what to do with old ibook

Quacksalber

hi folks,

so i have an old ibook - you know the first white one that came out.
having a new macbook pro 13" - oh yes - I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the ibook. is it even worth anything now would anyone buy such a thing ?

what else could i do with it ? any ideas anyone ?

pvik00

Quacksalber wrote: »

hi folks,

so i have an old ibook - you know the first white one that came out.
having a new macbook pro 13" - oh yes - I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the ibook. is it even worth anything now would anyone buy such a thing ?

what else could i do with it ? any ideas anyone ?

What's the specs? (CPU/memory/HDD)

For one I'm still using an iBook and honestly I don't need any more horsepower than what it has to offer. All the hype around the new products - much overrated. Just recall, a few years ago these were the awesome laptops everyone was amazed by.
This means that there may be many users out there who would be happy to buy your friend for a realistic price.
With sufficiently old software these laptops run surprisingly well. They don't go off, like food, just because of their age.

If you don't want to bother with ads or ebay you can still give it to charity, offer it for free or save it to your or some relative's kid.

Sad Professor

You could use it as a media centre.

Quacksalber

Media centre - yeah thought about that but not sure how to connect to my HD tv etc.

Also - anyone know how to install mac os x on to it - it only has a cd reader and so far as i konw osx only comes on dvd

Sad Professor

You'd have to get a earlier version of OSX. Leopard definitely won't go on there.

As I recall, all versions of OS X up to 10.3 (Panther) came on CDs. Tiger/10.4 came on DVD but I'm pretty sure there was a CD version as well.

What spec iBook is this? The very first white one? G3 500MHz? How much RAM?

I'm not sure that would able to handle Tiger. The processor might be okay (if very stretched) but the RAM mightn't be enough.

pvik00

Quacksalber wrote: »

Media centre - yeah thought about that but not sure how to connect to my HD tv etc.

Also - anyone know how to install mac os x on to it - it only has a cd reader and so far as i konw osx only comes on dvd

It all depends on what exact model your iBook is. If you let us know someone will be happy to advise.

Quacksalber

I must correct myself - it runs OS X version 10.2.8 (whats that Tiger ?)
its an ibook version 1.2
Its a 600Mhz Power PC G3 with 256Mb of Ram
CD drive
usb 1.0
firewire....presume 400Mhz

I was now thinking to set it up as a printer server. hmmm was thinking to attach a scanner too but usb1.o is painful for that.

I'd like to stick leopard on there - i was under the impression that leopard used slightly less resources than predecessor.

any thoughts ?

Sad Professor

Quacksalber wrote: »

I must correct myself - it runs OS X version 10.2.8 (whats that Tiger ?)

Jaguar.

I'd like to stick leopard on there - i was under the impression that leopard used slightly less resources than predecessor.

Leopard won't run on a G3. And you only have the bare minimum RAM for Tiger/10.4 - but you could bump the RAM fairly cheaply.

Or maybe just go for Panther/10.3.

Quacksalber

Cool. Where would I even get my hands on old versions of the OS ?

Sad Professor

Ebay, I suppose. Or if you know any Mac users they might have some old discs laying around. All mine got raided long ago.

Just remember the retail version of Tiger came on a DVD. You'd have to find the CD version that Apple produced. It may not be that common.

Any particular reason you want to upgrade? Tbh the performance trade-off may not be worth it on a machine that old.

Quacksalber

I suppose I don't have to upgrade.
I do need to reinstall but have no clue where my source disks are.
Actually I'd like to use the restart as harddisk feature that is there on leopard - was that there on Jaguar cos I couldn't find it ?
I am having trouble with airport also that i can't figure out. that could be a show stopper on the printer server idea

pvik00

Target Disk Mode is not an OS feature, it's a function of your firmware. All iBooks after September 2001, including you are OK.
More here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

Your friend also has a VGA connector which most HD TV's work with just fine. If you upgrade the memory, this laptop will play any regular video files without hiccups.
I vote for installing Panther and tearing away all the junk, bells and whistles.
You can upgrade your RAM to a maximum of 640M which is recommended anyway.

NB: I'm not unbiased, being an old machine junkie

Brian

Maybe try a Linux distro?

http://lowendmac.com/ed/packer/08jp/debian-linux-ppc-mac.html