Show off your Early Intel Macs!

[Jack Neill]

It's great seeing people still using their MacBook 5,2s. Mine has become my daily driver, when I'm not tinkering with Linux on my 4,1...

(PS: Totally not envious of your dual 4 GB DDR2-800 SO-DIMMs, which must have cost you a fortune.)

Actually I pulled them from a old HP AIO my uncle gave me a long time ago. In that machine they were seen as 16GB as they are 8Gb each but the Mac sees them as 8GB

 

[TheShortTimer]

It's great seeing people still using their MacBook 5,2s. Mine has become my daily driver, when I'm not tinkering with Linux on my 4,1...

I have an MB 5,2 and for several years it was my daily driver. For a machine that's supposed to be an entry level/budget product it's certainly a stellar model. The only reason why I switched to a 2011 MBP as my daily driver was because the fans went into overdrive whenever I watched online content on the MB 5,2. You can imagine my bemusement when exactly the same thing happened with the i5 MBP.

 

[Xavo Nizer]

So,
These are mostly all the Intel Mac’s and some other goodies I’ve collected over the past few years.

In the first picture is:
- sealed 20“ Apple Cinema Display
- boxed MacPro 5,1 with logicboard defects
- 2x MacPro 2,1 w/ 8gb RAM / 500gb hdd / Nvidia GT 120 / 2x 2,8ghz quad Core Intel Xeon
- sealed MacBook Pro 15“ 1,1 2006
-sealed battery for 2006-2008 MacBook Pro 15“
„MacBook Pro 15“ 4,1 w/ 4gb RAM / 1tb ssd / 2,5ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
-Apple Cinema Display 23“ with waterdamaged panel
- iMac 2009 21“ with removed screen panel
- PowerMac G4 Cube
- sealed iWork 08 CD
- iPad 2 iOS 4,2 with Apple retail demo software

In the Second image you can see:
-MacPro 3,1 OS X Lion w/ 32gb RAM 12TB Raid 0 Storage / ATI Radeon HD 5870 / AVID Pro Tools PCI card. It crashes all the time and it’s pretty unstable in general.
- 2x 20“ Apple Cinema Display
- iMac 27“ mid 2011 OS X Lion w/ 6TB HDD / 1TB SSD / 16gb RAM
- iPod 1st Generation 5gb
- iPod Mini 2nd Generation 256gb Flash Mod
- iPod nano 5th Generation 16gb
- JBL iPod speaker ring
- 3TB Freecom Backup Drive

That’s all I guess…

 

[840quadra]

I guess 2009 is a bit early these days. My 4,1 updated to a 5,1 Mac Pro setup. It's my home iTunes media server, file server, and still my primary photo / video editing rig when I am actually at home.

Enjoying running this machine and waiting for the preowned market for later Mac Pro (non trashcan) to come down a little. I won't need the M1 version anytime soon as this rig still works well for me at home. Been a solid machine, upgraded with quite a few modern touches thanks to the cMP Mac Pro threads on Macrumors!

 

[Xavo Nizer]

Got this early 2008 iMac on ebay for 10€ today. It came with its original box, keyboard, mouse, disks and a snow leopards upgrade set, and it’s all in perfect condition.
Only problem is, the backlight has some problems. As you might see, there are visible lines on the display.
if anyone knows how i could fix this, hit me up.

 

[Heindijs]

Got this early 2008 iMac on ebay for 10€ today. It came with its original box, keyboard, mouse, disks and a snow leopards upgrade set, and it’s all in perfect condition.
Only problem is, the backlight has some problems. As you might see, there are visible lines on the display.
if anyone knows how i could fix this, hit me up.

I’d pay €10 for the keyboard and mouse alone, so even if you aren’t able to fix the screen, it’s still a steal

 

[TheShortTimer]

Got this early 2008 iMac on ebay for 10€ today. It came with its original box, keyboard, mouse, disks and a snow leopards upgrade set, and it’s all in perfect condition.
Only problem is, the backlight has some problems. As you might see, there are visible lines on the display.
if anyone knows how i could fix this, hit me up.

It has a mini-DVI port. Personally at 10€ instead of trying to replace the LCD, I'd connect the computer to an external display, turn off the brightness on the iMac's LCD and use it that way.

 

[swamprock]

Steve Jobs-era quality and Tim_Apple-era greed in one screen shot! This old Mini still perfectly useful on the latest Monterey Beta 7 courtesy of OCLP _030.

View attachment 1845165

I haven't tried Monterey yet, but here's my identical Mini running Big Sur, via OCLP 0.31. Quite usable, sans some very minor graphical glitches...

 

[swamprock]

The black MacBook 4,1 seemed dead, but all it needed was another set of RAM modules and it was good to go. And it even has a fully working optical drive too, to boot. With 4 GB, an SSD, and Xubuntu, it's an surprisingly capable machine.

For sure. Here's my zebra 4,1 running Debian 11 XFCE. It's blazingly fast, and no glitches like Pop! OS had with this machine...

(For those curious, I only changed out the key caps and the screen frame, having done that years ago. The rest is still white.)

 

[theMarble]

Really gives it the illusion of being a MacBook Pro. I recall The 8-Bit Guy sell half-black, half-white MacBook's like yours a decade or so ago. Very cool

 

[K two]

I haven't tried Monterey yet, but here's my identical Mini running Big Sur, via OCLP 0.32. Quite usable, sans some very minor graphical glitches...


View attachment 1921740

Here is 12.1 beta 3 and the soon-to-be released OCLP_032.

 

[Heindijs]

Here is 12.1 beta 3 and the soon-to-be released OCLP_032.

View attachment 1921902

Does this screenshot mean that those graphical glitches have been fixed? If so, hell yeah

 

[K two]

Does this screenshot mean that those graphical glitches have been fixed? If so, hell yeah

The ghost in the machine leaves with OCLP_032, when it is released.

 

[swamprock]

Here is 12.1 beta 3 and the soon-to-be released OCLP_032.

View attachment 1921902

Nice!

Yeah, I should have said OCLP 0.31 rather than 0.32. I've edited my original post.

 

[swamprock]

Yhe ghost in the machine leaves with OCLP_032, when it is released.

Yep that'll be nice

 

[K two]

Just updated to 12.1 beta 4, very nice. No ETA for OCLP_032 release.

 

[K two]

macOS Finder version 12.1 has a built-in FTP D/L client which FTPs directly to the Downloads ƒ. (Other Finder versions may also have this capability?) Just now FTP'd a D/L of 4 GB very fast w/no interruptions. This very useful Finder capability may not be widely known? Selecting a FTP link in any browser will trigger the D/L complete with a Finder progress indicator and guesstimate.

👁️ Why may this be important? Most browsers dropped direct FTP support, years ago when some FTP sites began to shift over to HTTP which meant an additional separate application was required to supplant the missing protocol.
For early legacy Mac users and collectors this Finder feature is really useful.

 

[Amethyst1]

(Other Finder versions may also have this capability?)

I think I’ve come across this in older versions of macOS.

 

[Jack Neill]

The ghost in the machine leaves with OCLP_032, when it is released.

That would be nice, he only thing keeping me on 10.15 on my 2011 iMac. The artifacts were too annoying for me.

 

[K two]

Still reliable enough to be the daily driver and a bit amazing.

 

[gagigu]

Hi guys,

I'm owning a late 2012 Mac Mini Quad i7 and a late 2013 MacBook Pro retina 13''. For the Mini the latest OS is 10.15 and MacBook it's OS 11. Is there any option to upgrade them to OS 12?

 

[Amethyst1]

Is there any option to upgrade them to OS 12?

OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

 

[EugW]

Some of the laptops and iPads in the house:

From top to bottom:

iPad Air 2 (iPadOS 15)
iPad Pro 10.5 with Smart Keyboard (iPadOS 15)
2017 12" MacBook (Monterey)
2015 13" MacBook Pro (Monterey)
2017 13" MacBook Air (Monterey)
2009 13" MacBook Pro (patched High Sierra)
2008 13" MacBook (patched High Sierra)

 

[Amethyst1]

2009 13" MacBook Pro (patched High Sierra)
2008 13" MacBook (patched High Sierra)

The lack of FireWire (and the SD card slot, although I personally couldn't care less about that) on the 2008 really strikes compared to the 2009.

 

[EugW]

The lack of FireWire (and the SD card slot, although I personally couldn't care less about that) on the 2008 really strikes compared to the 2009.

Back in 2008 I was tempted by the 2008 aluminum MacBook, but the lack of FireWire was a dealkiller. The lack of a backlit keyboard was also a bummer, esp. at its price point. So, I waited, and the following year everything I wanted arrived in the form of the 2009 MacBookPro5,5 2.26 GHz so I bought it at launch. Lately my daughter had been using the MBP for elementary school, but amazingly even just educational web apps could bring it to a crawl, so for Xmas I replaced it with the 2015 MacBook Pro.

I didn't buy the 2008 MacBook5,1 2.0 GHz until 2018 or something, as my wife's kitchen computer to replace her white 2008 MacBook4,1 (which actually has a 20% faster clock speed at 2.4 GHz). At Xmas we finally replaced that with the 2017 MacBook Air.

I mentioned this before elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating here, cuz I still find it slightly surprising. Even though the 2.0 GHz MacBook and 2.26 GHz MacBook Pro have such similar hardware and the same GPU and OS, the MBP feels noticeably faster. It's not a night vs. day difference but nonetheless it's noticeable, esp. with YouTube. It seems the MB struggles with initiating 720p playback, but the MBP struggles just enough less for it to be an important difference.