I get the feeling we all have at least one or eleven of these tucked away somewhere.
They may be future projects, donors, or even cobblestones for your own paved road to best-laid intentions.
So I’ll start.
They may be future projects, donors, or even cobblestones for your own paved road to best-laid intentions.
So I’ll start.
- PowerBook G4 Titanium G4/400 M5884 [status: intact and dead]
I got this in a 2005 trade when ditching my Yikes! G4/350 (my oh my, did ”Yikes!” fit). By the time I got it, the PowerBook’s hinges had been repaired from a dead donor (since the new hinges were going for, like, $250, second-hand, at the time), but its bezels and paint were cracked and chipped from heavy use. Instead of ever using it as a portable, I gave it file server duty for about a decade. Its DVD drive never worked, but everything else did. I even got it to run Leopard Server. Throughout, it ran on a 40GB 4200rpm HDD. Sometime during a 2017 move, however, it died — either the DC-in board or the logic board. It’s still in one piece. - iBook G3/366 Indigo M6411 [status: in pieces as a donor]
This was my first laptop, bought used in 2004. It got me through just over a year at uni (in all, about three years of daily use). Eventually, the blue rubberized coating separated from the polycarbonate on the bottom case. Many of its parts have lived on in the key lime clamshell. - PowerBook G4/1.5 12" A1104 [status: in pieces as a donor]
This was from a Craigslist trade. What the person didn’t mention was the logic board couldn’t take on DIMMs, leaving it stuck at 256MB. Eventually, I tore it apart to use the LCD in the key lime clamshell and some of the keys across other PowerBooks. When I took it apart, I didn’t know about the long keyboard screw and basically destroyed the keyboard itself. - iBook G4/1.33 12" A1133 [status: gutted, in pieces, dead logic board]
This one came in a 2-for deal locally, and I ended up rebuilding the other one and giving that one to someone. It has never POSTed. - MacBook (white) Core 2 Duo 2.0 (late 2006) A1181 [status: partly taken apart]
This was from a trade a year ago. The case has been through the world and back. The backlight doesn’t work. It had dead bugs inside. It sits on a shelf. It’s ugly. - MacBook (white) Core 2 Duo 2.4 (2008) A1181 [status: almost working, but]
When I got this (in a trade), it booted fine. The battery was dead. I disassembled it to get the internals cleaned up (the case wasn’t nearly as bad of shape as the previous MacBook). After I reassembled it, the backlight wasn’t working. Maybe I pinched a cable, but I haven’t been moved to take it apart a second time just yet. Once it works again, I plan to give it to someone eventually. - MacBook 2010 Core 2 Duo 2.4 A1342 [status: dead, just dead, partly taken apart]
Yet-another trade, this one the victim of an old coffee spill. The board does not POST. I’m not shocked. I thought I would give it a try. - MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo/Penryn 2.5GHz 17" A1261 [status: intact and needs a new GPU]
This was a trade from six months ago (from the same trade as the 2008 MacBook above). I need to to send this one out to another MR member to replace that faulty graphics card revision. It’s cosmetically and internally in excellent condition, and I can’t wait to get it running again.
