I have two complete, fully working, Mac systems that I am ready to throw away because they have been just taking up space in my house for a couple of years. First is an LC II, complete with matching 12" display, original StyleWriter, 28.8 modem and a number of upgrades (10 MB ethernet card, HD is now 520 MB SCSI - was originally external and I still have that massive case, RAM is 8 MB). The system works great but I have no use for it. I don't know what to do with it since it is so damn slow. I was thinking about trying to instal linux or BSD but that process is so slow and difficult, requires floppies, and network access is extremely difficult to get working. So should I toss it? Is there anything in there that can get me any money on ebay? It seems like the shipping cost would make selling the computer useless.
The second computer is a Performa 6400 (I know its not 68k, but I wanted to keep the topic together), which also works fine. It has be upped to 80 MB of RAM and has a PCI ethernet card. It had a 20 GB HD but I took that out to put in an old iMac (which can at least run OS X). It also has a CD burner in the top SCSI drive bay, but I was dumb and tried to cut a slot for the drive out of the top bezel and just ended up making a mess, so the top bezel is off. Everything still works fine. Also this computer is paired with an old DeskWriter 680c (nice and streaky printing, the StyleWriter never had this problem). This machine has a very nice 14" Apple display with built in speakers. Music sounds great on this thing using the built in subwoofer with the display speakers. I was hoping to try and set it up as a player for my iTunes but since iTunes 2 (the last version for OS 9) doesn't do rendezvous sharing, that's a bit harder. Any ideas? This machine is so big that I want to reclaim the space if its just going to sit there useless.
Perhs give it to a family who might not have the money to buy a new computer so thier kids can use it to type up school projects and do basic e-mail/web stuff. Nothing heavy duty but they can get the basics done and play a few games.
That's what I'm doing with a few of my used Macs, just giving them to kids who can't afford a new computer for the school year.
This is a lot more useful than it seems. Just a few years ago a local group here distributed machines down to 386s to students (especially university ones) who had no way of affording ANYTHING more than the most basics necessities. A 3.5" floppy drive and a keyboard+ text editor on the computer made the difference between being able to type up assignments/essays/articles at home, and making the trek to campus to argue for a spot in the labs each day.
Dana's point is well taken by myself. I loaded BeOS on an old P133 box (and my UMAX c500, but it didn't have much for RAM at the time) so I could use the built-in IDE of BeOS to do programming assignments for the C++ courses. It had that nice IDE, and would compile and run the (somewhat) simple programs I needed to do for class in a reasonable amount of time. That meant I didn't have to live with the uni's lab schedule, or fight for a place at a machine in the labs during the open hours. The only times that I HAD to use the uni machines was to verify that my code worked under VC++ 6.0 ( ::) ) before I turned in my assignments. I don't think I ever had to modify my code to work. A simple P133 saved me alot fo aggivation when doing assignments. Other aggivations got in the way of uni eventually, but anyway...
The LCII would make a great word processor system, and the 6400 can run Mac OS 9, Linux, or NetBSD. The 6400 is plenty powerful for basic programming tasks of a CS/IT student, and it would make quite a handy machine if someone needs a low-end Mac OS machine.
or how about this, you send me the s/h and i will send you a Vimage g3 L2 cache upgrade card for it and then you can use it as a 6400 G3 240Mhz. I'm dying to use use this thing but can't use it because I have a PCC Powerbase "based off the 6400" but the stock Vid Card is in-compatible with it. I am offering up goodies for it.. Please consider this.
Title says it all
-jerry