• Hello Guest! We're hosting a challenge to welcome vintage Intel macs to the MLA during the month of July! See this thread for more information.

A Challenge: Plastic Macbooks for July

wthww

wthww

Computer Janitor
Staff member
Hello fellow MLAers,

Nothing says vintage Intel Mac quite as well as the dreaded plastic (polycarbonate) MacBooks. Y'know, the ones your parents sent you to college with.

Yeah, they're greasier than the average oil pan and may (or may not) be actively decomposing, but they're cheap.

Here's an example for $25 of god's own american dollars from eBay:


I'd like to host a challenge on the MLA to help ring in the ubiquitous plastic MacBook to our storied halls:

1) Find a plastic Macbook that needs some help (the grubbier the better).
2) Clean it up and set 'er right
3) Spend a week with 10.4, 10.5, or 10.6.

If you'd like to participate, find a plastic Macbook to take under your wing and post about it in this thread during the month of July! We do love a good before and after, so take plenty of pictures!

I'll be participating in this challenge myself! Best of luck to you all and remember: the only way to lose is by not playing the game :D!

//wthww
 
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I'm going to be outlandish and ask: Blackbook MacBooks allowed 'ere? Got one, it was $20 if I recall, and it's alright.
 
Ooo!

Maybe I could use this as an excuse to find all the bits of my old one (bought new in early 2007) and reassemble it back to a working form!

Or maybe I could simply find another one like it that's mostly whole already, fix whatever's broken, and clean it up.

I had a black one for a while maybe 14 years ago, but it fell apart not long after I got it working. I don't recall why, but I still have most of the bits for it somewhere....

c
 
Sounds like fun, but problematic for me..
wthww said:
1) Find a plastic Macbook that needs some help (the grubbier the better).
Click to expand...
I have a plastic MacBook, but it's nice and clean, so (1) doesn't work.

wthww said:
2) Clean it up and set 'er right
Click to expand...
And therefore (2) doesn't work.
wthww said:
3) Spend a week with 10.4, 10.5, or 10.6.
Click to expand...
Though (3) would work (though actually I have 10.7).

I also thought about buying one of these from Ebay UK:


They're actually all newer than mine, and super-cheap, and it's not too far to Mancland. And I feel sorry for these waifs. But, really, do I want another Intel Mac to clutter up the house? I guess I could correct a few of its faults and sell it for more?

Solution!

Then I had a brilliant idea: I could spludge something greasy and grubby on my existing 2008 white MacBook; then pull a few key-caps off. Then I can comply with (1), (2) and (3)!

Winner!
 
Snial said:
Then I had a brilliant idea: I could spludge something greasy and grubby on my existing 2008 white MacBook; then pull a few key-caps off. Then I can comply with (1), (2) and (3)!
Click to expand...
Or if you use it awhile, it'll happen for you!

These things are really hard to keep clean when used regularly.

The glossy plastics also get scratched up super easily, so an example that gets any use at all ends up really ugly really fast unless it lives on a desk and never gets touched.

c
 
i have a few of these plastic macbooks under my bed somewhere, maybe one or two i have that still work... gonna put 10.6.8 on it and see what i can do with it
 
wthww said:
I'm cajoling @Cory5412 because he told me he had a few already.
Click to expand...
👀👀👀

I'll see what I can work up the energy to do. ISTR they're upstairs behind everything.

Maybe it's time for some good old fashioned Word 2011 Distraction Free Writing Machine time, or to finally load Logic Pro and see about using a Mac to burn DVD-Audio discs.

3lectr1cPPC said:
Do the white unibody ones count?
Click to expand...
I would personally count them, and I do hope they count because the plastic MacBooks I have are indeed the plastic unibody type.

Froggy814 said:
What happened to Imac's?
Click to expand...

The iMac sold gangbusters in the Intel era and was generally a well received, solid option. I actually had one in 2006 for a couple years before swapping to ThinkPads and Windows as my primary modern computers.

For people roughly my age the plastic macbook (especially the earlier, non-unibody version) occupies a special place in our minds and hearts as the computer that flipped The Default Computer from desktops to laptops. This happened at most universities (at least in USA) and generally in Apple's lineup in 2006, the year those first MacBooks launched, propelled mostly by the summer launch of the first-gen plastic macbook.

They were also pretty easy to upgrade, at a time when upgrading the ram in 2-3 years was still often a genuine boost. (whereas IME 16GB has been enough for about a decade now.)
 
Cory5412 said:
I would personally count them, and I do hope they count because the plastic MacBooks I have are indeed the plastic unibody type.
Click to expand...
In that case I've got a 2010 that I could try to set up as my daily for a week... Battery life is probably sub-1 hour at this point but I'll manage.

I do have something more in the spirit of the challenge, that being a box of miscellaneous 2006 and 2007 white macbook parts which should in theory be assemble-able into a working machine. Problem is I absolutely loathe working on these. Apple's laptops of this era are some of the most annoying to take apart and put together. So many little parts, long cables, brackets, and every screw is a different size. I recall that I started off with a semi-dead 2006 in good condition and a working 2007 in bad condition, and attempted to build one good one. Then I ran into some parts incompatibilities and whatever I did assemble with the working 2007 logic board refused to turn on, after which I gave up and threw everything into the parts bin....
 
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