So I've had my dear old Dual 867 G4 sitting in my closet for quite some time now collecting dust and I'd love to put her to use again till she finally coughs up smoke and dies on me. Seems like an awful waste just sitting there.

Anyone have a good idea what I can do with the old girl? I'm sure someone has an idea kicking around in their head that I haven't thought of yet. It can be editing related or not, doesn't matter to me, just wondering.

Dedicated DAW?

Digital Espresso machine.

uber fancy door stop?

boat anchor?

birdhouse?

Sad how yesterday's coolest technology is pretty much worthless a few years down the road. I have my 1ghz G4 loaded with GarageBand and hooked up to a Midi Keyboard. It works fine, but I never have time to play with it so it's basically a dust collector. At the office there's a G4/500 (?) sitting in the corner because I hated to throw it away. I gave my G4/750 to a friend about 7 years ago to replace her Windows 98 machine and it served her well for several years.

I suppose you could put a big iTunes library on it and use it as a music server with airport express or whatever.

It can probably run standard BSD Unix software acceptably if you need a mail or ftp server.

You could give it to someone who has modest e-mail and web needs.

In the end, you will probably just trash it unfortunately. A number of years ago I was moving and wanted to give away my Dad's old Mac SE, which was still a perfectly functional machine back then. I set it on a milk crate down by the road in front of my house with a sign "free computer" taped to it. When I came home, somebody had taken the milk crate and left the computer sitting on the lawn....

Boyd - if the milk crate story is true that might be one of the best stories I've heard this week. I would say ever, but that would probably be overstating it a bit. Good story either way.

For Word/web/e-mail needs it should be fine. I have a dual 1ghz G4 running 10.5.5 w/o a problem and that's my 'daily driver' machine. The only itching I have to get rid of is because of physical space (I'd replace it w/a Mac Mini).


-A

Besides selling it on ebay...

Capturing video, printing, & burning discs doesn't require that much cpu power so you can do that on the G4 while your editing or encoding on your main rig.

Find 7 more just like it and set up a render farm for 3d-intensive projects.

Find 7 more just like it and set up a render farm for 3d-intensive projects.

8 G4 dualies? Can you imagine the noise and the heat?

Boyd - if the milk crate story is true that might be one of the best stories I've heard this week.

Absolutely true! Just looked in my files, and it was Spring 2002 when I sold that house. The SE was introduced around 1987 and I'd say my Dad bought it in 1989 or 1990. So it was certainly an older computer, but it still worked.

Now the G4 dual 867 was introduced in 2002, so it's not quite the same thing. Nevertheless, the idea that a milk crate is more useful than a 15 year old computer is pretty amusing.

Find 7 more just like it and set up a render farm for 3d-intensive projects.

I'd be willing to bet that all seven of those wouldn't even be half as fast as one Mac mini...

I still have a 1ghz Powerbook G4, and it's sitting on my desk next to my MacBook pro with big monitor. I use it for web browsing and even image editing (with Photoshop elements) during times when my MacBook is tied up compiling software while booted into Windows. Safari is a dog on that machine (under 10.3.9) but Firefox actually works quite well.

I have a DP450 G4, upgraded to 1.2GHz Dual. I use it as a Qmaster controller. It doesn't do any actual rendering but manages all of the other machines.

A really power hungry NAS?

-Noah

I'm not sure of the name, but Apple released a Cube computer a long time ago. I always wanted to pick up a used one and build a media center with it out of PC parts. Several years ago I bought an old SGI O2, stripped it and used the case for my gaming PC. Other than that, you can Ebay it or donate it and write it off.

I'd be willing to bet that all seven of those wouldn't even be half as fast as one Mac mini...

I still have a 1ghz Powerbook G4, and it's sitting on my desk next to my MacBook pro with big monitor. I use it for web browsing and even image editing (with Photoshop elements) during times when my MacBook is tied up compiling software while booted into Windows. Safari is a dog on that machine (under 10.3.9) but Firefox actually works quite well.

Thing with a render farm is, you don't have to have fast processors to render efficiently. It has more to do with how much you can break it up and how much ram you have. I'm sure the noise and heat would be kinda ridiculous (I was half-joking when I suggested it), but my guess is 8x867 dual G4 with 2GB ram each would render 3d pretty efficiently while not tying up your main rig.

If you're not doing 3d work however, by all means donate it and write it off. In fact, donate it to me. I can use it.

=)

I am still using a G3 iMac as HP never updated their scanner software to work with Leopard. It also looks cute in the office & the cats love to sit on top of it for the warmth. A design icon indeed as are many more elderly Macs.

Cheers

Nigel

I'm not sure of the name, but Apple released a Cube computer a long time ago.

See: Power Mac G4 Cube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube)

the cube was/is a thing of beauty. Loved that design. I'm also still a big fan of the iMac with the stainless steel lcd arm.