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Ask HN: Uses for old Mac hardware?

17 pointsremyp20 comments

I have a c. 2009 Mac Mini and a c. 2010 MacBook Pro that have long since fallen out of use. Any fun or interesting ideas out there on what I could use them for?

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I set mine (2008 vintage) up with the newest OS they would run and the newest version of Chrome, locked down an account and let my kids at them (3 & 5 yrs old at the time). They go to PBS Kids, ABC Mouse, and some sites the school gives us.

My oldest's math skills have really flourished on Dreambox, and my youngest is essentially teaching herself to read faster than I can on ABC Mouse. Plus the crappy wireless has taught my oldest daughter to diagnose wifi problems :).

They love taking pictures of themselves with the webcam, and I don't have to worry about them messing it up. It's on a little table in the living room where I can easily supervise, and they love "working" while I do work on my laptop.

I have my 2011 Macbook Pro running an old version of OSX and Final Cut Pro X. If you put a SSD in their and/or upgrade the RAM they can actually run quite well for video editing. You don't want to do anything over 1080p though.

I'm still using my late `09 Mac Mini to develop web apps on.

I maxed out the ram and installed an SSD and it's pretty snappy now. That was well worth the $ and effort.

I test the code on a Raspberry Pi connected to my LAN that's set up similar to my production web server and move it over when it's ready.

I really have no motivation to buy a new Mac yet after upgrading it. I'm not a gamer and I don't do video/sound editing on it, I just use it to write code and keep up with daily chores, so a newer, faster, more expensive, Mac isn't really going to do much for me.

Donating to under-served communities that are using the computer for the first time. They can derive a lot of value out of the old machines like learning to type, basic internet usage etc.

Donate to friend or family that will be going to college

This. Also, I recommend you upgrade to SSD before donating.

The Mac mini from that time period is probably slow as a dog.. if you replace the hard drive with an SSD (super obnoxious to tear apart typically), it is more useable. Install Linux is a good idea on the Mac mini. My suggestion for MBP would be to remove hard drive, put in an 80GB SSD for cheap and sell.

I have a 2009 Mac mini, which I have opened up a couple of times. I would like to replace the hard drive with an SSD but I am unclear on what to do with the thermal sensor on the hard drive. Do I leave it off or stick it on the SSD? Here is a picture https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+mini+Model+A1283+Hard+Drive...

The SSD will run much cooler, so you can just tape in the same spot as the old hard drive and you should be fine. The reason you wouldn’t want to just let it hang someplace would be that it could end up getting hotter than the hard drive actually is, so the firmware on the motherboard might throttle stuff to prevent overheating. So the spot on the end of the HD is probably a spot where the air flow is reasonable so it won’t get overly hot there and represents the actually HD temp.

I just took a mac book pro that was no longer in use and loaded Ubuntu on it so that I have a linux system to play with. My staff is not very linux knowledgeable and they will do the same this summer with their current mac book when IT swaps it out for a newer model.

Mac Minis of that vintage can still make a fine living room media server. With proper, uh, modifications.

Except they don’t support HDCP, so services like Netflix are going to be impossible to use.

I bet you can install Cloudready on there and create peppy Chrome OS machines:

https://www.neverware.com/

Well, I'm using a mac mini from 2005, am looking to upgrade :-) That's the new one, I write orchestral music on a Windows ME IBM from 1999.

Install Linux on them and they'll become working computers again.

Can you mine with them maybe?

Taking into account the power consumed you usually (depends on the currency you mine) don't make a profit.

Actually with the recent spikes in bitcoin, it's become profitable again - for the moment. Lots of people standing up mining rigs, or dusting off their old ones.

No even at current prices anything but an ASIC will makes pennies a day while costing dollars to run. You could mine other currencies and convert to Bitcoin if the hardware is new enough, but the easiest option, NiceHash, is still offline after the massive hack

Linux them, and enjoy the rest.

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