No, this is not about MAC Cosmetics’ recycling program.
Several years ago, I made a foray into rescuing old laptops and making them useful again. The first one, the guinea pig, was my 2007 MacBook. It was running Mac OS X (Lion) and it was updated as far as it could be with the existing hardware. It was still a useful machine as is.
However, at the time I had read about refreshing old computers by installing Linux. So I decided on Linux Mint, using the Debian version. I loved it. It was cool to see how I could do things I could no longer do in Mac OS X with the same hardware. There were some limitations, too, but mostly I was psyched to be using an alternative OS and keeping the machine updated.
Since that time, I’ve acquired many more vintage laptops. On some of them I’ve installed a Linux variant, and others I’ve kept to Windows or Mac OS. In that time I also moved over to using Linux as my daily driver, which I’ve enjoyed immensely.
Last year, I picked up a classic (circa 1988) Macintosh SE at the Vintage Computer Festival. It booted up and ran Mac OS 6.0, and I intended to keep it that way for nostalgia. I also love the idea of maintaining vintage machines as a way to preserve history. I’ll write more about the Macintosh SE project soon.
Anyway, as I was eyeing my laptop collection, I thought about my old MacBook. Since I was running Linux on so many other computers, I felt like I had proven my point about keeping older machines going via Linux. So today I dug out my Mac OS X disks and started putting Mac back on the Mac.
I bought the MacBook new in 2007 and it only just occurred to me today that it’s almost 18 years old. I think that qualifies as a piece of computer history, and I’m going to maintain it in its original form for preservation purposes. Maybe one day I’ll set up a temporary vintage computer museum at the local library. For now I’ll just reminisce about iTunes, iWorks, and iffy WiFi functionality.
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