I think mnem found his dumped on the road side so it's not always expensive ![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif)
The grey G3 there ... I never used the old macOS 9 and earlier machines really. They were mostly horrible. Apple only became attractive to me when the early blue G3 turned up and they released macOS X on it.
Funny ! Still at uni, the last year I was there they started installing these "all in one " funky looking transparent G3, and that's precisely what put me off Apple instantly ! Still to this day.
Well of course I know sqaut about the OS side of things under the bonnet, as a user I didn't care.... a computer is a computer. You click on an icon it loads the S/W... ![Evil >:D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/evil.gif)
But yes from what I understood years later retrospectively, The Unix based OS was introduced with OSX and these funky looking colourful G3, and before that it was AppleOS xys which I gather was a pile of shit inside, but of course only people like you would know or care about that back then ! ![Evil >:D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/evil.gif)
As a user I just loved the old Os on the beige Macs. Well except it took an hour to boot and the mouse had only one button... but well back then we didn't do as much with computers so the loss of "productivity" hardly bothered me....
I don't know if could survive with a single button mouse today, or without a scroll wheel either....
But, I still want at least one old beige Mac for my future retro computer museum/room/corner...and possibly another one that I would just use the tower case of, and restuff with a modern motherboard.
My computer is due to be renewed ina year or so finances allowing, so it might happen sooner rather than later.
If you want a retro mac, best thing you can do is get an old iMac, scoop the insides out and do this (or make a fish tank) ![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif)
![](https://imgur.com/Sw9IQLn.jpg)
To note I'm no collector of retro computers. I've been there. It's another rabbit hole of misery I look back through rose tinted glasses. They are far more obtuse than old bits of test gear, far more common and far more in demand which keeps the prices and the problems at levels of insane I can't justify. Plus after years in the IT trade, I find anything which costs money on that side of things rather than pays it abhorrent ![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif)
Yes that's the one we had at Uni when I left ! Ugly as fuck. That's when I gave up on Apple. I only like their old beige stuff. To each their own I guess, it's a personal thing.
Don't intend to dig into the retro computer rabbit hole either. Only an old beige Mac, plus a Bull Micral 30 to remind me of mine, my first computer 30 years ago, miss it. but this one is total unobtainium, it's not even a matter of price. Plus, the whole point as far as I am concerned with old retro stuff is to get cool stuff for dirt cheap. As soon as there is speculation and prices become silly, I instantly lose interest. Either it''s cheap and I find it cool, or it's not and I find it pathetic.
As for performance well it's not like I was wanting to use it as my main computer of course... just play with it every now and then. It's like TE. When we get vintage hollow-state TE we don't expect it to perform like a 10K brand new Keysight top of the line piece of gear, do we... that does not mean we can't enjoy it for what it is... just like you enjoy the old HP VOM that you just bought and are working on. It's not because you bought one, that you will spend a million buying everyone of them in existence.. You just want one or two, get it going and appreciate it for what it is, not expecting to perform like a fancy modern unit. Same for old computers for me... it's all under control...
As for spending money on them.... yes and no. I would not mind spending some money on them, like.. 50 Euros here, 50 Euros there, because it's a hobby, it's not really a computer anymore. However spending any money on my MAIN / real computer, which is ugly and crap like all modern computers, I hate them all... then yes, the less money and time I spend on it, the better, because I get no joy from using it. It's a necessity to have one to get things done, so I have one, no choice. But the less time I spend fucking with it, the less money it requires from me, the better. That's why I am glad it made it to 15 years of age, 15 years not having to spend money on it nor fuck with it. Installed Ubuntu on it when I got it, from then I simply updated it via internet. Then in 2016 I stopped updating it, even better, even less troubles. As the yanks say, " if it ain't broken don't fix it " !
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif)