iMac 5,1 running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

[LeMarchand]

Found this at the back of a cupboard at one of my schools and, much to my surprise, it booted up swiftly and seemed to run quite well despite only having 1GB of RAM. Even found the mouse (but no keyboard). That's where the good news ends. It seems a newer OS version won't go on it and so no up-to-date browsers will install, and neither can I install Remote Desktop.

 

Does anyone know otherwise, or can anyone suggest a use for the machine that doesn't involve a lot of extra cost?

[bald_pig]

It'll still run Linux for now, not much else you can do with it though.

[LeMarchand]

It'll still run Linux for now, not much else you can do with it though.

 

That's what I was leaning towards. Shame, as it doesn't seem to be struggling with browsing - but I don't want to risk running out-of-date browsers.

[Norphy]

My googling suggests that it's a Core 2 Duo based iMac built into one of the very old white polycarbonate cases. Snow Leopard is all you're going to be able to get onto it. You might be able to Bootcamp it and get a newer version of Windows on there if you expand its RAM but other than that, you're probably stuck with a Linux distribution if you want to run something more modern.

 

You might also be able to use Neverware to turn it into a ChromeBook.

[bald_pig]

You might be able to Bootcamp it and get a newer version of Windows on there if you expand its RAM

 

Only 32bit Win7 as far as I'm aware.

[Norphy]

Only 32bit Win7 as far as I'm aware.

 

Officially, yes but I've found that most Macs will run newer versions of Windows than what Apple say works.

[bknaggs]

I was able to get 32bit Windows 7 to upgrade to 32bit Windows 10 on my 2007 MacBook. It's not officially supported but it works.