Help! Someone just gave me an iBook!

In My Humble Opinion
1

As the title says, I was just given an iBook, the Blueberry model it looks like. It still works – I’ve got it running on my coffee table right now.

I’m not a Mac user. I haven’t touched a Mac since… 1994, maybe? I’m tempted to turn this into a experiment rig, but I don’t know what I can do with it. It’s running OS 9 right now; can it run (for example) Linux? OS X?

In practical use terms, can someone tell me where on the Windows scale this falls? A PII running XP, or a 8088 running DOS 3.3?

What would YOU do if you were handed this thing? (Boat anchor and shooting practice are NOT options, thanks!)

I’d like to make it a machine for my son, but I first need to know what it can do, first.

(Side note: I have to say, I like the light-up sockets when you plug stuff in. Kinda cool, that. But it doesn’t make up for the god-awful shape of the case. Ugh.)

2

I have run 10. . . .3? (some sort of 10) on an orange iBook and it was fine. You might have to do a firmware crack to get it to do it, though. There’s a site called lowendmac.com that is your friend. No idea where it is in terms of a PC. Whatever was current in 2000?

I think it would be a great machine for a son, because it will do word processing and e-mail and web browsing and all that great, but not so much with big torrents or mp3 downloading or large porn files.

The case is wonderfully ergonomic and I loved the handle and I’m very sad they discontinued that form factor in favor of the uncomfortable box. I miss it very much.

3

It has a freakin’ handle?

(Well, I’ll be. So it does. I thought that was just, y’know, the Blueberry equivalent of chrome trim or something.)

Thanks for the link - I’m going to check that out right now.