Show off your Early Intel Macs!

[lepidotós]

I kinda just committed infidelity...
I know I'm supposed to be racist toward Intel processors, and I am, just really wanted to play with Libreboot and a bunch of other amd64-only stuff! Surely you understand? It's a MacBook2,1 @ 2.16, with 2GB RAM installed, and Tiger on a 150GB HDD that I will definitely be swapping out with a 256GB SSD I had lying around. Needs a battery and charger, those are coming in about a week, and buying them separately honestly made this not a great deal at a running total of $70.
I'll probably lose out on a Titanium PBG4 due to this, and it is absolutely not worth it due to stuff like the smaller screen being harsher on my eyes (why do you think I don't own any 12" iBooks/PowerBooks?), but... I just was really curious. Also, a peek at Sequoyah in the background having just been used as a laptop dock for my iBook G4. I tried using a 1GB PC133 DIMM in it and it didn't recognize it at all, not even bumping it down to a 512.
​

 

[Amethyst1]

I know I'm supposed to be racist toward Intel processors, [...]

You're not supposed to be racist toward anyone or anything.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I kinda just committed infidelity...
I know I'm supposed to be racist toward Intel processors, and I am, just really wanted to play with Libreboot and a bunch of other amd64-only stuff! Surely you understand? It's a MacBook2,1 @ 2.16, with 2GB RAM installed, and Tiger on a 150GB HDD that I will definitely be swapping out with a 256GB SSD I had lying around. Needs a battery and charger, those are coming in about a week, and buying them separately honestly made this not a great deal at a running total of $70.
I'll probably lose out on a Titanium PBG4 due to this, and it is absolutely not worth it due to stuff like the smaller screen being harsher on my eyes (why do you think I don't own any 12" iBooks/PowerBooks?), but... I just was really curious. Also, a peek at Sequoyah in the background having just been used as a laptop dock for my iBook G4. I tried using a 1GB PC133 DIMM in it and it didn't recognize it at all, not even bumping it down to a 512.
View attachment 1964314​

I enjoy PPC macs and have many but my daily is an 08 Intel a1278 mbp. Your early intel mac is itself obsolete technology many times over just like your PPC macs (& my mbp) and to your point, much easier to accomplish certain tasks on. It's a good idea to have a few Intel macs around + this era Intel mac fits the PPC era mac asthetic very well.

 

[gagigu]

Lately I unpacked my iMac 24" from 2006 and was surprised how big it is. Also it's quite unique and beautiful compared to the actual design language. I miss this old time. Found also my old iPod Video boxed in that iMac box which was recognized fast by my iMac.

It got a 1TB HDD and 3GB of RAM back then just few months I retired it in 2013 when I got my MBPr 13". It's the 2.16GHz version and GeForce 7600 GT, runs OS X Lion with Tiger themed wallpaper. It left a bad taste as when I unpacked it it had 3 kernel panics in those 4hrs...

I somewhere have also my 2009 MBP 13" laying around, have to dig it out.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Lately I unpacked my iMac 24" from 2006 and was surprised how big it is. Also it's quite unique and beautiful compared to the actual design language. I miss this old time. Found also my old iPod Video boxed in that iMac box which was recognized fast by my iMac.

It got a 1TB HDD and 3GB of RAM back then just few months I retired it in 2013 when I got my MBPr 13". It's the 2.16GHz version and GeForce 7600 GT, runs OS X Lion with Tiger themed wallpaper. It left a bad taste as when I unpacked it it had 3 kernel panics in those 4hrs...

View attachment 1964374 View attachment 1964375


I somewhere have also my 2009 MBP 13" laying around, have to dig it out.

This is absolutely delicious. I need to unpack my 24' and my gen3 ipod and do a similar glamour shot. Very nice!

 

[lepidotós]

I enjoy PPC macs and have many but my daily is an 08 Intel a1278 mbp. Your early intel mac is itself obsolete technology many times over just like your PPC macs (& my mbp) and to your point, much easier to accomplish certain tasks on. It's a good idea to have a few Intel macs around + this era Intel mac fits the PPC era mac asthetic very well.

I don't think I've ever owned or had a computer that wasn't a decade old at the very mimimum, so obsolescence isn't really a big issue for me.​

 

[B S Magnet]

I kinda just committed infidelity...​

Intel isn’t an intimate partner.

I know I'm supposed to be racist toward Intel processors,​

Processors aren’t a race.

and I am, just really wanted to play with Libreboot and a bunch of other amd64-only stuff! Surely you understand? It's a MacBook2,1 @ 2.16, with 2GB RAM installed, and Tiger on a 150GB HDD that I will definitely be swapping out with a 256GB SSD I had lying around. Needs a battery and charger, those are coming in about a week, and buying them separately honestly made this not a great deal at a running total of $70.
​

You’re working on older Macs capable of running Snow Leopard and maybe even Leopard, and you’re keeping them out of waste streams. That’s what this forum is for! That’s what matters!

I'll probably lose out on a Titanium PBG4 due to this, and it is absolutely not worth it due to stuff like the smaller screen being harsher on my eyes (why do you think I don't own any 12" iBooks/PowerBooks?), but... I just was really curious. Also, a peek at Sequoyah in the background having just

Try a LED retrofit on an XGA display! It’s delicate work, but the improved brightness really helps!

 

[Amethyst1]

Lately I unpacked my iMac 24" from 2006 and was surprised how big it is.

It is gorgeously big. I really wouldn't mind having a 28" or larger 3:2 white polycarbonate iMac.
Your setup looks awesome, and I really appreciate how there's an iPod in lieu of an iPhone. That's where it was at in 2006.

It's the 2.16GHz version and GeForce 7600 GT, runs OS X Lion with Tiger themed wallpaper.

Even better would be to run actual Tiger to complete the setup, although I acknowledge Lion gives you less out-of-date software.

 

[gagigu]

It is gorgeously big. I really wouldn't mind having a 28" or larger 3:2 white polycarbonate iMac.
Your setup looks awesome, and I really appreciate how there's an iPod in lieu of an iPhone. That's where it was at in 2006.

If this iMac dies I have already further plans to give him a 2nd life. So this will stay for very long. iPods are heavily used in my daily life. I don't have any music on my iPhone, so the iPods are fully responsible for my music around me (next to my Mac).

Even better would be to run actual Tiger to complete the setup, although I acknowledge Lion gives you less out-of-date software.

Sure, Tiger would be more matching and I also have the system CD's from Tiger, but it's also a very outdated OS. On my iMac G4 it might be matching, on the 24" one I'd go minimum with SnowLeopard. Maybe I'll try MountainLion or maybe also Mavericks if I find a working version.

 

[gagigu]

This is absolutely delicious. I need to unpack my 24' and my gen3 ipod and do a similar glamour shot. Very nice!

I'm looking forward to see this beautiful machine

 

[rampancy]

It's 1.86 Ghz 32-bit Core Duo madness here in my dining room-cum-makeshift A1181 Mac lab.

This machine came into my collection many years ago, festooned in Def Con 22 and EFF stickers (plus stickers that seem to reference Blowfish), and I'd always wondered what the story was with this MacBook and the person who originally owned it. Def Con 22 took place in 2014, so I wonder how wild it would have been to show up at a party like that rocking eight-year-old Apple hardware running OpenBSD.

Unfortunately it suffered from a failed RAM slot -- and I am not a l33t h4xx0rz -- so being a 32-bit EFI/32-bit CPU Intel Mac there wasn't much I could do with it except put Snow Leopard on it, with TFF Intel and Arctic Fox, and hope that whatever website I'd point it at wouldn't make the machine fall flat on its face.

The other night I finally decided to restore and upgrade it; wanting to preserve the stickers I transplaned the topcase and display assembly to a known good 1.86 Ghz MacBook 1,1 motherboard and bottom case. I replaced the faulty combo drive with a SuperDrive from my eBay stash, put an SSD on it, and on a whim, decided to install Zorin OS 15.3 Lite on it instead of Lubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Zorin OS has to be the best Linux experience I've had thus far, bar none. The latest versions of Chrome and Firefox, modern websites, YouTube, moderate multitasking...all of it runs exceptionally well (granted, with some tweaking). I'm honestly shocked at how Zorin has turned this computer from a technical curiosity into something that I could confidently give to someone in need of a computer for light web tasks.

 

[mectojic]

Lately I unpacked my iMac 24" from 2006 and was surprised how big it is. Also it's quite unique and beautiful compared to the actual design language. I miss this old time. Found also my old iPod Video boxed in that iMac box which was recognized fast by my iMac.

It got a 1TB HDD and 3GB of RAM back then just few months I retired it in 2013 when I got my MBPr 13". It's the 2.16GHz version and GeForce 7600 GT, runs OS X Lion with Tiger themed wallpaper. It left a bad taste as when I unpacked it it had 3 kernel panics in those 4hrs...

View attachment 1964374 View attachment 1964375


I somewhere have also my 2009 MBP 13" laying around, have to dig it out.

Truly the most zen Mac ever made. White/polycarbonate is a more neutral, pleasing tone than all the aluminium that came after it. The keyboard and mouse are also the only pair that may have been universally accepted as ergonomic and usable. The little casing of acrylic around the chassis is also a beautiful touch, just adding that little bit of shine to the whole unit. It's the little details that count, and why this ranks a little higher than the iMac G4 in my design book.

Also, other than the outdated OS, the White Intel iMac could still be perfectly usable for all daily tasks today, web browsing, word processing, youtube etc. I have the 17-inch version, which I love for its cuteness and proportions. I am curious what a 24-inch would feel like in person. 24 inch is still a 'modern' spec, since it's on the iMac M1.

 

[Amethyst1]

24 inch is still a 'modern' spec, since it's on the iMac M1.

It's not just about size, but resolution as well. And aspect ratio, where the white iMac conveniently wins.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I still have not gotten around to taking glamour shots (but I will!) of my 24". They really are hard to miss - very large screens and they tend to dominate whatever desk they are on where as the 17 is indeed much smaller and cute and can sit in the corner of a white room and not be a focus point. I too like the 17 and find them perfectly usable today. I scored one cheap on CL and turned it into a OSX Lion 10.7 retro gaming machine (Atari2600, nes, snes, genesis emus) for my older son (4.5 y/o) who likes playing vintage Mario titles, Kirby etc. with Dad. After all, I am a video game MASTER! (in his eyes anyhow)

Anyhow, The box still stands up to my basic DD needs today with Arctic fox browser although I rarely use it that way - Now it does see moderate to heavy weekly use as a AIO retro console box for my boys and lives in their room.

 

[FNH15]

Truly the most zen Mac ever made. White/polycarbonate is a more neutral, pleasing tone than all the aluminium that came after it. The keyboard and mouse are also the only pair that may have been universally accepted as ergonomic and usable. The little casing of acrylic around the chassis is also a beautiful touch, just adding that little bit of shine to the whole unit. It's the little details that count, and why this ranks a little higher than the iMac G4 in my design book.

Also, other than the outdated OS, the White Intel iMac could still be perfectly usable for all daily tasks today, web browsing, word processing, youtube etc. I have the 17-inch version, which I love for its cuteness and proportions. I am curious what a 24-inch would feel like in person. 24 inch is still a 'modern' spec, since it's on the iMac M1.

I actually use my 17” C2D white iMac for web browsing & Front Row.
It runs 10.4.11, and with the TenFourFox port for Intel Tiger, browses the web surprisingly well.
With 3GB of RAM and a fast 7200 RPM disk, it absolutely flies on Tiger.

 

[Eightbitgamer757]

Today I was given a 17" MacBook Pro from a friend and just finally finished installing OS X and updating it, It has the base Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz, and the max 8Gb of ram. I immediately threw in a Crucial 240Gb SSD and I soon plan on replacing the battery as the current one is pretty degraded (despite only having ~250 cycles), other than that the only issues I've come across are the left speaker doesn't work (I have a sneaking suspicion the cable isn't attached properly to the LB), and a DVD is stuck in the drive, which although is quite annoying, there isn't really much I can do about it. The only last antidote I have about it is the keyboard is so massive I'm not used to typing on it yet, but so far it is a joy to type on.

 

[Jack Neill]

Started moving into the new house, obviously the first thing to come is my Mac collection.. Round 1 of Mac move.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Started moving into the new house, obviously the first thing to come is my Mac collection.. Round 1 of Mac move. View attachment 1972821

I remember moving my Mac collection during my last move. Through the magic of iPhones, I can relive my moving moment 🙂

 

[lepidotós]

Depends on your needs. For 80% of things, even a PowerBook does just fine. If you're looking for something to just browse and do spreadsheets or watch videos on, it'll do pretty good. Games, 3D modelling, and video editing, among other such tasks, are... less viable. Certainly they can be done, but you might lose compatibility with newer versions of APIs like Direct3D and OpenGL.​

 

[Applicator]

Hi all. how do you think in 2022 to buy a macbook 2010?

It's still a decent machine for the usual stuff. Web, Mail, Office and older Apps.
It's fine for design and video editing, too, but not from an economical POV (time is money).

 

[rampancy]

My daily driver is a 2009 A1181 MacBook 5,2, and it's still going strong as a machine for retro 3D gaming and medium-level web and productivity tasks.

 

[dandeco]

Got another addition to my growing collection of older Macs from my workplace...

This time, it's one of the early MacBook Pro models, the initial Intel Core Duo one from 2006! (The first line of Intel Mac laptops, no less!) This one has the 2.16 GHz Core Duo processor and the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card with 256 MB VRAM, but had already been maxed out to 2 GB of system RAM and a 120 GB hard drive. But the internal SuperDrive is bad, as discs cannot even go in it, so I have to use an older external DVD burner to wipe the hard drive and install Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iLife '11 on it. (This is probably why it ended up at our warehouse, as the previous owner was getting rid of it to be recycled or whatever.) I can probably replace the bad optical drive with a good working one, and I also need to get a new battery for it; the old one is so "dead" that unplugging the MagSafe cord will shut it down (I did this by accident) and the internal clock will set itself to a date from 2000! (Better than being set back to 1969 as is the case with PowerPC Macs!) I may even clone the drive to a 256 GB SSD and install that into the Pro to replace the hard drive!

Comparing my 15" PowerBook G4 from 2005 with the 15" Core Duo MacBook Pro. Aside from some slight differences in the case, and the latter having a MagSafe power connection, ExpressCard3/4 slot and a built-in iSight webcam along with dropping the S-Video out, built-in modem and FireWire 800 port, they're still pretty much the same type of laptop, only with an Intel Core Duo system in place of the PowerPC G4 chip. Heck, since the early Core Duo Macs are 32-bit only and can't run any Mac OS versions higher than 10.6 Snow Leopard, I treat them the same way I do with the PowerPC Macs in my collection, as they are fun to keep around for certain tasks and applications.

 

[leolb2615]

My hybrid macOS/Windows 11 Setup:
My Late 2009 iMac

paired with a Windows 11 laptop. I can switch the screen on the right to connect both to the iMac and the Windows 11 Laptop. Then I have a keyboard with a switch function and two mouses. For most Office and web tasks I can use the iMac, but for more graphically intensive tasks or tasks that only work in windows I switch to the Windows 11 Laptop.

 

[eyoungren]

Sorry for the repeat, but I've been meaning to update the image I have in my sig and to do that I need a link, which I can only get from attaching an image to a post.

Apologies for the mess, but this is the latest and at this time I doubt I'm going to get things cleaned up just for a new pic so I'm just going with it.

 

[Jack Neill]

A coworker gave me an 11” Air they didn’t want anymore. As a bonus I also got a SuperDrive. It had 10.10.2 on it and seemed like it hadn’t even been turned on since 2015. The battery has 3 cycles.