Uses for old e-Macs?

[SteveB_NI]

I've got a number of old e-macs that are being disposed of tomorrow morning via our required disposal contractors.

 

But I'm feeling a last minute guilt about disposing of them even though they have laid unused for week over a year.

 

So... Any ideas for uses of these e-macs to give them a last minute reprieve?

 

Or is it time to buy Mac minis for any new Mac use?

[FishCustard]

What spec are they?

[SteveB_NI]

I'm nearly certain they are 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4, 256MB RAM.

 

Haven't actually booted one up for ages so can't remember exactly.

[FishCustard]

Could see if the IT teaching department wants to use one as an internal web server for student projects (we have an old PC doing just that) - that spec will be sufficient to run a light Linux flavour w/httpd.

 

Use one as a kiosk-type machine for... something?

 

Hook them all up into a Beowulf cluster and make an (admittedly somewhat wimpy) parallel computing system?

[seawolf]

I've got a number of old e-macs that are being disposed of tomorrow morning via our required disposal contractors.

 

But I'm feeling a last minute guilt about disposing of them even though they have laid unused for week over a year.

 

So... Any ideas for uses of these e-macs to give them a last minute reprieve?

 

Or is it time to buy Mac minis for any new Mac use?

 

Not really, but you might be able to get a few bucks for them on eBay. Might not be worth the effort though.

[3s-gtech]

With the maximum RAM upgrade (2GB is possible, 1GB will work fine), they'll run 10.5 happily. That gives access to much newer software potentially, though I know you can't use iLife 09 onwards or Office 2011 onwards. Still might be handy for a small suite.

[sidewinder]

Ah I remember the eMacs we had at my old school, they were nice for their time but obscenely heavy. To be honest these days they are so bulky I wouldn't reuse them in the school but I probably wouldn't send them for recycling either - someone woould surely find use for them as a basic computer suite

[Arthur]

Browsing the Internet is going to be sloooooooow on a Mac with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4.

 

Neither Chrome or Firefox support 10.5 and/or PPC processors; and TenFourFox doesn't support Flash Player or Java (probably a good thing though).