[Kozmik]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could use my old Quadra? Upgrading it to PowerPC is out (it's a Quadra 630), and using it as a web/FTP server is out (@Home will rot in hell). So, aside from those 2 options, is there any usability left in it?

[capone]

I still use my LCIII for normal tasks. A lot of old software is still usefull. If you dont want to do that just install arcade games.

[capone]

This should be in the old mac forum.

[gorgonzola]

Yup. Moving this to Older Systems. Click through to find your thread.

thanks

[Kozmik]

I'm thinking of putting OpenBSD on it to learn *nix. Does that sound like a good idea?

[Mighty Hetfield]

I don't know how the size of your Quadra 630 HD, but I bet I'd make a stylish jukebox. Take a lot of MP3s add some nice speakers (I heard you can get a nice set of Boston BA635 fgor around $65) and make use of that fine piece of audio circuitry!

Good luck!

[Kozmik]

Too bad MP3 software is only for PowerPC-based Macs, genius. By the way, my iMac DV SE/400 with its Monsoon MM-700 speakers works just fine for my audio needs at the moment. The Quadra's hard drives are 365MB and 250MB. It has 20MB RAM at the moment, and soon will have 36MB (its maximum).

[MacMonster]

A Quadra machine still powerful and useful, you can:

1. Browsing Internet (but slow to loading web pages)
2. Checking e-mail
3. Programming (C, BASIC, Pascal)
4. Simple graphics design
5. Do many other things with AppleWorks or ClarisWorks
6. Play a lot of old games with great speed, such as SimCity 2000, Doom ...
7. Add a CD-ROM drive to play audio CD
8. Add a large size hard drive, convert CD tracks to AIFF, turn your Quadra 630 into a music juke-box.

A 68K Mac still POWERFUL today !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[finboy]

Put a TV card in it and get a remote, and you've got another TV. You can still find the TV cards and remotes on ebay, or at places like macresq. You'll have to put the video-in card in as well, or the TV card won't work. But once you do that, you can use it to capture video to disk (but the HD will limit that a lot).

I've got a Quadra 660AV setup as a web cam. It works perfectly. load Oculous 2.x, find an RCA webcam (I've got a Sony Z-cam), and you're ready to roll!!!

[WoC]

Originally posted by Kozmik:
<STRONG>I'm thinking of putting OpenBSD on it to learn *nix. Does that sound like a good idea?</STRONG>

I Would Go for Linux instead... Taste thing...

I Kind'a like the idea of being able to check out exactly what hardware is in the box without opening it up...

Hardware makes BSD go

[etphonehome]

If you can't find anything else to do with it, your Quadra would make a very stylish clock! All you need is a screensaver (like AfterDark).

However, there are many uses for a Quadra. You can use it for word processing, CD playing, and all of the other things that have been previously stated (except MP3s )

[jeromep]

Actually, the 630 is upgradeable to a 62xx series PPC. That requires a motherboard swap, but that isn't such a bad thing. I'm not sure why this wasn't suggested before, but it would work. The price of such an upgrade is not on hand for me right now.

Too bad you can't run it as a server. Quadra's make great ftp/web/mail servers for low/moderate transaction loads.

[ddiokno]

Appleworks would make this a great word processing and general purpose machine... database, spreadsheet, paint and draw....
good luck,
dave

[ddiokno]

I forgot to add, that if you had a fax modem attached to it, it would make a great dedicated fax storage machine....
dave

[jarends]

That'll run appleworks, eudora, and 68k netscape just fine.

The only 68k macs we still have around in the schools I work for are quadras. Everything else is too slow.

You can even run most kids software on quadras. It'd probably run simcity too which I remember as being a fun game. I have it on floppies but my pismo has no floppy drive. I'll have to figure that out eventually.

[ginoledesma]

I still have (and use) my LC 575 (68LC040/36MB RAM). And this in a dorm dominated by Pentium IIs/IIIs or AMD Athlons/Durons.

A lot of people are surprised by my using it. I still have MS Word 5.1 there (I don't need MS Word 6.x). The screen size is a bit too small for my needs nowadays, but setting screens to full screen (no toolbars, no menus) changes that.

I still play old games there, such as SimCity 2000, Warcraft II (yep. WCII was made for 25MHz+ computers), Lemmings, Realmz, Exile I/II/III, SimTower, and a whole lot more. These games are rather enjoyable, too.

Much as I'd like to play MP3s on my old Mac, I can't. So I do the next best thing -- convert the songs I want to a) Audio CD format and burn them onto CD-Rs or b) convert them to WAV/AIFF and loop through them.

Surfing with iCab or Netscape Navigator is acceptable. I just disable support for the fancy stuff such as Java Applets or Flash or Shockwave. E-mail with Claris Emailer is a thing of beauty with the old Claris Emailer 1.x.

You could also probably turn it into a backup server or a database server. I don't see why FTP/WWW is out of the question, unless @Home or whatever ISP have you refuses to give you support for your Mac.

Lastly, you could probably get Timbukto Pro which will allow you to remotely access a faster Mac, so you could probably treat your Quadra as a "dumb terminal" which connects to a faster Mac. In essence, you'd probably have your faster Mac do all the work while you work at your Quadra, so you might not want to do this when your faster Mac is doing something already or if someone else is using it. Then again, that's a great way to see if your other Mac is being used for something else.