A rescued relic (Macintosh Classic)

[Cory5412]

Like a docking station or a video output dongle? That's probably an S-video port. It's meant for displaying analogue video out from your computer onto a television.

The cable, presuming it is a properly wired S-Video cable, will work as an ADB cable in a pinch, however proper ADB cables have better sheilding. (I've used one this way long-term before, proper ADB cables are way too short to reach from the top of a desk to a Quadra sitting on a floor.)

Even so, ADB can't be used to transfer data, only keyboard/mouse signals.

I'd rather not have this topic turn into debate hall on the ethics of computer recycling.

Not to get all technical, but I seem to recall you starting it. I'm here to present facts.

As for the bank account situation, I'd like to play the blame game and point a finger at my current legal guardians.

It's not my place to talk about how other people raise their children, but while you're legally under the care of other people, it's important to understand why they're doing what they're doing, and what the effects are on you. Generally, when I was but a wee young person, I didn't have a lot of money either. That's the natural state of being young and too far away from anything to get a job.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Hmm... I know it's not much different from emulation, but could the s-video cable hooked from my laptop into my Classic send the proper signals for a mouse somehow? I really doubt it can since it's not very practical, but if it were at all possible...

Also, I've always thought Quadra was such an interesting name... Kind of makes me wonder, "quad" means four, doesn't it? Makes me think, maybe the Quadra was meant as a continuation off the numeric series of Apple computers (I, II, ///), considering it ended at three, but that's a conspiracy theory for another topic on another day. XP

 

[Cory5412]

ould the s-video cable hooked from my laptop into my Classic send the proper signals for a mouse somehow?

No.

maybe the Quadra was meant as a continuation off the numeric series of Apple computers (I, II, ///)

Quadras have 040 processors in them, which is part of why they took Quadra as the name. If anything, '030 based Mac IIs may have been Mac IIIs if Apple had introduced the '020 earlier in its life cycle, and changed more things between the initial '020 model and the follow-ons.

Then, the Quadra could have been called Quadra, Mac IV or even "Mac 4" -- which could have given them an interesting opportunity to shake things up a bit, design-wise.

 

[Scott Baret]

There was no Mac III because "III" was considered bad luck at Apple for many years following the Apple III's failure.

No 68K Mac series began with "3". We had the 200s (Classics), 400s (LCs), 500s (AIOs), 600s (various), 700s (one Quadra model), 800s (performance), and 900s (performance). In the laptop line, there were 100s, 200s, and 500s--but no 300s.

The rules were finally broken with the LC III (only other Apple to use the Roman numeral) and PowerBook 3400.

Even now, there is officially no "iPad 3". Perhaps a nod to history?

 

[Unknown_K]

Dell probably started that recycling deal to keep slightly old machines out of the refurb market so they could sell more DELL machines. Around here the refurb market is flooded with DELL and Emachines systems plus a few macs. If DELL repositions itself as a service company and makes tons of money doing that they will probably cancel the free recycling deal. From my information (at a scrapper forum I frequent) there is around $11 per tower in money to be made in recycling (depending on what commodity prices are) and local scrappers generally pay $4-5 for a complete tower which they then break down. So it could be DELL isn't exactly losing money doing the recycling. There is also money in recycling cell phones and cell batteries among other things. Doesn't seem like there is much money at all in recycling laptops (maybe the battery).

 

[krye]

Yeah, I went to the God Will store by me thinking they were going to have shelves of vintage computer gear for garage sale prices, but they had nothing. It was 90% clothes, 5% houshold crap, and 5% old VHS tapes. No hardware of any kind. Bummer. I checked out their website and it looks like the only ones that sell tech are in California.

 

[Cory5412]

Citation, on Apple's extreme nervousness about the number 3, Scott?

There's the Powerbook 3*00 series -- which was Apple's high end laptop in like 1996/1997 or so.

I really think part of the reason there's no 3 series once Apple started numbering things is because they already had too many tiers. The 6000 and 5000 series were basically at the same tier, but different form factors, same with the 7000 and 8000 series, the 4000 series should probably just not have existed (in favor of selling a 6000 or a 7000).

I really suspect it had more to do with the '020's relatively short life in the desktop Mac, and Apple not wanting to create confusion by renaming the product every year, than with superstition about the number 3.

As far as Dell moving to a services model and abandoning the recycling service -- If you were to look at dell's home page, you'd see that they're committed to the PC industry. (Even though they are known for exiting unprofitable segments which arguably should never have existed to begin with, such as netbooks for consumers.)

Dell is trying to move into services, but a lot of that is services based around hardware they sold, such as the V-Start virtualization appliances (which is a pre-configured rack with vmware ESXi or Hyper-V, shared storage, and a management console, that organizations can use to jump-start a virtualization deployment.)

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

I know this probably isn't the best time nor place to ask this, but what was the last laptop Apple sold in white? Because I was under the assumption that they were only available in the aluminum coloration, which really is what put me off about Intel Macs. Alternatively, which white Macbook or other Apple laptop is common and old enough to be generally inexpensive today while still being useful? Thanks in advance! :3

 

[Cory5412]

Answer A) Apple never sold a good laptop. Buy a new Latitude, ThinkPad, or if you hate money, HP Elite. Mac OS X runs on desktops.

Answer B) (probably the answer you want) The "MacBook" with no Air or Pro on the end was an Intel system all the way from its introduction in 2006 to its discontinuation in 2009 or 2010.

If you absolutely MUST have a white laptop, I would go for the newest MacBook (unibody) that you can find. The directly previous model that was still discrete-bodied but had the GeFORCE 9400m graphics should also have a bit of life left in it, and has the advantage of a swappable battery, which can be nice if you plan on keeping the machine a very long time.

When shopping for Macs, keep in mind that there's about a three year window between when a machine was first sold and when it's really considered to be a good choice for anybody who wants to keep up with the Mac platform. Honestly, even if you can find a Penryn unibody Macbook from 2009 or 2010, it'll be a good computer for a while, but it wont' be a good Mac for very much longer. Mountain Lion, coming out in a few weeks, is likely to be the last version of the OS that supports these machines. Plus, Mac laptops are famously finnicky, especially pre-unibody machines, and having a warranty (or just having one that somebody hasn't done who-knows-what to) is the way I'd prefer to do it, if you can swing it.

Answer C) (when budget is the most important concern) Please do not buy an iBook. There's no reason to have an iBook here in 2012 unless you need Classic Mode for OS 9 applications, or you have one of the very first models, 500MHz, or 600MHz with ATi Rage graphics. (Every other white iBook had significant manufacturing defects or design flaws.)

 

[trag]

The website osxlatitude is dedicated to installing OSX on Dell Latitudes. I plan to try it one of these days with my D430. The D430 is a nice little laptop, if somewhat underpowered (1.3 GHz Core2Duo) by today's standards.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Alright!~ It was moreso a matter of design than anything else, but I do really need an upgrade. My current laptop is a Dell Latitude D610, and it won't even play Minecraft. I'll look into PCs too though.

Also, I already have an iBook G3 DualUSB I paid out the nose for thinking it was a G4. XD

 

[Cory5412]

On the laptop front, I can't give enough reccomendation for ThinkPads. In the past several years, I can think of only one model specifically worth avoiding, the T61p, only because it suffered from the Quadro version of the GeFORCE 8600m GT GPU failure.

A regular T61 would be a great starting point, and the Dell version, the Latitude D630, is likewise a decent enough machine.

I personally just migrated away from a Penryn Core2 machine, the ThinkPad T400 (equivalent to the Latitude E6400) and am generally in the habit of recommending that people who are looking for used machines go for something about that age (late 2008, early 2009) or newer, since they'll use inexpensive ram, cheap hard disks, and the current versions of Dell's or Lenovo's power adapters. (Plus, it's fast enough at regular Windows or linux tasks. I started noticing some issues if I wanted to play games or do something crazy like play a game and listen to music at once, which was why I switched to a newer machine.)

I've heard that a good source for Latitudes, just as an aside, is dfsdirectsales.com -- They've got a variety of relatively modern machines which will be complete and have an OS for decent prices.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Yeah, I actually do enjoy the chunky, simplistic design of the thinkpad series, as well as the look of the colorful IBM logo on the simple, black background. No glazed over "smooth" metallic shell that smudges up easy, but rather a nice, matte finish. I'll keep the Thinkpad in mind for sure. :3

 

[bd1308]

Okay, I had to post here. A couple of years ago, the Goshen Rotary Club (in KY) got me involved in taking a pallet of old donated computers, refurbishing them, and loading WIndows back on there (they all had XP COAs). These computers were collected, and I went to Goodwill. There, they were having Graduation Day for some of the students in a non-profit GED preparation course, and the graduates passed the GED exam. The coordinator of Goodwill of KY and I surprised the graduates with computers for each of them. I've never seen so many people get so excited about computers that they were in tears. These were old PIII machines running Windows XP, nothing to brag about, but SO many people were so thankful to have these machines, they cried. I saw a big, tall man break down in tears and hug me because he finally had a computer.

I asked the coordinator why Goodwill doesn't accept computers anymore, and she told me (at least in KY) that unfortunately it's cheaper to recycle the computers instead of fixing them and hiring someone to refurb them (and to load software). I keep asking about extra parts -- which she doesn't have much of anymore -- and she returns begging me to make more computers work for more people.

It appears that they state on their site now that they DO NOT accept computers any longer. I really need to email her again and see what I can do to help.

The other thing I thought of was getting someone to help buy a large chunk of Raspberry Pi machines to donate to low income families too since they work with composite TV output.

 

[Dog Cow]

Please do not buy an iBook. There's no reason to have an iBook here in 2012 unless you need

We all love your sweeping declarations. Ok, I'll stop posting to 68kmla using my iBook G4 (recently refurbished this summer).

 

[Cory5412]

There's a time and a place for a decade old computer, or a poorly built computer on an abandoned architecture. Almost never is "my main computer" an appropriate time and place for it.

I mean, heck. I've got a Pentium IIIm and a Pentium 4m running Vista and 7 respectively that I pull out for specific tasks, but I would do everything in my power to avoid using them as main computers. (Although I'd sooner use my P4m as my main computer in some kind of extremely dire emergency than a PowerPC machine.)

Finding something that'll run current software, which will still receive security patches, and probably be faster than even the fastest iBook/PowerBook G4s in maxed configuration with lots of money dumped into restoration and newer/faster parts, isn't very expensive at all -- even for a good business notebook from a reputable vendor which sold in epic quantities and for which spare parts and service manuals are super easily available.

 

[CelGen]

Computers for he most part have not been in major second hand chains for more than five years now.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

In all fairness @ Cory & Dog Cow, I do regret getting the iBook G4 to use as my main computer, and plan on selling it as soon as I get a MacBook. On the other side of the coin, I find the iBook G4 to be a great machine for its time, it just hasn't aged well is all. It's that PowerPC processor, it's cool having something so different from the rest of the pack but at the same time it's no fun not being able to participate in all the fun things my friends with Intel machines do. (And then having to explain to them why I can't do these things.)

But the iBook is very well built, and if it were capable of doing things a comparable Wintel machine can do today I'd be perfectly fine with it.

 

[Cory5412]

Computers for he most part have not been in major second hand chains for more than five years now.

Sure, but if you can access this web site, you can go to eBay or dfsdirectsales.com, or geeks.com, or newegg, or tigerdirect.

nd if it were capable of doing things a comparable Wintel machine can do today

The unfortunate thing is that that's a very big "if."

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Yeah, it's really frustrating how I can't run Youtube and Facebook at the same time and not have the computer lag out like I had 20 windows open.