 and would really enjoy working on them myself if I had the skills, but more and more the work arounds get complicated and seemingly break after a short stint of use.
I've just recently upgraded my 2012 MBP to an M1 MBP. I really, really like the M1, but I'm constantly regretting not getting 16gb RAM(the reason why I didn't is complicated). I can get by doing lighter work on 8gb in an older Intel computer, but as an example doing a Lightroom import+DNG conversion while trying to browse the web even on the M1 is miserable with 8gb.
On the other extreme, I never went to 16gb in a Quad, but did get one up to 12gb. I have systems where I have quite literally more memory than I can make use of but did it just because, including the 88gb in my 5,1(I need to fix that to 96gb at 6x16 rather than my current 5x16 and 2x8gb-I bought 6 16gb sticks, one was bad, and the seller went ballistic, refunded me, and blocked me from buying claiming that it was my own stupid fault for ruining it because it was "Server RAM" and using it in a desktop "will fry it" since I guess the seller didn't understand that workstation class computers are a thing). Another ludicrous one is my 9600 with 1.5gb, again more than I can possibly use.
Still, though, I've never tried to take a Quad to 16gb. It's fun bragging rights, and I'm not against those by any means, but it's just never been a high priority for me. It's incredibly difficult to use even 12gb at least in my useage. The big issue is that you can probably count the number of PPC-native 64gb programs on one hand. The heavy hitters like Photoshop(the stereotypical resource heavy program) never went there, and I really suspect it was because PowerBooks were still G4/32 bit and I suspect the big software developers didn't want to shut off the mobile market at a time when laptops were getting good enough to be even a moderately heavy user's only computer rather than a supplement to a desktop. That means that a lot of the "big" software is stuck at 3gb RAM whether or not it would benefit from more. So, there again, outside heavy multitasking with that sort of software, it's hard to even use 12gb.
When I started here in 2012 or whenever it was with a 1.8ghz single G5, that computer was a workable back-up for my 2011 MBP. There were some work-arounds to get things done, and it wasn't too long before I ended up with a Quad, but it was inexpensive and filled my need for a desktop. At the time, I'd sometimes see Mac Pro 1,1s for then-current MBA prices, and think they were a bargain(MP 1,1s from what I remember started really going down around the time Yosemite came out since Lion was rolling off security updates and it wasn't widely known then that they could be upgraded past Lion).
Back in those days, aside from running Office 2008, Dropbox worked, Youtube was very easy especially on a G5, and a bunch of other things just were still natively supported. You could ALMOST get by then with Safari and Firefox in Leopard, although Tenfourfox was around and at the time had feature parity with the then current Firefox, and Leopard Webkit was very fast and capable.
As I remember, 2015 was about the time stuff REALLY started breaking. I continued to use Dropbox for a while(something fairly important for a lot of uses for me) by spoofing 10.6 though a couple of terminal commands, signing in, and then changing back to 10.5 since the desktop client could still communicate fine but just wouldn't sign in as long as it saw you were running 10.5. There were a few others that fixes popped up quickly as things quit working, but after a while easy fixes became-to-me-tedious work-arounds and more proof-of-concept than things I could just rely on to work(the Dropbox thing was something I'd only have to do on restart, and it would be fine).
Heck, even in 2015 when MR was still on vBulletin, I could browse the site pretty easily(not quickly, but more than tolerably) with my 9600/200MP running OS 9.2.2 and Classilla.
As more and more stuff broke, it became less and less practical to use PPC computers as a primary computer. Several of mine were relegated to specialty roles-I used a dual 2.7 G5 as a scanning workstation up until I got my MP 5,1 in I think 2018(and I'd only been using it for a year or so, replacing a dual 1ghz Quicksilver), but it wasn't easy to navigate the web and do other things, and it increasingly became "sandboxed." I enjoy seeing the efforts to make things work in 2021 and would really enjoy working on them myself if I had the skills, but more and more the work arounds get complicated and seemingly break after a short stint of use.
I've just recently upgraded my 2012 MBP to an M1 MBP. I really, really like the M1, but I'm constantly regretting not getting 16gb RAM(the reason why I didn't is complicated). I can get by doing lighter work on 8gb in an older Intel computer, but as an example doing a Lightroom import+DNG conversion while trying to browse the web even on the M1 is miserable with 8gb.
On the other extreme, I never went to 16gb in a Quad, but did get one up to 12gb. I have systems where I have quite literally more memory than I can make use of but did it just because, including the 88gb in my 5,1(I need to fix that to 96gb at 6x16 rather than my current 5x16 and 2x8gb-I bought 6 16gb sticks, one was bad, and the seller went ballistic, refunded me, and blocked me from buying claiming that it was my own stupid fault for ruining it because it was "Server RAM" and using it in a desktop "will fry it" since I guess the seller didn't understand that workstation class computers are a thing). Another ludicrous one is my 9600 with 1.5gb, again more than I can possibly use.
Still, though, I've never tried to take a Quad to 16gb. It's fun bragging rights, and I'm not against those by any means, but it's just never been a high priority for me. It's incredibly difficult to use even 12gb at least in my useage. The big issue is that you can probably count the number of PPC-native 64gb programs on one hand. The heavy hitters like Photoshop(the stereotypical resource heavy program) never went there, and I really suspect it was because PowerBooks were still G4/32 bit and I suspect the big software developers didn't want to shut off the mobile market at a time when laptops were getting good enough to be even a moderately heavy user's only computer rather than a supplement to a desktop. That means that a lot of the "big" software is stuck at 3gb RAM whether or not it would benefit from more. So, there again, outside heavy multitasking with that sort of software, it's hard to even use 12gb.
For me it is hard to get the 1st edition early Intel machines, as I would just prefer to have the PowerPC counterparts in the same shell. Funny thing is, I am in the same waiting game with the brand new Apple Silicon Chips now hitting mainstream.
I run a Multi-disk, Multi-boot Late 2008 MacBook Pro laptop that I purchased new the day they came out. Has a bit of nostalgia for me as I watched the Steve Jobs Keynote and fell in love with the engineering put into building the machine. It is also the first brand new Apple Laptop I ever purchased.
I use it often to Browse MacRumors and do light moderation tasks that are really hard to do well on anything much slower due to forum software here and often needing multiple tabs & browsers open at the same time. Patched and running High Sierra even on its shared graphics GPU (not the discrete), it does quite well at simple to even moderate tasks including batch processing photos in Aperture.
I run a Multi-disk, Multi-boot Late 2008 MacBook Pro laptop that I purchased new the day they came out. Has a bit of nostalgia for me as I watched the Steve Jobs Keynote and fell in love with the engineering put into building the machine. It is also the first brand new Apple Laptop I ever purchased.
I use it often to Browse MacRumors and do light moderation tasks that are really hard to do well on anything much slower due to forum software here and often needing multiple tabs & browsers open at the same time. Patched and running High Sierra even on its shared graphics GPU (not the discrete), it does quite well at simple to even moderate tasks including batch processing photos in Aperture.
Thanks to the mods for moving this thread to the Early Intel section.
As I mentioned in another thread, I have been using bootcamp on my 2006 MBP. The Windows version I went with is XP Home with SP2. I found a NIB retail copy on eBay for a bargain. I chose XP out of nostalgia. There was a time I used to hate XP due to the UI changes it introduced, but over the past couple years I have softened my stance on it and have grown nostalgic for it. Here are some things I learned during this process:
- The MBP's optical drive can't read XP install CDs well. I had to make an ISO of my XP install CD on my 2009 Mini and then burn the ISO to a blank DVD+R. I used a Maxell DVD+R because my MBP doesn't like my Sony CD-Rs.
-It is possible to use an upgrade version instead of the full version of XP for a bootcamp setup. In order to do this, you need a copy of an older version of Windows. I used my Windows 98 SE CD to pass the qualifying product check. I hooked up my LaCie external CD burner via a FW 400 to 800 cable and put the 98 SE CD in there. I also learned that I have to disconnect the LaCie drive before setup reboots into the graphical portion, otherwise setup BSODs.
-Leopard's Bootcamp Assistant doesn't like it if you have multiple OS X partitions on the drive.
-Supposedly, there are no XP drivers in the versions of Bootcamp included in Lion and onwards.
-Product activation does work over the phone. I had to use the number for volume licensing activation and was texted a link to complete the activation online since I was calling on my iPhone. I also found out that if you have to reinstall XP you have to activate it again.
I went with Leopard initially as the version of OS X to use in order to setup bootcamp, but I recently upgraded it to Snow Leopard by doing a clean install. I did this upgrade after XP was installed, so I didn't erase XP's partition only Leopard's. XP still worked with Leopard's bootcamp drivers installed, but I upgraded the drivers to the ones included with Snow Leopard just in case.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Leopard is able to run PPC apps that SL can't, but with the Sawtooth now working again (hopefully) I can just shift those apps to the Sawtooth and upgrade to SL, so that's what I did. I don't have ML or Lion installed like I used to because I'm not sure if having those OSes installed would mess up XP or the ability to switch between XP and OS X.
As I mentioned in another thread, I have been using bootcamp on my 2006 MBP. The Windows version I went with is XP Home with SP2. I found a NIB retail copy on eBay for a bargain. I chose XP out of nostalgia. There was a time I used to hate XP due to the UI changes it introduced, but over the past couple years I have softened my stance on it and have grown nostalgic for it. Here are some things I learned during this process:
- The MBP's optical drive can't read XP install CDs well. I had to make an ISO of my XP install CD on my 2009 Mini and then burn the ISO to a blank DVD+R. I used a Maxell DVD+R because my MBP doesn't like my Sony CD-Rs.
-It is possible to use an upgrade version instead of the full version of XP for a bootcamp setup. In order to do this, you need a copy of an older version of Windows. I used my Windows 98 SE CD to pass the qualifying product check. I hooked up my LaCie external CD burner via a FW 400 to 800 cable and put the 98 SE CD in there. I also learned that I have to disconnect the LaCie drive before setup reboots into the graphical portion, otherwise setup BSODs.
-Leopard's Bootcamp Assistant doesn't like it if you have multiple OS X partitions on the drive.
-Supposedly, there are no XP drivers in the versions of Bootcamp included in Lion and onwards.
-Product activation does work over the phone. I had to use the number for volume licensing activation and was texted a link to complete the activation online since I was calling on my iPhone. I also found out that if you have to reinstall XP you have to activate it again.
I went with Leopard initially as the version of OS X to use in order to setup bootcamp, but I recently upgraded it to Snow Leopard by doing a clean install. I did this upgrade after XP was installed, so I didn't erase XP's partition only Leopard's. XP still worked with Leopard's bootcamp drivers installed, but I upgraded the drivers to the ones included with Snow Leopard just in case.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Leopard is able to run PPC apps that SL can't, but with the Sawtooth now working again (hopefully) I can just shift those apps to the Sawtooth and upgrade to SL, so that's what I did. I don't have ML or Lion installed like I used to because I'm not sure if having those OSes installed would mess up XP or the ability to switch between XP and OS X.
Currently using a late-2009 MacBook as my main portable work machine, running High Sierra (although it can be patched to Mojave). With an SSD and RAM upgrade installed it runs the main productivity apps well. Adobe and Office 365 abandoned High Sierra in 2020, but they're still perfectly usable.
I find myself using Intel Macs more for the software and features that are designed to run on them and running PPC native apps on them less and less. Because of this, all of my Intel Macs are now running something newer than Snow Leopard, so no more Rosetta. I decided to keep the PPC native apps to my PPC Macs. I currently have Mountain Lion and XP on the 2006 MBP and Mavericks and Ubuntu 20 on the 2009 Mini.
EDIT: rEFInd is used on both Macs to make their dual boot setups work.
EDIT: rEFInd is used on both Macs to make their dual boot setups work.
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I love the design of my late 2006 iMac. It has a lot of features or design quirks that never made a return afterwards. For example the 17-inch screen. I just love the size of it. The whole computer fits nicely on my desk with so much room to spare.
I think this one was also the last iMac to have a remote. I use that feature a lot. Sadly Frontrow doesn't work in Mavericks but I used to use that a lot on Snow Leopard.
Probably my favourite 'feature' of this iMac is the white polycarbonate look. Don't get me wrong, I think the aluminium iMacs look great, and have aged really well (most people can't tell a 2007 iMac apart from a modern Intel model lol). But I just really like the clear plastic for some reason. I still think it looks stylish.
This is one of those computers I'll keep forever. When Mavericks and this aging cpu finally become totally unusable for the modern web, I'll put Snow Leopard on it and keep it as a retro machine. (Let's just hope the GPU will continue to work as nearly all of these models for sale online have the issue with the lines on screen)
I think this one was also the last iMac to have a remote. I use that feature a lot. Sadly Frontrow doesn't work in Mavericks but I used to use that a lot on Snow Leopard.
Probably my favourite 'feature' of this iMac is the white polycarbonate look. Don't get me wrong, I think the aluminium iMacs look great, and have aged really well (most people can't tell a 2007 iMac apart from a modern Intel model lol). But I just really like the clear plastic for some reason. I still think it looks stylish.
This is one of those computers I'll keep forever. When Mavericks and this aging cpu finally become totally unusable for the modern web, I'll put Snow Leopard on it and keep it as a retro machine. (Let's just hope the GPU will continue to work as nearly all of these models for sale online have the issue with the lines on screen
)
The problem with that screen is... It's a TN panel with terrible viewing angles and colour reproduction. While I agree it's a very nice size, almost portable even, the screen totally ruins it for me.
I thought that issue was with the screen itself, not the GPU?Let's just hope the GPU will continue to work as nearly all of these models for sale online have the issue with the lines on screen
Yeah, the screen being TN is a bit of a bummer. I'm used to TN displays and the first IPS display I had (on a computer at least) was when I bought a new laptop in 2019. I guess I'm used to it and I don't mind it all too much. The computer itself really is almost portable, it's pretty easy to take it downstairs and set it up, as it only has one cable to worry about.
I think you're right, although I've heard that the gpu is unreliable as well (well I feel like 15 years of use is pretty damn reliable to me if it would fail tomorrow
)