I still use my indigo iBook to write, surf and watch movies; although the DVD drive is on the way out. Time to hit eBay for a replacement!

I'm still running a 500 MHz G3 iBook as an audio jukebox. Sure, it's slow as molasses and can't back up automatically via Time Machine (can't run Leopard), but, heck, it still works.

My younger brother still uses our Old Macintosh IIsi to play Missile Command.

( And run something like Photoshop 1.4)

I think you'll find a lot of old servers still in use. Upgrading servers is such a pain in the neck that they tend to lag behind the desktops quite a bit. We still have G4 Xserves in service, but we've phased out all the old pre-Xserve desktops that used to inhabit the server room.

For me the cost of new machines is so low that I'm trying to get all the old machines out of service. We've replaced a number of PowerMacs, iMacs, and eMacs with Minis. The new machines are modern, much faster than those they replaced, and much cheaper. It's hard for me to justify keeping the old machines around.

iMac Rev B (blueberry), upped to 500mHz, running OS 9 and my original version of ProTools. Use it fairly frequently.

My wife still writes newsletters on a Performa 6400/180 (MS Office 98, Mac OS 8.6 - and she prints them on an original HP Deskwriter!).However, I'm hoping to replace it soon with a maxed-out Blueberry iMac.

At work, my coworker uses a PCI (Yikes!) G4 with a 1 Ghz Sonnet upgrade.

I still use my old MDD G4 as an Apple TV server... works perfect.

I have a Mac Pro at home but my workhorse is a 1GHz TiBook. It was my first foray into the Cult of Mac and it's been the best computer I've owned. I still love the colors of the case and I'd like to see the new MacBook Pro updated with the Air keyboard.

Once retired, using it as a media box sounds like a great idea. Any tips on software required to setup a decent one?

Any Ideas????

I have two computer that I am not using anymore. One is a 1.83 Core 2 Duo iMac and one is a 1.25 Mac Mini G4 (both running Leopard). I have been using both of them as severs. One for a media server and one to store my photography. I can get away with only using one or the other for both purposes. I already have an extra computer kept in the kitchen.

Any ideas of what I should do with the extra Mini or iMac???

I used a G4 450 mh Cube until last weekend and it worked fine. Just could not update it to the latest OS.

I bought a 500MHz iMac G3 last year and run it as an audio jukebox connected to an external hard drive. It runs Tiger and up to date versions of iTunes and Safari very nicely (sure, not for every day browsing, but enough to just stick on music).

If I hadn't been out of the country for six weeks earlier this year, its uptime would've been around a year.

My beloved G4 Cube was retired earlier this year. My wife's 12"PB was replaced by a MacBook and I got the hand-me-downs.

I'm thinking of reviving the Cube for my toddlers. They love numbers and letters and typing is the coolest thing ever. We pretty much can't use our computers in their presence.

BB

We have 6 MDD's of different flavors, plus a G4 Sawtooth (400mhz) running as a sound effects server. These are what get a top-10 network TV on the air every week. Oh, and all of the MDD's run 10.2.6!

Can someone direct me to a site that will tell me how to set up an old Mac into a server for files?

I'm still using my Powermac G4 quicksilver 2002, i bought it in 2002 and have processed huge image files in Photoshop everyday on it and it has never let me down, but being we are now in 2008 my newer camera's have larger resolution which are agonizingly slow to work with on this machine, so i will soon retire this great machine to the duty of file server and replace it with a Mac Pro.

Chris -

How to set up a Mac to serve files varies between versions of OS X. Since you probably don’t want to buy Mac OS X Leopard server from Apple (for either $500 or $1000), you’ll probably want to set up some sort of file sharing using the Public folder on your old Mac. How you do this depends on if you’re running Jaguar, Panther or Tiger. (If we’re talking about OS 9, well, I’ve forgotten how to do that.)

The most basic setup instructions from apple.com are here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106461

---

I've got more video files than my Apple TV's hard drive can handle, so I'm using a 350 mHz Sawtooth G4 to stream video to it. It works well enough, even though I can't watch the H.264 video on the G4 itself without it skipping and stuttering.

I still use my G4 Cube(1.8ghz Sonnet upgrade) 128gb 7200 hard drive, 1.5gb ram, 8X superdrive, Nivida 6200 256mb video ram and Leopard
It's a regular power house that I use for video work with Final Cut Studio.

and a PowerBook G4 12" 867mhz,
40gb HD 1gb ram, Leopard.

Last,
one that I use off and on a PowerMac 6500 275mhz, Mac OS 10.2,
Still works great.

In my company we have just shut down a PowerMac 4400 running Mac OS 8. It had an ISDN-card inside and was used for ISDN-communication purposes. We still have a PowerMac G4 running Mac OS 9, also for special purposes. And yesterday I heard the startupchime from a Mac SE from the floor above me. It is still used for word processing.

For those who are looking to keep their older Macs in play, check out Low End Mac which is dedicated to the continued use of Macs that are now on the "low end."

It's not as old as some, but I still use my 2004 eMac as my main machine

I still have my Personal LaserWriter SC in regular use, upgraded to an NTR, with a wireless print server attached to its parallel port.

The fan is too noisy to leave it on full time, but I'll use it when I need something with better quality than my inkjet (yes--the 18 year old 300 dpi printer does put out better characters than my 2 month old Canon MP830 inkjet).

I originally bought the printer in 1990, and upgraded it to an NTR only 5 years ago when I found a board on ebay for $9.99. I did it just for kicks, but it actually has found a use in my office from time to time.

I still use a 500Mhz Titanium PowerBook G4 daily. A PowerMac 7500 running OS 9 backs up several machines on the network.

I have two Quicksilver dual 800 G4s. I've hacked both to run 10.5 and 10.5 server. They both work great. The server has a TB of hard drives in it that serves as my back up using home sync.

My father has a 400Mhz G4 Gigabit Ethernet he uses as a iTunes jukebox. I have an old 600Mhz iMac G3, that I use for CD burning. Occasionally I start it up in OS 9 to control an even older Apple LaserWriter 12/640.

This 2GHz Power Mac G5 is the newest Mac in the building here. We have a dual 1 GHz G4 Xserve, a 1 GHz eMac, Two 700 MHz eMacs, a Quicksilver G4 (I can't remember what speed), and a 733 MHz Graphite Power Mac. With the exception of the Xserve and one of the 700 MHz eMacs, all have real people sitting in front of them, running Tiger, and getting things done daily.

Trying to talk IT into putting some Mac Minis in place of some of the slower Macs... but it's kinda hard to justify it when the ones we have are holding up well enough.

Two gigabit 400 MHz G4 towers. Two Mirror door G4 towers and a G5 dual core 2.0 Gigs. This last one is still pretty viable.

I have a Quadra 840AV running systen 8.1 at a blazing speed of 40 MHz. It is in perfect condition and has Photoshop 3.0 and Quark 4.04 (Anyone remember it took Quark 4 updates to even make this thing usable?) and Illustrator 5.0. A graphic designer's dream in 1994.

Still using an 8500 running 9.2.2 here as my primary machine - why replace it if it isn't broken? Prints to an NTR. The 8500 is upgraded with a 500MHz Newer Technology G3 CPU, a Voodoo5 and an 18GB Seagate Barracuda. It also has a USB card so I can use an HP USB burner and USB flash drives.

I think I've got you all beat. Many years ago we donated our old SE to a local charity, eventually they couldn't use it any more and gave it back to us. So we keep it in the kitchen to maintain a list of what's in our deep freeze. It's small, unobtrusive, and does the job.

Still use two G4 400. One in the basement, used as a download server (my main comp is a MacBook Pro and I don't like to leave it on) and storage. My gf uses the other one for email and office stuff. They both run Tiger.

I also have a G4 dual 1.42 running Panther which is my main audio workstation (Latest hardware and OS supported by my Digidesign hardware). Compared to the 400 this one is a monster.

Sometime in the next few weeks I will be turning an old Indigo iMac G3 into a sweet picture frame.

I've got a Centris 660 I use occasionally to download info from my kids' eMates. In addition, I have a couple of snow iMac G3s and a G4 tower from 2001. All good machines that serve us well, and should continue for years. They all have Tiger (except 660). I used to have a Pismo Powerbook before giving it to my 15 yr. old and upgrading to a Macbook. I must admit I miss the nice feel of that Pismo keyboard. I make more mistakes typing with the MacBook. Of course, it's a small sacrifice with the speed increase.

I am
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rop420/65458370/

almost 10 years old

i still have my powerbook G3 400Mhz, the last powerbook model with scsi interface. it is now a jukebox playing lullaby for my kid.
however, i have problem in upgrading the web browser as i can't find any OS9 browser now...

I still run a ruby iMac G3 DV+ in my home office as a print server and jukebox. Working just fine on 10.4.10 and I have no plans to replace it!

Heck, I still use my Pismo PowerBook G3 for updating webpages with Dreamweaver 3 (and if I need to edit an image on there, I pull up Photoshop 4!). it's always charged up for when I need to open the lid and use it. It's been my longest lasting Mac (about 9 years) and no hardware failures!

I´m working with a G4 imac. Each time that someone enters in my office is impressed with it.

I have a Gigabit Ethernet G4 tower @ 400MHz with 1.12GB of RAM and Mac OS X Tiger. I think I might have it replaced when Apple decides to upgrade the Mac Mini

My G4 iBook - the last model offered - is running just fine as my only current Mac. It's resting on a Griffin Elevator with Apple's wireless keyboard and mouse providing the input.

Tiger works great on this machine. I gave Leopard a shot, but aside from Quick Look, the new OS really didn't thrill me - or my iBook!

i use a 20" 1.25Ghz 2gb ram iMac G4 running leopard everyday...

i mostly play DVDs on it (it's my bedroom's flatscreen tv haha) and download torrents using it...

it basically stays on 24/7, with the random restart when there is a software update...

i also play music on it when i'm cleaning the apartment, as it has those pro speakers that have amazing sound!

all in all, this machine is in perfect condition and it could be used for everything i think... it's fast and cute and it doesn't look outdated at all.

i just prefer laptops over desktops as i'm always moving around the house while doing stuff on a computer.. can't really sit still

I'm still running an old MDD G4 dual 867!

I've got all four drive bays in use and maxed out the RAM.
I'm not using wireless, but it is connected to an airport extreme over the gigabit ethernet. I've upgraded both optical drives to dual layer DVD burners. It's basically as pimped as it can get.
It runs Leopard pretty well.

I did just trade up my laptop from an old 933 MHz G4 iBook to a 2.6GHz MacBook Pro. Ahh...it's nice!

I use a 2004 eMac 1.25 with 768 Mb of ram and an external 250Gb HD. I'm running 10.4.11 and it starts up in less than 2 minutes.

I got the system board replaced under the video repair program and I haven't had a problem since. Thanks AppleCare!

My Son uses my old 2001 iMac G3 500Mhz and he is happy. I also have my very first Mac, a Macintosh Classic. It still runs games and word processing just fine.

I don't do any heavy lifting except for Photoshop, but even for that the eMac is fine.

I may have you all beat. I still have my original SE/30 with a whopping 20M hard drive and enormous 8M RAM! The CRT doesn't work, but it still boots!
Also I have:
Performa 650
PowerComputing PowerTower
PowerMac 7200, 3 7600s
Beige G3 desktob
2nd Gen green iMac
3rd Gen pink iMac
G4 digital audio (yuck!) G4 tower
then,
MacBook
MacBook Pro
looking at that, I need to clean out my basement!

If it weren't for portability and that odd gene that makes me crave newer and faster computer hardware fortnightly, I would still be using a 1GHz eMac (1GB RAM, original 40GB hard drive) as my one and only Mac. Gave my iMac G3 500 away to a little girl who wanted - nay, needed - a computer of her very own, because Mommy's iBook wasn't always available to her. She's in heaven with it, and it does everything she could ever want it to do.

Using a Last Generation HR 15" Powerbook G4 here. 1.67Ghz, 2GB, 100GB HD, Leopard. By far my most favorite machine I have owned, plus the extra screen resolution is better than the new MacBook Pros. My wife also has a last generation iBook 12" which she loves.

I have a 466MHz PowerMac G4 "Digital Audio" and a 500MHz iBook G3, both from 2001. I use the iBook for normal stuff like e-mail, web surfing, word processing, listening to music and so forth. My PowerMac is currently encoding .H264 video podcasts of a TV show I work for using the excellent "VisualHub" software. It does a beautiful job. It's been encoding video 24 hours a day for weeks now. At this rate it'll be done with the .H264 in about another month or so. I also use it for audio and video production sometimes. My friends all have expensive new computers... which they use for demanding jobs like checking their e-mail and stuff... (grin)

Aside from the huge vintage Mac collection in my basement, my husband and I routinely use:

1) My G4 PB 12" 1.5 GHz, 1.25 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD - my main computer, running Tiger with all updates. I love this form factor, and will ONLY part with my Little Al when an 11 - 12" MBP debuts.

2) A G4 Sawtooth 400 MHz with upgraded video card, paired with a 17" Apple Flat-CRT for medium-level photo jobs and record-keeping.

3) A G4 Sawtooth 450 MHz for region-free DVD-watching.

4) Pismo 500 MHz, OS X.3.9 - my husband's main machine, after parting with a 366 Graphite Clamshell iBook. Used mainly to import music into iTunes for his 2G Nano.

5) A mint-condition PB 1400c/166 (still sealed in the box when I bought it two months ago) running 8.6 - used mainly for novel writing and tinkering with AppleScript, and soon to be upgraded to a 233 MHz nuPowr G3 card and max RAM.

6) iMac G3s galore, 350 MHz - 600 MHz, dual-booting Tiger and 9.2.2 - I refurbish these puppies, put freeware educational titles on them, and find families who want an affordable second computer for their kids. These things are tanks and cake to work on.

My primary computer is a 450MHz Cube with a flashed Geforce 6200 video card running 10.5.2 (my portable Mac is a 800MHz G3 iBook running 10.3.9). The Cube runs Safari, Mail, Office v.X, iTunes and Time Machine great. My wife uses a 1GHz eMac, my son has a 867MHz Quicksilver (with a Radeon 9800 for gaming) and my daughter has a 450MHz Sawtooth - All running Leopard (parental controls for the kids). The kids' old G3 iMacs are going to their cousins, loaded with Ubuntu and Panther. Our home network is still using a c. 1999 Graphite AirPort base station that has been on 24/7 the whole time.

My prior list is just the old macs in daily use... the basement has:
PowerBook 3400c
2 PowerBook 150's
Macintosh Classic
Bondi Blue iMac 233
Stylewriter 1200

...and I recently gave away or recycled:
6 PowerMac 6100's
1 PowerMac 7100
1 PowerMac 8100
4 Centris/Quadra 610's
2 Quadra 605's
2 Apple 1705 displays (17")
2 Apple Color displays (14")
2 Stylewriter II's

We use two Gigabit Ethernet machines... one stock DP500mhz with 1 gig RAM and a flashed Geforce 6200 video card; the other, upgraded with a 1.8ghz Sonnet processor, 1.5gigs RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 pro video card. My kid uses an iMac DV SE 500mhz, and my gf and I both have Wallstreet Powerbooks that we carry around. We're strictly LEMers! I'd love to replace my GE 1.8 with a Power Mac G5 someday.

Although I do not currently own a Mac, after flogging Windows Vista based computers for a year and a half at Office Depot, and dealing with the hassles, I will add to my Windows XP box the addition of two older Macs...(as soon as George Bush's handout is mailed in May). I will be buying a used 12" G4 PowerBook 800Mhz-1Ghz and a 17" G4 iMac 1.0Ghz-1.25Ghz. This should bring more peace to me for the lack of Windows based hassles and peace to the family who are fighting over an ever more ancient Windows box.

Among our household's most commonly used Macs, we have:
a Lombard Powerbook 400MHz (OSX 10.3) and a PowerMac Gigabit Ethernet w/1GHz Sonnet upgrade (OSX 10.4)(both mine);
a Lombard Powerbook 333MHz (OSX 10.3)and a G3 iMac DV-SE 400MHz (OSX 10.4)(both my wife's);
a PowerMac 9600 w/400MHz G4 upgrade (OS9.1) that I use with my Apple QuickTake 150 digital camera!
I also have an SE, a Mac Portable, a Mac II, a Powerbook 3400c, a Duo and an Apple IIgs rounding out the main part of the assemblage. With the exception of the Mac II, they are all fully operational and get used more often than one might think!

I still use an iBook Clamshell (Tangerine), with 288 MB RAM and running 10.2.8 (plan to upgrade to 10.3). It is still my primary machine. Additionally, I use a G3 B&W as well as an old 5260/100 for image captures.

I use a Powerbook G4 as my primary computer. It's got everything I need for burning DVDs and CDs, surfing the internet wirelessly, playing my ROMs for NES and SNES, and a large enough drive for my movies, podcasts, tunes, and photos.

In the lab, I'm still using a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet. Its battery is shot and the screen blinks in and out, but it's exactly what I need for sound editing. I boot it up to 9.1, and is the only computer I have around that still has a working floppy drive, which helps out with the consulting business!

Which G4 are you using? Every G4 except the Yikes! can be upgraded to Leopard with a simple hack.

My main computer is a Macbook Pro, but I'm still running a 7300 I bought back in early '97. It's on 24/7 (as a media server), and it's running 10.4.11 via XPostFacto with no problems.

Apart from my Macbook Pro & Intel iMac 2Ghz, I still use an iMac G4 15" 800Mhz daily, and have a Mac Mini G4 1.42Ghz spare.

After getting rid of my PC collection (bar 2x Compaq Deskpros) I have started a LEM collection!

- iMac G3 Rev D 333Mhz (made from 2x Bondi Rev B & 1x Tangerine Rev D!!) 256Mb RAM running 10.1.5 perfectly.

- PowerMac G3 333Mhz beige, 384Mb RAM, 10.3.9. Very grumpy, needs new PRAM battery.

- Performa 6400

- Performa 6320 (its actually my old 5320 stuffed into a 630 case)

- Apple AudioVision 17" CRT

- Apple CD300e SCSI

- Iomega Zip 100 SCSI

I still have a 500mhz white iBook which works fine running OS 10.4. Only drawback is it is slow and has a tiny hard drive.

Recently I was given a 450 mhz G4 cube running Tiger which I use as a bit torrent server. BT takes as much of the available memory as it can. It's nice to have a computer dedicated to BT so I can do other things on my 1.25 ghz G4 mini running Leopard somewhat sluggishly.
I wish I could afford a new mini!

My main system is a power mac 9600 upgraded with a sonnet g3 450 and a rage 128 pci video card. Loved the design of this computer and it's ease of expandability since day one. It's running os9.1, never have seen a reason to switch to os x.
I also have and use a powerbook 5300cs and my 1st mac, a powerbook 180.

Ha! I don't have the kind of money to buy a new Mac every year. The last brand new Mac I bought was in 2001.

It is a 733-mhz Quicksilver G4 tower that is regularly used for desktop publishing, photo editing, audio editing, website creation and maintenance, word processing, music listening, iPod synching and internet surfing. It runs Mac OSX (not the latest version) with aplomb and occasionally I can boot into OS9 to run legacy apps in native mode. Can't do that with the latest Intel Mac.

On top of that I regularly use an iBook 700 G3 laptop as my everyday portable computer. That runs Mac OSX 10.4 almost exclusively.

Lastly I can run legacy apps and open really old files with my used Powerbook 3400 that I bought 8 years ago for a song. Anyone know of a modern Mac that can open and format and 800K floppy disc? This one can!

Old Macs live on for as long as you want them to.

Would you believe all of the machines listed below!

Apple II, Apple III (Sara), Lisa 2/5 and 2/10, 128k, 512k, 1MB Plus, SE-30, Macintosh Portables #5120, #5126 (8MB!) Powerbooks 100, 140, 180 and 180c, 1400c/166 (King),Duos 280 and 2300, Lime Clamshell Ibook, Pismo G3 400's running 9.1 and 10.4, G4 Powerbook 1.67/2GB and the MacBook Pro with 4GB memory, it should be obsolete now that there is a new MacBook Air!

I am writing this on a PowerMac 9500 that I purchased on eBay a few years ago for $35. With a 1 GHz G4 upgrade and other updates (also from eBay) it runs OS X Panther just fine. Maybe I have spent $200 on it all together.

My newest computers are a WallStreet and a beige G3. I use them both everyday, running OS 9.2.1 on both machines. They're mildly upgraded with USB cards, bigger and faster hard drives, and a whole bunch of RAM on the beige, but they still have the old 266 and 300 mHz processors. They're ten years old, but they do what I need them to do, just word processing, email, and a bit of digital photo stuff. Why spend a bunch of $$$ when it all still works?

I still use (and love!) my Power Mac G4 Digital Audio with a Sonnet CPU upgrade and 512 MB RAM; it's a fantastic Mac OS 9 machine and I also run Leopard on it so that I can use a modern Web browser and Apple's mail client. One of these days I'm going to drop more RAM and another CPU upgrade in it and add a new video card so that it can run Leopard even faster, and new hard drives aren't too far off either.

And a B&W G3 is my file server, from which I share files to the G4 and my MacBook, the first Mac I owned.

This article made me look around the house and I've got a raft of older macs... So many that I had to post an entry...

http://loscuatroojos.com/2008/04/20/are-you-still-using-an-older-mac-seems-like-lots-of-people-do-i-do-too/

Still quite happily using a dual 867 G4 and a 1.2GHz G4 'book. I only recently got rid of my 7200, 7300 and tangerine 'book.

It's all the computer I need. If I didn't favour the massive display on the G4 tower for writing, I could ditch that too. Macs just age so much more gracefully than PCs. Leopard represents the biggest loss of support since OS 8.5, I think, and yet it'll still run on 5 year old machines. Let's see you try that trick with Vista :)

I still use a Power Mac G4 DA with 1.5 GB and a Emac 1.25 GHZ both with Mac Os X 10.5. They still work very good, and could work for a long time coming if Apple keeps on supporting the Power PC. I know that won't happen but once I can get a Intel Mac for 500 to 600 bucks I'll upgrade. No mac mini for me, that thing is a joke!

I suppose it's all relative.

As a freelance Mac tech over here in the States, I frequently become the recipient of clients' "hand-offs": Macs they no longer need because they've upgraded to something new. Frequently, the stuff they hand off to me is a good deal newer than what I might've been using at the moment. Thanks to this situation, my current Main Axe (to use an Ihnatko-ism) is a Power Mac G4 FW800 tower (dual 1.25GHz), which does the business where I need it, mainly Photoshop (I'm a photographer...mostly film, thankyouverymuch), among other, less-intensive stuff. My other Mac is a PowerBook G3 "Pismo", maxed-out in the usual, useful ways (1GB RAM and a reasonably-large and fast HD), which is fast enough for the stuff that counts, and okay for the rest (yes, YouTube video streams are a bit choppy, but legible).

The moral here is that you simply need to think about what you use a computer for most of the time, as opposed to what seems like a cool idea, planted by a marketing model.

- Barrett

Main machine is an upgraded DA in which I put a 1.47 MHz, 3 SATA drives, new video card, 1.5 RAM. Runs Tiger like a charm.

Also have for backup:
9600 with G4/700/1.5 RAM/2 drives/USB/FW and a Wallstreet upgraded with 466MHz, 512 RAM, 20G drive/FW/USB both running 10.3.9 beautifully via XPostFacto.

My G4 Cube and Powerbook G3 "Lombard" are still working fine, both under 10.3.9.

It's only obsolete if it can't do the job anymore.

I use a '99 Blue and White G3 at work, upgraded to 1.0ghz. I also have a 600mhz dual USB ibook that does the mobile thing very well still,streams the BBC in surgery. At home I have key lime Paris clamshell ibook, for web surfing and word processing. Its running Tiger 10.4.11. Tip: Beta of Firefox 3 supports page zoom, makes web browsing tolerable at 800x640. Unless you are doing video work the above machines work fine for day to day uses.