What to do with old PowerMac

[Le Big Mac]

I have an old Powermac, 601, with a G3 upgrade card. Bought a new iMac, so it's pretty irrelevant. Any thoughts on what uses I might put it to? (Hard drive is pretty small--1 GB--ouch). For now I'm thinking of setting it up in our guest room for folks who drop by to surf the web on. Anything better than that?

 

[City of Glass]

That sounds like a good use. I'd probably go a similar route.

-CoG

Of course . . .

schools are always looking for computers, no matter what age. The word "donation" echoes somewhere in my skull . . .

 

[XnavxeMiyyep]

You could use it for random experimentation, such as language changes, older OSes or Non-Apple OSes.

 

[5300cs]

Too bad with a G3 you can't run BeOS. I'm pretty sure it ran on older PPC chips though...

 

[TMA]

I would use it as a Stereo in a bedroom or living room. Network it up to your collection of mp3's/AAC's or even store them on it (with a cheapo second hand 30gig HD or something) Could you get enough RAM in that to run OS X? If so you could use rendezvous to stream to it.

I quite like the idea of a guests Internet machine though. How much would you charge them per hour?

 

[dethl]

Why not try Gentoo or Yellow Dog Linux? Though they may not work with your G3 upgrade (or may, intermittently), but it could give new life to that old mac. I myself am considering a Powermac 6500/250, but because the processor upgrade is via the L2 cache, I'm not too sure any flavor of linux would work on it.

 

[alset]

Linux based web server.

Mail server.

IRC server.

Dan

 

[cubist]

Originally posted by TMA
... I would use it as a Stereo in a bedroom or living room. ...

With some kind of audio digitizer you could connect it to your stereo to digitize albums.

I doubt you could run Mac OS X on it even if you could get enough RAM in it.

As a guest computer, though, you could load it up with some Mac OS 9 games. You could even play multi-player (e.g. WC3) with them if you networked it to the iMac. Multiplayer gaming is great fun at parties!

 

[marlow]

You could paint the case or even veneer it with wood (they sell self stick stuff at Lowes, real wood with a sticker back). Drop in a TV tuner add a mointor with andor some speakers and set it up as a super duper alrm clock, entertainment and email center for the bedroom. I've one hooked up to a 32" Gateway monitor as my main TV with a wireless keyboard. Guest room has an iMac 333. Duo 2300 with a "yo-Yo" adb phone system and 'focus presenter' dock acts as my bedroom's media and call center. The Dining room has a TAM (almost never buzzes) that revolves a screen saver of artwork and hosts a great ambient mp3 collection for dinner music. All are linked via an Airport into my home network which is served by an ANS 500 running Darwin. Amazing things can be made from old Macs, strip them down, load a suitable system, strip the system to the software only for it's tasks and you've very compitent machines that get the job done.
Sadly I type this from an XP box that rests inside the massive chromed shell of what was the prototype of what was to be "The World's Coolest Mac DTP server", sadly Apple sent the cease and desist order the day after I got the credentials cleared from Motorola. So I've turned my own rare Mac memorabilia into a windowz box. It does at least boot Darwin on occasion. The case and Moto board compatible 400W powersupply cost me more to make than an ibook 900 costs today!

 

[jimthorn]

Originally posted by marlow
Sadly I type this from an XP box that rests inside the massive chromed shell of what was the prototype of what was to be "The World's Coolest Mac DTP server", sadly Apple sent the cease and desist order the day after I got the credentials cleared from Motorola. So I've turned my own rare Mac memorabilia into a windowz box. It does at least boot Darwin on occasion. The case and Moto board compatible 400W powersupply cost me more to make than an ibook 900 costs today!

Hey marlow, post a picture. I love prototype computers, especially Mac ones.

 

[marlow]

Does that mean I need to clean it up first? I have the whole thing apart right now, I'm moddifying the case a bit at the moment, so a couple panels are in the garage. So right now she just looks like a 2.5 foot tall PC on wheels. I might still have some promo pics saved at my office somewhere though. If not I'll snap some once I get her back together though.

That does remind me though of all the old Macs I messed with, from Velvet 6200's, to Lime Green 7100's My Daystar MP600 was Blue, I was very jeaslous of the Be machines coming out, so I had to Beat them. On another note, DON'T use Krylon Fusion to paint your plastics unless you allow A LOT of dry time, the can says "1 hour" I painted my Treo, it looks cool from a distance, but is totally messed up and was still sticky after 24 hours. The finish now is tough, but it's all messed up from handling it too soon.