iFix Old Macs

You know the ones I mean: those Power Macs, PowerBooks, iMacs, iBooks, Mac minis, etc. based on the PowerPC processor that Apple sold a few years ago. Sadly, support for them is dwindling, but the software is still out there that would enable their continued use, if not with an older version of Mac OS X, then perhaps with one of the numerous open-source alternatives.

Maybe you still have one of these fine old machines. Resist the urge to throw it in the dumpster and buy a new computer. The addition of more RAM, a bigger hard drive, an updated graphics card, or a faster processor might be all it needs. It won't be sitting in your local landfill leaching heavy metals and other bad things into your drinking water. And, you won't be perpetuating the evil practice of assembling "the latest and greatest" in low-wage sweatshops around the world.

Old Mac Related On the Web

From the Cradle to the Upcycle Julia, iFixit, 5/21/13. "Could this really be possible? Design for repair and disassembly would go a long way, but end-of-life is just one side of a product’s environmental footprint. Will it ever be possible to manufacture computers without materials that ravage the earth? Without toxic elements?"

Slowend Mac Dr. Dave, PowerPC Liberation, 5/19/13. LEM is slowly coming to terms with the fact that just a few months ago Mozilla fired gutshots at Gecko browsers (TenFourFox, SeaMonkey, etc.) used on PowerPC Macs running OS X . Migrate to PPC Linux, folks.

SeaMonkey 2.18 release for PPC is available Hiker Biker, 5/17/13. "It seems Mozilla won't be putting out a SeaMonkey 2.18 on their own because their build machine is broken?" Hmm...

A Vintage Mac Turned Into An Exquisitely Beautiful Piece Of Modern Art John Brownlee, Cult of Mac, 5/13/13. Can you say OCD? Love it.

Why buy a 7 year old Mac Mini? Tracy and Matt, 5/12/13. "I'm not suggesting for a moment that MorphOS is going to be a contender against the likes of OSX, Windows or Linux but for anyone like me that grew up with their Amiga it's definitely worth having a play with and is a great lightweight alternative to Linux."

In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, 5/10/13. We interrupt our regularly scheduled (PowerPC related) programming to report on something that has never before happened in human history.

Debian 7.0 ("Wheezy") Released Timothy, Slashdot, 5/5/13. "Debian is a solid enough distribution that plenty of other distros use it as a base. That should say something about the quality of the work they do. Without Debian there'd be no Ubuntu or Linux Mint."

Debian 7.0 RC3 released Debian Developers' Corner, 5/2/13. This should be the last release before Debian 7.0 is declared "stable". After adding the lightweight LXDE desktop environment and Netatalk to a basic installation... So far so good on my Quicksilver.

1st website ever restored to its 1992 glory CBC News, 4/30/13. CERN, the European organization for nuclear research, hosted the first world wide web site on a NeXT workstation (25 MHz 68040, 64 MB RAM). Think NeXTSTEP, think Steve Jobs, think OS X.