Not many of you will recognize this, it is a 2004, Apple Power Mac G5. A Dual 1.8GHz unit with 4GB of RAM, WiFi card, two 500GB hard drives, a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card, running OS 10.5 Leopard, to be exact.
It is sad because even today it boots quickly and runs smoothly, but is so out of date it is next to useless. This was the first Mac I ever purchased. In today’s dollars I paid about $2100.
It was not a top of the line unit, however over the years I added more RAM, a new video card, more hard drives, and a WiFi card. The ability to do these upgrades kept this Mac as a daily driver until 2011. Seven years is a long time, in computer years. You can’t upgrade a modern Mac like that anymore.
This machine was a daily driver. It allowed me to make extra money by doing side jobs on it. Upgrading it was a great way to learn with the added benefit of making it better, faster, and more versatile.
This is why I can’t seem to let this hunk of aluminum and plastic go.
A few times a year I plug it in and lament over how well she runs. Then, I put her back in cold-storage.
It seems wrong to throw away (or recycle) something that works so well. Even if it is kind of useless.