After looking around at the thing, I discovered the “on” button. It looks like it was on the school network because it has no software except a “Claris Works” icon that doesn’t work. It’s got 32MB ram, 250MB HD, OS 7.5.3.
I assume there are kids games for this thing? I have 8 & 10 year old grandkids. It looks like it might actually be worth something for them.
Jim
Actually Macs have an incredibly long shelf life. I’ve heard of people who still use their 1984 Macs to get on the 'net (yes, it’s possible–and with a functional web browser, even). Try that with a 17 year old pc.
If you take care of it and configure it correctly it’ll be infinitely more stable than a pc, so it’s not a bad choice if you want to do extensive writing. Nisus has an excellent free word processing program with some rather amazing features (I actually like it a bit better than Word 2000, but that’s probably just me). It also has an EXTREMELY low memory footprint for its size. I think you can actually run it in less than 3 mbs of free ram.
I use my 1990-era Mac LC as a back-up computer to keep me amused while my PC is doing something processor-intensive or when it’s otherwise down for repairs.
With 32 mb of Ram and 7.5.3 you should be golden for quite a few games. Try e-bay for some oldies (remember, you probably have a 68040 or 68030 processor). Marathon, Warcraft, Warlords, Heroes of Might and Magic (any of them) are all good. There are also a number of web sites devoted to old games for the mac. I think lowendmac.com has links to several of them.
Be sure to download the 7.5.5 upgrade patch from Apple’s FTP site: it’s free.
Also because the MacOS UI (particularly with Kaleidoscope installed) is a hell of a lot sexier than the PC I also tend to use my LC for playing Interactive Fiction.
Having said that, I spend most of my time on my PC because of its beastly power. The Mac is primarily backup. But, heck, a PC of its age wouldn’t even be useful for that much.
And this is where your connection to a school employee can pay off. We are always throwing old mac software we find in the storage room. Under my desk I have an unopened packaged of Adobe Persuasion. I bet if I dig around a bit, I can find some children’s software (books, games, tutors, your basic educational stuff) for the mac.
Grace, that would be great if you had some stuff laying around. I have 3 g’daughters in the 7 to 11 year old range living with my ex in The Colony. If you have educational stuff & games for kids in that range, I could make this thing useful.
Thanks, to the rest of y’all for helping me figure out what to do with this, even Cymru Annibynnol. And I still haven’t given up the aquarium idea either.
Now, if I can get it to connect to the internet. It doesn’t seem to want to get an IP address from my DSL ISP. I have a Linksys router on the shelf, maybe I can use it for a gateway and configure the Mac manually.
Jim
There are plenty of things to do with an LC 575 …check out Low End Macs at http://www.lowendmac.com/
for ideas.
Your Mac is not really suited for a macquarium.
I DID make a macquarium out of an old mac classic
LC=low cost.
Donate it to a thrift store & take a tax write off.
HAAAAA-hahahahaha! You said, “Macintosh.” Heheh. Hah. HAH! Oh, man, that gets me every time!
I’m a computer geek, see. Sometimes people ask me if I work with Macs at all. My standard response: “No, I prefer to work with computers.”
Apt name, putz.
:rolleyes:
Bwahahahahahaha!
If it’s a big mac, eat it; otherwise, drop it on your worst enemies’ doorstep at midnight, ring the bell and run like hell!
Hey, little help please. In between the Mac vs PC, boat anchor, aquarium jokes, can someone help me figure out why this thing doesn’t seem to want to connect to the internet.
I went into MacTCP and set the Gateway, DNS servers, IP address the same as my PC after I disconnected my PC from my network. It came back with an error that the DNS server was not found. It may have something to do with the mask (my subnet mask is 255.255.248.0, that isn’t an availible option.)
But actually, it should get all this from the DHCP server. I hook PCs up to my hub all the time and GTE politely gives them an IP address and allows them to connect just fine. (Don’t tell them that I could actually have as many addresses as I want, they don’t seem to put any limit on them.) The Mac doesn’t seem to try to get the address from the DHCP server.
Jim
As other posters have mentioned, you can do a lot more with an older Macintosh than you can with an older PC. That said, if you don’t want to keep it yourself, you can always make sure it’s running, download a few useful freeware programs to it, and then donate it to a local elementary school. If the elementary schools in your area are anything like the ones near mine, they would be glad to accept a computer for the kids to practice typing on.
If you do decide to donate or recycle…I suggest checking this out
Jim, head over to http://www.macfixit.com and click on the Forums link in the header graphic. They run an excellent MB over there, almost as nice as this one. 
Go ahead and post; I’ve had nothing but good experiences over there.
Thanks, sdimbert, I’ll post some questions over there and see if they can help me out. I may be able to get the g’kids something to use out of this deal.
AW, I ended up with this as a reject from the local school district so I doubt they want it back, but the idea is good.
Beagledave, nice link. I have tons of old computer parts, maybe I can figure out have to give some of this stuff a home.
Jim
Just today I was checking out VERY early trackballs the company I work for (one of the major peripheral companies) made for the Mac. On the bottom it said it was for “Mackintosh”. I kid you not. We still hold them in that high a regard… hehe… just kidding.
You can load A/UX on either of those elderly dinosaurs and end up with slow but reliable Unix servers.
