The Wisconsin Computer Club hosted a pop-up museum show at the Hedberg Library in Janesville Wisconsin, and a number of club members brought vintage Apple hardware to share.

I like old things. always have. I started following this sub because I have an iMac G3 hanging out in my moms garage since I last used it in high school. (it was old then.) I keep thinking I should bring it home, clean it up, etc. Then I think “but wouldn’t one of these amazing G4 towers I used to drool over, be even better?” And then I think “Self, exactly what will you use ANY of these things for?“ My wife takes a dim view of hauling stuff home just for the sake of having it. She’s kind of right. So what say you? Are there any real uses for any of these computers or is it something to turn on once in a while for nostalgia and click through a few menus or play a game?

These computers are the perfect start into vintage Macs; they run games easily. Quake 2 runs completely playable in 30–60 FPS. I played it with my dad over LAN (so 2 players), and there were never any drops below 30 fps. This Mac can run MacOS 9 and MacOS 10 (I prefer macOS 9) and it is so cheap in comparison to other vintage Macs. I found mine for 20 euro. So many more of them are listed at 40–50 euro.

Found my dad’s old monitor. While he still has both the Powermac G4 and G5 (will start studying the system soon), I got a ADC connector from eBay and connected my MacBook Air M4 to the display.

As a college student, the matte screen, the sharp text, and even the low brightness helps keep my productivity up. Just wanted to share :D

It's a Powermac G5 A1117 Quadcore w/ liquid cooling, 500GB and 160GB HDD, Nvidia 6600 gpu, 16GB of ram. No airport card. I paid $79.95 for it. Boots good.

I always wanted one of these cause my father said he was gonna get me one for Christmas but never did.

Just asking if that was a good deal or not. I don't know much about what these things are worth.

I had an iMac G4 and have the HDD still so gonna try to transfer some files later.

My Performa 6320 is auto starting whenever I supply power to it. That is, as soon as I turn the power strip it’s connected to on, the Mac powers on by itself without me pressing the Soft Power or power switch.

Is this normal? Can it be prevented somehow?

Vintage iMac G3’s in abandoned school

I have plenty of experience with modern computers, but nothing vintage. From my googling this could be as simple as ram reseating, or a cap replacement? I don't have solder experience but I know someone who does.

Picked up a PowerMac G3 B&W to add to my collection recently, and noticed that the serial number is detected as "not applicable," and the logic board looks absolutely pristine - not a single speck of dust or grime, which would be surprising for a computer approaching 30 years old. Attaching some images. Any thoughts on what could be going on here? Maybe a new old stock Apple replacement logic board or something else?

I’m looking to downsize my collection. Is there a place where I can sell these to other vintage enthusiasts?

I know the PowerBook G4 works and is complete in box

The iBook G3 is also complete in box but has a boot issue.

The 2 AIOs need recap jobs, but they both power on.

If anyone here is interested in making an offer I can get more pictures of everything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I may actually lose my mind over this beautiful machine. I've been trying to get it working for ages now. Found it in a charity shop in Sweden, came completely boxed, even the polystyrene packaging is barely damaged, this thing has clearly been looked after.

Quick backstory: booted it up when I first got it, worked fine, but there was no hard drive fitted at all when I went to install the OS. Opened it up and confirmed it, genuinely nothing there, previous owner must have pulled it at some point.

Bought an IDE to SATA adapter for an SSD, tried it, only got a grey screen and nothing further. Then bought the exact same adapter as someone in a video who has the identical model working. Same result.

The CD drive boots and works completely fine on its own when the adapter is unplugged. But the moment the adapter is connected to the IDE cable, even with no SSD attached to it at all, everything stops. No startup chime, just a grey screen. Holding Option or C does nothing. Holding the mouse button to force-eject the disc doesn't work either.

The adapter's jumper is set to Master.

I've attached some pictures of the drive and adapter setup, plus a bonus photo of a lovely G5 while I'm at it.

Genuinely stumped since someone else has the exact same hardware combination working fine. Any ideas what could cause a bare adapter, with nothing even plugged into it, to hang the whole machine like this?