[GameDog]

I bought this lime iMac DV 400 when it first came out and it rocked, but seems a little slow compared to todays macs. What are some uses or things I could do with it (besides sell it). It's just setting in the corner looking pretty and doing nothing. What would you do with it? I have it running Tiger, but after using a 19inch. monitor, that little 15incher is painfull.

[Grrr]

Put a large HD in it, and use it as a monster iTunes jukebox.

[the_glassman]

Boat Anchor? As previously pointed out you could use it as a music/file sever. You could sell it or donate it to local school/charity. Load it up with Linux? Make it a dedicated folding machine? All kinds of neat things.

[bradoesch]

It's time for me to upgrade. My Blueberry iMac DV 400 is still my main Mac.

[Krusty]

If you have a home network set up at all, the server idea is a great one. My old DV 450 serves quintuple duty. It is a file server for the network. All internet services go to it (it runs FTP, HTTP, Sushi servers) It is (one of my) web drives ... the machine that is "exposed" to the real world while all other Macs and PCs on my network are safely hidden behind my router's firewall. It has a partitioned drive ... one volume for itself and one thats the exact same size as my boot volume on my main machine ... so it play the role of external backup device in conjunction with with Carbon Copy Cloner. It is the generic web surfing/iTunes music sharing hub (It sits in the LR and my roommate uses it to web surf, instant message, and play music from both of our iTunes libraries ... on his PC and my Mac). It is the fax server too. I also occasionally use it as a test machine to try things like iChat voice/Skype/etc. (oops, I guess that is 6 things.)

Absolutely rocks in these roles ...both me and my roommate really depend on it every day. The only things I would recommend is that if you do put it in this kind of service, go ahead and swap in a large hard drive (120gb is max for these machines) and plop down $10-$15 to replace its PMU battery. Should be good to go for a while after that

[Krusty]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
It's time for me to upgrade. My Blueberry iMac DV 400 is still my main Mac.

Yup, get yourself an eMac (refurb if you wanna save $$). Relatively speaking, it'll blow the doors off of your DV iMac .. though it will be noticeably louder.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by Krusty:
Yup, get yourself an eMac (refurb if you wanna save $$). Relatively speaking, it'll blow the doors off of your DV iMac .. though it will be noticeably louder.

The eMac's CRT looks terrible. I've got a nice big 21" ViewSonic that would love a Mac mini.

[iREZ]

What are ya waiting for?...Actually I like the idea of running an old computer as my only machine. Seeing an old iMac with a GB of RAM, a ton of HD space, and CD/DVD burners installed always puts a smile on my face.

[Eriamjh]

Originally posted by Grrr:
Put a large HD in it, and use it as a monster iTunes jukebox.

Hey! I am doing this with a 233 Bondi iMac!

[iREZ]

That's exactly why I want an old iMac. Being stuck with 40GB in my Powerbook sucks when I have over 35GB of music (if converted in the bitrate that I want). Hopefully I'll come across an iMac for super cheap some day soon.

[si_lance]

Originally posted by iREZ:
That's exactly why I want an old iMac. Being stuck with 40GB in my Powerbook sucks when I have over 35GB of music (if converted in the bitrate that I want). Hopefully I'll come across an iMac for super cheap some day soon.

Dumb question, why not get an external storage unit like a Lacie or do you want to take all your music with you? If that's the case, why not buy a large capacity iPod as opposed to buying an old system. Just curious.

[yikes600]

How's the screen holding up on these old iMacs? My old iMac 333's screen has gotten very dim over the years and now wavey lines are forming. What a POS!

[Krusty]

Originally posted by yikes600:
How's the screen holding up on these old iMacs? My old iMac 333's screen has gotten very dim over the years and now wavey lines are forming. What a POS!

I'd hardly call it a POS if has worked for 6 years !! (the 333mhz machines are vintage 1999). My DV+ 450s screen seems a little washed out but its still fine otherwise ... no wavy lines or anything. And it runs 24/7/365 (though I've set the monitor to sleep after 1 minute .. so the monitor is mostly not used these days)

.

[yikes600]

Originally posted by Krusty:
I'd hardly call it a POS if has worked for 6 years !! (the 333mhz machines are vintage 1999). My DV+ 450s screen seems a little washed out but its still fine otherwise ... no wavy lines or anything. And it runs 24/7/365 (though I've set the monitor to sleep after 1 minute .. so the monitor is mostly not used these days)

.

It started like 3 years ago and has gotten progressively worse. This is the first CRT display I've ever had go bad. I still have Phillips and Compaq CRT's which are running fine, so when I call the iMac display a "POS" I mean relative to everything else I've owned.

[iREZ]

I'd want an old iMac so that I could have a seperate jukebox for the house. Sure I could get an external drive for my PB but I like to move my book around the house and don't want to lug around an external drive with my book, not to mention having to always be within wire length of my computer speakers. I just want to be able to throw on a playlist and forget about the rest. Basically I want a jukebox, and although I'd love a bigger drive so I could store all my music on my PB, I'd love a seperate jukebox even more.

[Kyros]

Originally posted by yikes600:
It started like 3 years ago and has gotten progressively worse. This is the first CRT display I've ever had go bad. I still have Phillips and Compaq CRT's which are running fine, so when I call the iMac display a "POS" I mean relative to everything else I've owned.

You're just unlucky. My school has at least 30-40 iMacs floating around campus, and they all are working fine. I also know a couple of people personally who have them, and they aren't experiencing screen problems. Heck, one of them is the original 233 and it's running fine. Too slow for nowadays, but no hardware issues.

[pete.z]

We still have a iMac 400dv running here as a full-time computer.
It's in a network with a Mini and a eMac,and still doing it's job as a machine for email,internet and wordprocessing.

The screen is not as good as the eMacs or the 20" cinema we have on the Mini,but it's still a goodrunning machine,running the latest Panther update.(it's filled with ram,which does help)
Bought it new in 2000.....

[DeathToWindows]

i'd say server... I've got a half-dead iMac DVSE that served me well from 1999-2003 with dead CRT that i've been meaning to fully Serverize for a while now

[subego]

You could conceivably recover some "snappiness" if you bust it back down to panther, but I'm with everyone else... server.

It would make a sweet network file server if you have some firewire hard drives laying around (it has firewire, right?).