Ask HN: Creative uses for an old iMac?

4 points by raoulbhatia 7y ago ↗ HN

We have an Intel iMac from 2009 with a Core2Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 20" screen. There is no support from recent MacOS versions and the installed MacOS feels very slow.

What creative use cases are there instead of throwing it away?

Thanks, Raoul

4 comments

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ggx 7y ago ↗

Perhaps you can put it somewhere in your kitchen? Something like this: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTA9dlf...

phendrenad2 7y ago ↗

Dedicated bitcoin price ticker? I really can only think of ideas wherein it's used as a simple web display.

ilove_banh_mi 7y ago ↗

You can fairly easily install the latest macOS on such older iMacs [1]. It works well and gives them a new life. If you do it, consider increasing the memory to the max (8 GB?), and replace the HD with SSD. Still plenty of power to use for email, web browsing, DJ station (Spotify and/or Sonos), and even to run Xcode.

[1] http://dosdude1.com/mojave/

raoulbhatia 7y ago ↗

This looks promising - I wasn't remotely aware! Thanks for sharing