Hello from my vintage iMac!

[PurpleHello98]

It's probably not as cool as that person who I saw the other day posting from Windows 98, but nevertheless I thought this was cool enough to merit a post here. My mum was in town yesterday, and I asked her if she could bring me an old iMac from home she got for me from one of our neighbours a couple months back! It's one of the very first models back in 2006 to transition to Intel processors, and it's running OS X 10.7 Lion, released in 2011, the last OS version it could run (officially, anyways). I have the smallest, 17-inch version, so it fits pretty nicely on my dorm desk (although I have to have it at a slightly odd angle as the shelves on the desks were very clearly designed with the intention that people would only be using laptops) and I really like it! As my roommate said, it's a very cute computer. Actually, I was surprised that it connected without issue to my university's Wi-Fi: they claim that only OS versions from about 2017 and later are supported, and versions before 10.9 from 2013 don't have the technology whatsoever to connect to the network, but here we are! They also claim that my Wii U won't connect to the network because the network only supports 5GHZ connections, not 2.4GHZ, but I doubt this computer from 2006 supports 5GHZ.

Anyways, I do have my big project underway with this computer: to get it running Windows XP! This shouldn't be very difficult, as this model could officially dual boot with XP... except that the Mac OS only officially allowed that up through version 10.6, so I'm one update too late. But I think I can still do it if I partition the drive, install XP and download the drivers separately, so last night I burned a CD of XP which I really hope will work, as I've not had the best luck in the past with burning OS DVDs (see my debacle, documented on my blog, trying to get Windows 7 to install on another computer last spring), and I'm also trying to burn a DVD of 10.6 Snow Leopard in order to get the drivers off that, as I don't know if a USB flash drive will work on freshly-installed, no-driver XP. I just hope that whatever I do works! :)

[plasticseaslug]

OMG I'm so glad the machine itself is working!! There's something really nice about being able to get an old piece of equipment to work. I hope the drive treats you well so that you can use Windows 98, if anything just because it's pretty.
Have you noticed it working any differently on other web sites you're used to? Like, does YouTube look messed up now because you're accessing it from old hardware or something.

[dream]

Very cool. I kinda wanna find an old 1999 era machine, like a tangerine iMac or Windows 98 PC, CRT and all. Although, in reality, CRT monitors are giant, so maybe something like what you got would be great. Mac with Intel CPU is perfect too for running all major operating systems. Would love to see pics if you take any.

[PurpleHello98]

Very cool. I kinda wanna find an old 1999 era machine, like a tangerine iMac or Windows 98 PC, CRT and all. Although, in reality, CRT monitors are giant, so maybe something like what you got would be great. Mac with Intel CPU is perfect too for running all major operating systems. Would love to see pics if you take any.

I actually have a 1998 blue iMac! Sadly it doesn't work, but I want to get it repaired someday. Anyways, the big thing about those computers is that, although their footprint is bigger, the screens were smaller and, unlike non-CRT monitors, they didn't have stands keeping them a good few inches off the desk. Which means that ironically, this sleeker, newer iMac fits worse on my dorm desk than my 1998 iMac would. 

OMG I'm so glad the machine itself is working!! There's something really nice about being able to get an old piece of equipment to work. I hope the drive treats you well so that you can use Windows 98, if anything just because it's pretty.
Have you noticed it working any differently on other web sites you're used to? Like, does YouTube look messed up now because you're accessing it from old hardware or something.

I've got it dual booting with XP now! On both XP and OS X, it really depends on the web browser you use---both OSes have ports of relatively recent browsers that can use modern, demanding sites like YouTube without any real issue---although I will say Supermium on XP, a fork of modern Chromium, while it is a remarkable feat of software engineering, is really annoying because it keeps setting itself as the default browser somehow so I have to keep it uninstalled. But on both OSes I mainly use a fork of older Firefox (Mypal on Windows and Arctic Fox on OS X), so sites like YouTube et al. don't work the best (although they both can handle embeds) but Web revival sites work splendidly. (Especially with the Melonland 98 theme enabled on ths forum!)

This iMac was the bottom-of-the-line model for its time (although thankfully the previous owner upgraded it to 2 gigs of RAM) so graphics aren't its strong suit---I have to change some acceleration setting in Control Panel to even run old versions of Minecraft, and even then it's quite slow. But for simple tasks it's lovely! It connected to my school's wi-fi perfectly in OS X, but in Windows XP it recognizes the network but gives a certificate error when I try to connect, so I had to buy an ethernet cable to get this thing on-line. And I didn't realize when I bought my first one that the ethernet jacks in my dorm room are on my roommate's side, not mine, so I had to buy another, 50-foot ethernet cable, crawl under my roommate's desk like a mechanic to plug it in, and then try and sneakily hide it around the whole circumference of the room to get it to my desk. But it's here now, and it's working! :)