Upgrading an old Mac

My sister's boss has a 10 year old Mac and has asked if there is any way to upgrade it. My first reaction is to say no, Macs typically aren't designed to be upgraded, especially one that old. I thought I would challenge my assumption by asking your opinion. Is there any way to upgrade a 10 year old Mac?

 

More memory and install osx, works very well, i had an old clamshell ibook running 10.4 with an additional 256 of ram, it ran great. People who say macs can't be ugraded generaly dont know what they are talking about.

 

Post a model number and we can look up some better exact info.

 

Yeah, they can upgrade it. Not. The only good thing that it is for, is a boat anchor.

As for upgrading, yes they will be able to. First thing the tightwad boss needs to come forward with, is opening up their wallet and getting a machine that will actually allow them to do something. A ten year old Mac running OS 8.x or OS 9, is like the machines the regional air carrier that I worked for, that were Pentium II's, running Windows NT 4(sp6).

If the boss is still using a ten year old Mac, I am afraid of what other antiques they are hanging on to, or what their upgrade cycle is for other technology in the office, or their home.

 

Sigh, more non informed mac hate. Sersiously, we need a model number to determine what type of upgrades can be done, until then its just not gonna be answerable.

 

A machine made in 2001, would be no more than the G4. As for hate, only if a person hangs on to such a antique, and thinks that it can be upgraded. It is like taking a Ford Pinto, and trying to make it into a Mustang. Ain't going to happen.

 

My clamshell ibook that has a 266 mgz processor runs osx 10.4 fine for internet and word processor use with nothing but a ram upgrade. My Old g4 is setting here running an itunes music box, only upgrade there was a big hard drive.

 

That is what I mean. Even though it may run the OS fine, you are limited to what you are really able to do. The real question will be, which direction will the company head, now that Steve is out of the picture, especially with the machines. The typical upgrade cycle with most that are Mac fanatics has been about every 18 months with their machines, compared to most PC users, which is on average four to five years. Which, is about what I average on most of my machines that run Windows. That is about to change starting this year, since my son wants a MacBook Pro, by his next birthday.

I think that for the OP, depending on what their sister's boss does with it, and how much they are willing to spend, they could get a pretty decent machine for their money, whether it is the Mac Mini, or a iMac, like my wife's grandmother has.

 

From the feedback here I think I will ask my sister for her boss's model number and look for upgrades. I'll ask him what he uses it for and go from there. If he only uses for email and browsing, I think I might be able to ebay him an upgrade.

@brownizs
I've owned several PCs and a couple of Macs. The iMac I have now I have owned for over 18 months. I have since installed the new OS update and my computer shows no signs of slowing down. I don't know where you get the average for PC users is "4 to 5 years". Most people I've seen with computers that old either don't use them or have been willing to simply give them to me no charge.

I don't want to be antagonistic, but I don't see these averages the way you do.

 

Apple's machines have a longer lifespan, than PC's do. The average that I posted, is a known period, by taking the fact of the life cycle of Microsoft's OS updates before Windows 7. From XP to 7, the life cycle for Windows is back at around 3 to 4 years, and machine life cycle is at this point will change upon the release of Windows 8. The expectation for 8, means that end users will have to once again upgrade to new technology. The netbook that I am using to post this with, is by today's standards a out of date machine. That is due to the processor is no longer efficient to run Windows next operating system, let alone, that it is not UEFI capable, to be able to run Windows 8 if I so wish to try to load it. Which I do not plan on doing so.

As for Apple, the average user of Apple's computers is averaging around 24 to 36 months on their computers, for most users. Over all, computer hardware is expected to last aprox five years, before the technology becomes so obsolete, that the end user is forced into upgrading. It is called "Planned Obsolescence". Apple was actually the first manufacturer in the home computer market to do this, Microsoft does it through their operating system, by removing devices from the driver database.

When Apple Released Leopard in 2007, it forced owners of those machines that were G3 & G4 PowerPC processors, that if they wanted to run 10.5, they would have to move up to new hardware. With the release of Snow Leopard (2009) (OS X 10.6), it brought about the Intel Processors, which now meant that Mac owners could Windows OS, without having to load a Virtual machine. Now the biggest jump for Apple, was Lion (2011) (10.7), which brought about the Intel Core 2 Duo.

So at this point, if your sister's boss wants to upgrade just the OS, they can not. They have no choice but to purchase the newest hardware, in order to benefit from the newest operating system that Apple offers, and that is Lion, running on the newest hardware that Apple offers, which is running the Intel quad core processors.

As it stands, Apple went from a 24 to 36 month planned obsolescence, to a 12 to 18 month, with the release of each step up to the current offerings. As for your 18 month old machine, it is a dinosaur at Apple's standards. There is really no way around it, with the computing world, that if you stay with machines that can no longer run today's software the way that it was designed to run, there is really not much else to say.

I have been in this industry since 1977, when I started to actually use what would be considered today as home computers. Back then, I may have been ten years old, but it gave me an edge at that time to not only understand the potential, but it taught me to better understand how much our lives would interact with the technology. Anything that we used back then, that you thought was cutting edge, shortly thereafter, it would be obsolete.

Even when the home computer market started to take off, technology was going obsolete, even before it left the manufacturers plants. If you want to get a better understanding of what I am talking about, look up "Moore's Law". Basically he stated that technology exponentially changes aprox. every two years. Going along with that and what I have stated, brings us right around that because technology changes aprox every 18 to 24 months, are what the guidelines that Microsoft & Apple have set their standards to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
Here is something to back up what I stated about Apple. This was from the WWDC in 2005 http://www.macworld.com/article/45157/2005/06/liveupdate.html
Something from 2009 http://www.powermax.com/articles/2009/02/moores-law-is-dead/

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt...re's+law&fr2=sb-top&fr=att-portal&type_param=