Recent Acquisitions

[NullCipher1337]

Not sure if a dedicated thread exists for this. I'm excited to share I acquired:

- A second Macbook Pro 2008 (No HDD, RAM, or Battery). It was ~$50 AUD including shipping.
- A second Macbook Pro 2009 (No RAM, no batter). It was also around ~$50 AUD including shipping.
- An iBook G4! Can't remember the price, but it was CHEAP! It's broken, not sure what's wrong with it. One of those "For parts or repair" deals (As were the two above).
- A 2015 Macbook Pro (?) Retina. The display is a bit... Like it has moisture in it or something? It was almost $130 AUD including shipping and definitely broke the budget. I haven't done much repair in the past (Except recently thanks Youtube!), so not sure how to go about fixing this. I know I can replace the battery (And probably might need to, will have to double check that)... But I think display I will need a complete replacement?

I bought a battery for the 2008 Pro online from Aliexpress. And a 500GB Sata SSD from Aliexpress too! That was around (IIRC) ~ $150 AUD! A bit of a splurge for my humble finances, but I'm so exited to fix the 2008 Pro and have it setup as a second dedicated 'almost-vintage-ish' gaming machine for LAN play with games like CIV IV, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires II, Unreal Tournament 2004, and a few other classic gems.

I also want to see how it goes with various macOS versions and use it as "just a laptop" and see how that goes. But right now the Macbook Pro 2012 is my favourite.

I am dreaming a bit about owning a 17" iBook and I think (?) it might be called the Titanium iBook? I'm not sure. But I watched the Steve Jobs announcement of it on Youtube and it's a beautiful computer! And the G4 CPU just seems so COOL! Same again for the G4 17 inch iMac! I love looking at pictures of it and dream of owning one (One day!), but both are well out of the budget for now, but am keeping an eye out! I wish eBay shipping to Australia from USA wasn't like $500+, often more! Ah well, one day. I don't have the space for them right now anyway.

Oh! And a ... I'm not sure what it's called. The big tower macs that I guess are the old version of a Mac Pro. They look AMAZING! Dual Xeon, G5? Either or, I one day hope to acquire one!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Not sure if a dedicated thread exists for this. I'm excited to share I acquired:

- A second Macbook Pro 2008 (No HDD, RAM, or Battery). It was ~$50 AUD including shipping.
- A second Macbook Pro 2009 (No RAM, no batter). It was also around ~$50 AUD including shipping.
- An iBook G4! Can't remember the price, but it was CHEAP! It's broken, not sure what's wrong with it. One of those "For parts or repair" deals (As were the two above).
- A 2015 Macbook Pro (?) Retina. The display is a bit... Like it has moisture in it or something? It was almost $130 AUD including shipping and definitely broke the budget. I haven't done much repair in the past (Except recently thanks Youtube!), so not sure how to go about fixing this. I know I can replace the battery (And probably might need to, will have to double check that)... But I think display I will need a complete replacement?

Those are some great macs I have an 08 and 09mbp too and they are fun machines that I use daily. Its a bummer that the 2015 has a bum screen. You could run it in clamshell with a hdmi monitor+kb/m until you source an undamaged lcd panel and get some nice use out of it till then.

I am dreaming a bit about owning a 17" iBook and I think (?) it might be called the Titanium iBook? I'm not sure. But I watched the Steve Jobs announcement of it on Youtube and it's a beautiful computer! And the G4 CPU just seems so COOL! Same again for the G4 17 inch iMac! I love looking at pictures of it and dream of owning one (One day!), but both are well out of the budget for now, but am keeping an eye out! I wish eBay shipping to Australia from USA wasn't like $500+, often more! Ah well, one day. I don't have the space for them right now anyway.

The 17" laptop you are referring to is the 17" aluminum Powerbook G4. Its predecessor the Titanium Powerbook G4 has a 15" screen. FYI the batteries for those 17 Powerbooks are assuredly on their last legs if not dead and it is not easy to find a functional replacement with low cycles in the US and the ones you do find on places like ebay are all sky high at $100-300+ USD so keep this in mind. The 17 PBs do have IMO the best feeling keyboard on a mac portable ever. I have one and it is cool but the battery on mine is on its last legs, so I have to use it plugged in or it will conk out in just a couple minutes but I can promise you I would never pay 100+ for a replacement battery. Thats just crazytown IMO. I'd be more inclined to attempt to recell what I believe is a 6-cell configuration of Sony US18650GR's when the time comes.

Oh! And a ... I'm not sure what it's called. The big tower macs that I guess are the old version of a Mac Pro. They look AMAZING! Dual Xeon, G5? Either or, I one day hope to acquire one!

There are a couple. The Aluminum towers with one disk drive are Powermac G5s with PowerPC cpus. These are easy to get confused with their later Intel filled offspring. The Aluminum towers with two disk drives are classic Mac Pros (cMP) and they house successive Intel CPUs from 1,1 to 5,1. From the outside these two look very similar, so if you're newish to macs and are looking for your first cMP, make sure it has two disc drives LOL since many a seller have zero idea about the difference and will list PMG5s as cMPs. Also FYI the PMG5 has a giant G5 on the inside when you take the side panel off - another giveaway.

I also want to see how it goes with various macOS versions and use it as "just a laptop" and see how that goes. But right now the Macbook Pro 2012 is my favourite.

Ive used up to Catalina on my 08mb and 09 mbp but they both ran really hot and my wifi kept conking out when I would come out of sleep. I was never able to fix that bug. Because of that I moved on to linux on both and the 09 shares El Cap. With MX25 + xfce, both are snappy and responsive and supported without incinerating your lap LOL. I havent gamed on either with MX outside of retro console emulation with retroarch (which works great). I'd bet your 12 or that 15 would run OCLP pretty well and give you a nice more current macos experience.

Anyways, nice scores. Good luck on the mbp15 and ibook repairs