Web Crafting for €30 (A retro macbook guide)

[Melooon]

$10 was a mid-2009, finally got OS X Mavericks running today

Typing from my Mavericks desktop now I don't really have any money so I use it to login to my bank But that's a reasonable precaution. I completed my two month project of only using Mavericks and I've not stopped, it just sorta works fine!

recently snagged this 2006 iMac! I installed Snow Leopard 10.6.8

Its amazing how big the leap was from those first Intel ones! I have the same model on my desk but the older G5 from a year earlier and it physically groans (like it makes a creaking nose) when I ask it to play a video that I have specially encoded to work just right for it - and then look at yours going on modern youtube!

That's a lovely computer to do some web crafting on though, the screens are soft but they have a warmness to them that I really enjoy.

As for G4 power supplies, there are two kinds a bigger one and a smaller one and they both look the same but one is easy-ish to get (you can use a generic PC one) and the other one is IMPOSSIBLE to get unless you get an actual apple supply and they are silly money now. You should do some checking to see what on yours is (Id guess its the easier to find one).

[dotmidi]

Check eBay and local computer shops for good deals on white (polycarbonate) Macbooks, don't pay more than €150 and aim to find one for under €50!

May I ask why the white ones are so heralded in particular?  I'm quite interested now but I think white is an ugly and garish color  but if there is some significance I might just brush past that and cover it in stickers

[Melooon]

May I ask why the white ones are so heralded in particular?

There is no good reason other than the fact that no one makes computers that look like that anymore  If you find an old aluminum one, not only will it work fine, but it will prob be a better computer since the aluminum ones were the professional grade ones and the plastic ones were consumer grade 

[dotmidi]

There is no good reason other than the fact that no one makes computers that look like that anymore  If you find an old aluminum one, not only will it work fine, but it will prob be a better computer since the aluminum ones were the professional grade ones and the plastic ones were consumer grade 

Ahhh you have a point though... the aluminum ones are not as interesting, I like how shapely they make them when it comes to polycarbonate... but I really want an older one with FireWire as well!

[C]

Wanted to leave my appreciation for this guide! I found my old 2013 Macbook Air, wiped it for Mavericks, it came with it so I just did an internet restore. Shame it can’t run some of the PowerPC stuff but I’ve found it boosted my webcrafting productivity soooo much. It just feels nice and doesn’t do shit I don’t want it to do.

[hein]

This is such a rad guide.    I've used a 2006 iMac as my main computer for many many years. It was the last 17 inch desktop Mac, it fit perfectly on my crowded desk. I've used it until 2022 believe it or not. Was using a patched version of Mavericks on it. Worked well enough. I had an up-to-date fork of Firefox & Chromium on it. Everything was fine. It still worked, but at that point, much newer Macs had gotten cheap. I bought a 2012 Mac Mini which with OCLP was still (and is still) supported on newer versions of macOS.

I now use that as a secondary Mac, mostly a media player. My 2006 imac is collecting dust. Turned it into a monitor at one point, some of the stuff was kind of failing inside. I currently have an M2 Mac Mini as my main desktop (which is totalllyyy overkill!)