My last G4 Died, and prices are increasing on ebay

[flashedbios2012]

Today is sad for me.  I have no job, no money and now no G4s.  I started last year with two 1.25 G4 MDDs running os9 and an emac 700 running os9.  Both MDDs died (logic boards) and now the emac 700 won't turn on.  I feel so defeated.  I have nothing to run OS9 on and its so unfair that people keep asking more and more money on ebay for vintage macs when I have NO money and NO job.  I am so sick of old computers dying on me!  I hate the direction that computers are headed with cloud based stuff and tablets.  I just want to live in my little OS9 world and forget that technology is progressing in a direction that sucks.  and the price for that keeps increasing.  does anyone have any OS9 stuff they want to give away>?

 

[Unknown_K]

Should be quite a bit of cheap PPC stuff in CA, check freecycle.

 

[tanaquil]

Sympathies, it is sad when old computers give up the ghost.

I second the recommendation for freecycle and/or craigslist. While you might not get a machine for free (it's worth trying though!), I have seen more than one G4 offered locally for less than $100 (not nothing, but pretty cheap when you consider what they originally cost), and you typically don't have to deal with inflated ebay values, not to mention shipping costs, which can easily cost as much as someone might ask for the machine alone on craigslist.

And if you only want OS9, no OSX, G3s can run even cheaper and will do as well.

Good luck!

Today is sad for me.  I have no job, no money and now no G4s.  I started last year with two 1.25 G4 MDDs running os9 and an emac 700 running os9.  Both MDDs died (logic boards) and now the emac 700 won't turn on.  I feel so defeated.  I have nothing to run OS9 on and its so unfair that people keep asking more and more money on ebay for vintage macs when I have NO money and NO job.  I am so sick of old computers dying on me!  I hate the direction that computers are headed with cloud based stuff and tablets.  I just want to live in my little OS9 world and forget that technology is progressing in a direction that sucks.  and the price for that keeps increasing.  does anyone have any OS9 stuff they want to give away>?

 

[Hrududu]

MDDs are beautiful and the dual 1.25 and 1.42 are very powerful, but holy crap are they unreliable!  If you are needing a cheap G4, I'd highly suggest going for an iBook or PowerBook.  They sell cheap and more importantly, SHIP cheaper than their desktop counterparts.  You should have no problem landing a nice PowerBook or iBook under $50.

 

[flashedbios2012]

whats the most beefy powerbook that will run OS9?

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

1GHz TiBook, but they're expensive. And the iBooks with Radeon graphics are unreliable as all get out.

 

[Unknown_K]

Do you have power spikes in the area or something? Three machines dying in a year (of probably light use) sounds odd to me.

 

[flashedbios2012]

The Two MDD Towers died closely together, which is odd but I've seen stranger.  The eMac has been diagnosed as a bad power button, so i popped the button out of the case and cut the connector off the wires and then stripped the wires.  you touch them together to turn the emac on.  Looks like Im going to have to find myself a >667 Ti Book on eBay, and max out its ram and hard drive.

 

[uniserver]

have a car?  your could be a uber driver.  I hear walmart is hiring.  McDonalds even pays 10 an hour heck maybe 15 over there in ca, and they are open 24 hours in most cases... you best believe if i lost my jobs i would be pounding the pavement and knocking on doors and shaking hands. Take care of what matters in life first then worry about hobby crap later.

 

[uniserver]

I remember in 2002, my self and others, from Michigan, Ontario, New York and PA, were selected out a large group of guys that had IT and Cable Experience.  To start up a new B2B HSD Data contract with Adeplha cable in West Palm Beach, Fl

There was signing bonuses and we all got a brand new trucks with all new equipment.  It seemed like it was going to be awesome, pay was suppose to be around 65k a year, witch seemed like a boat load to me at the time.  Shortly after, the arrival, got an apartment, Moved the fiancée down too. About 3 weeks to be exact... The Company Adelpha Filed Bankruptcy and killed all their contracts.   haha that was a tough one... I hit monster.com and was able to get through... got a job at Walkabout, They made these tablet computers, I was in service fixing these things. Ultimately started generating my own customers by sales on craigslist. Met a very nice lady, she was one of the big shot Real estate lades on the ISLAND, Palm Beach. She introduced me to many people, and it was not too long, I was like these rich peoples personal computer dude, doing all kinds of custom stuff. I was getting paid in 100 dollar bills... I had never seen hundred dollar bills passed around so carefree in my entire life.  I ended up having to pack up and head home after a year though, the Fiancee wanted marriage and missed family and wanted to start her bachelors at EMU.

So we moved back and i was kind of bitter... we ended up parting ways shortly after the move home. However, when all was said and done out of the whole crew i was the ONLY guy that managed to stay down there for so long and make it down there all on my own. All the other guys Ran back home shortly after the bankruptcy. The head guy that Dependable IT hired out from under Time Warner cable to run this contract down there in FL... He bought a house down there.  Last i herd, shortly after the bankruptcy,  he started having panic attacks and ended up freaking out and getting hospitalized, lost the house...  i don't know what happened to the wife and kids... but seemed pretty sad when i herd the news. But really, it should be a lesson as to, its all about your state of mind. 

 

[Elfen]

have a car?  your could be a uber driver.  I hear walmart is hiring.  McDonalds even pays 10 an hour heck maybe 15 over there in ca, and they are open 24 hours in most cases... you best believe if i lost my jobs i would be pounding the pavement and knocking on doors and shaking hands. Take care of what matters in life first then worry about hobby crap later.

Not to damper the hopes on anyone, but I've been "unemployed" for the past 2 years and most companies want a young idiot that know nothing so they can pay him the least that they can, even McDonalds won't hire a past employee because of his age and experience. But this is New York City I'm talking about and I'm a 50-something year old college grad so I got 2 strikes against me.

But how did the machines fail? PSU or Logic Board failure? What can you recycle or repair from it? If you think you have Power Surge Problems, you should get a power strip with filter on it and replace every 5 years as they do wear out over time.

 

[flashedbios2012]

logic board failure on the MDDs.  THey kept kernel panicking all the time.  Twice i bought 4 fresh 512 Sticks from Crucial to see if it was ram and it was not ram.  I re-applied thermal paste to the Processors.  I replaced the Power Supplies with apple certified new parts.  I put a total of $681 into these MDDs and never got them repaired.

 

[CC_333]

Hmm, if a 1 GHz logic board would work, there's a guy selling one for $20-$30 on LEM Swap currently.

c

 

[techknight]

No job, and No money, hobbies would be the last thing I would worry about. Immediate roof over the head is more of a concern. Unless your a kid still living with your parents, time to get the priorities in order. THEN hobbies. 

 

[68krazy]

flashedbios2012 don't take this the wrong way, because I was in the exact same place a few years ago, but you sound young and very frustrated with life.  You probably still live at home and hide behind your old Macs to get away from it all.

I hate to tell you this but now is not the time to focus on any hobby, you need to get out and find work and figure out how improve your situation.  That is what being a man is about.  There are plenty of jobs out there right now and like uniserver said, it is all about your state of mind.  Find your nearest busy restaurant and start bussing tables (and work up to server if you want to start seeing some serious cash), or Uber if you have a newer car, or hit up Micky D's, or whatever but do SOMETHING.

No job = you have bigger problems than two old G4s that won't boot.

Just my two cents.  I don't know your situation.

 

[techknight]

Or if you have any skills, do what I did in the beginning. Start your own thing! Side money, use it to get yourself a somewhat beater car, but good enough to get you from A to B, and then go for a real job. 

Gotta start somewhere... 

 

[flashedbios2012]

I know I kind of asked for it in my initial post.  I was having a very bad day.  I'm 31 years old, and have my own place.  I'm married in fact.  My wife is 20 and works in a medical billing office.  She is understanding in my difficulty holding standard jobs, and I do have plenty of IT related side work.  I also handle all house chores such as cleaning, laundry, dishes, etc. When I said no money, I meant no money for my hobbies currently.  Between myself and my wife, we cover our bills and care for Ella and Chloe, our two cats.  Sometimes months are less financially stable than others, other times we run into unexpected infusions of cash.  I felt I needed to explain all of this so that we can get back on topic: my Macs.  

What direction would you guys take?  My goal is to have two screaming fast OS9 Machines with as much RAM as possible and with as powerful video card as OS9 will support.  I have a sizable tax refund coming this year if my calculations are correct, and I want to get two awesome Mac OS 9 Machines for as little as possible.  I have found from experience that the dual 1.42ghz CPUs just aren't reliable or easy to keep cool.  Keeping in mind these will be my MAIN Machines for my day to day needs.  Any "content rich" websites can be handled by my tablet or phone.  These computers will be used for games like RTC Wolfenstein, Quake 1, Riven, The Sims, Sim City 3000, etc.  I plan to load each of them with 2GB RAM.  Would Single 1.25 MDDs suffice or should I go for dual again?

 

[uniserver]

have you tried to file for UIA?  maybe you can collect some bi-weekly $$ from that?

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Honestly, I'd go with a Quicksilver over an MDD. Much more reliable, and it's not like OS9 can access 2GB RAM so the 1.5GB limit shouldn't be an issue.