What fun things can I do with my old iBook Clamshell?

January 10, 2009 5:34 AM

I've got a iBook G3(i think) blueberry clamshell which can just about handle running photoshop 4 and appleworks on it. think it has OS 8 on it too. The battery is pretty much shot on it and so only runs off the mains power supply. Currently it is sitting on my shelf doing nothing. Give me some fun / interesting / unusual ideas with what I could do with it. The more creative the better.
posted by gonzo_ID to computers & internet (8 comments total)

forgot to say.
has CD ROM drive, no wireless. and have had incredible trouble trying to plug it into the interweb.
posted by gonzo_ID at 5:56 AM on January 10

The clamshell iBooks make really fun frisbees. Otherwise, I'd say you have a lovely digital picture frame in your future.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:19 AM on January 10

- a digital LCD picture frame.
- a computer for babies to play AlphaBaby or any of the keyboard-smash games.
- put an older Yellowdog Linux on it as a learning experience?
- if it has an ethernet port, attach it to your network and make it a network monitoring device (a la Nagios).
posted by mrbarrett.com at 6:22 AM on January 10

I have a 300 MHz, revision b tangerine one. I put tiger on it, bought a new battery and a used airport card. It picks up broadband better than my dell d410. The battery lasts 6 hours and I love it.
I put 9.22 on it and 10.4.11. I use classic for photoshop 6 and freehand 7. I disabled spotlight and dashboard. Don't underestimate this baby. (I obtained a cd copy of tiger to be able to install on this machine.) Really the only downside is the 800x600 resolution limit on the monitor.
posted by JohnR at 6:22 AM on January 10

Added note : has 320 mb of memory, but it will take 512 mb
posted by JohnR at 6:27 AM on January 10

Donate it to someone in a developing country. I don't know what program but it's become glaringly obvious in my travels that our under-wanted/under-used computers would find a better home here.

In particular, Bolivia, it's wired and people know that computer jangle, it just costs about 7 times more to buy one. But, I don't know how you'd get it here. Lo siento.
posted by cloeburner at 6:43 AM on January 10

Marathon.
posted by paisley henosis at 7:49 AM on January 10

If you want to try Linux, don't bother with yellow dog, debian or ubuntu will install on it just fine, and you can install the latest version. I have a debian ibook G3 sitting right here next to me on my desk. instead of an older version of a Linux distro, get the latest, then strip things down until it runs smoothly (ie. get rid of gnome/kde and just run fluxbox and rox-filer). Worst case, just run the latest distro with an old version of the desktop environment, that is where the ram and cpu usage bloat really comes in.
posted by idiopath at 4:12 PM on January 10