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Is It Worth It?

Entry 959, on 2009-03-06 at 21:25:02 (Rating 2, Computers)

Working with older computers can be a big problem. I collect older Macs (G3 iMacs, and G4 mini-towers for example) to give away to schools and people who, for some reason, don't want to spend any money on a computer for occasional use at home, etc. Its just something I do to help out and it really doesn't cost me anything - until I have to do the setup and install on those old computers. Then it (effectively) costs me heaps!

There are several things about old Macs that make them awkward to set up. First, most of the installers I have are for newer machines. So I will need to find a set of Mac OS X 10.3 installer CDs and make sure the computers can read them, because older drives tend to be a bit fussy about which disks they will read.

Next is the speed. These computers (especially the drives) tend to be quite slow so the install takes a long time. And they often only have USB 1 so installing from flash drives is also rather tedious.

Then there's the problem of finding software which will work with the older system I am forced to use. You can read through all the "read me" files or research on the Internet first, but that just takes even more time.

Then when you get the machine working you will often find the person you have given it to will want help connecting it to the Internet or something. That requires more time.

And the worst thing... the thing that really makes me wonder why I bother, is when I check up on the person and they tell me they have bought a PC and paid someone a small fortune to get it working because "Macs are too slow" (they make this judgement based on a comparison of an ancient machine you have given them for free against the latest PC with piles of RAM, etc).

So I do like to get these old machines into new homes so they can do some useful work instead of trashing them but sometimes I do wonder if its really worth it!

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