The Case of the $0 iMac

[videogamesm12]

A business near me recently cleaned house and sent whatever was found to either the recycling center or the garbage dump. Amongst the generic office equipment on the truck were a bunch of electronics including some old Mac display, a flat screen television, and an old iMac from 2008 that seems to have been well used. Never one to pass up an opportunity to get a free computer, I picked up the iMac for the low low price of $0. This thread will mostly be about the shenanigans I have with it. I'd like to warn the Mac nerds in the community in advance that I have never touched or used a Mac in my life so I'd ask that you excuse my lack of knowledge of how they work.

Does it even turn on?​

The first question posed very early on was whether I could even get it to power on at all. I didn't know if it needed a special power adapter, but thankfully after closer examination it seemed to just take your ordinary power cable that most computers use, which I have plenty of as a tech nerd. While that was easy to figure out, there were more pressing matters, namely the physical condition of the computer. The system was literally being rained on when I found it and it looked like it had acquired some dents over the course of its life.

Disregarding any form of safety whatsoever, I decided to go for the tried and true smoke test where I just plug it in, press the power button, and see what happens. At first, it didn't seem to respond at all, so I was a bit jumpscared when I heard the Mac startup chime. The screen came on and... oh dear.

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So it turns on, now what?​

It goes without saying that the graphics card is going bad. However, I was actually relieved to see it like this because it meant that the screen was completely intact and that it was still functional enough to make it into the boot process. The task at this point was trying to figure out what model this computer was - I knew it was an older iMac but I wasn't sure if it was 2007 model or if it was a 2008 model. The computer itself wouldn't boot into Mac OS properly due to the graphics card fucking up and while I could get a bit further with the help of Safe Mode, it would only make it to a corrupted looking login screen with every account being password protected, shortly after which it would crash with a kernel panic anyways. Well, shit.

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It's actually not as big of a deal. Macs of this age actually supported booting from external EFI sources (hats off to Apple for supporting EFI so early) like DVDs and USB drives provided you held the ALT key during startup to access the device select menu. If it's able to get into the boot process and at least show the Apple logo, then surely it wouldn't have anywhere near as much trouble getting into a text-only environment. After finding a USB drive and a Linux distribution that would boot to a text-only command line interface, I was able to boot into Arch Linux and
set up an SSH server to remote into while running the installation environment. This allowed me to completely bypass the graphics card and get the text directly from the horse's mouth instead of having to literally read between the lines or try to understand the corrupted text when I would run a fastfetch.

Now that I know what the model is, I can then look into finding a replacement graphics card to install which doesn't turn my display into a glitter bomb or a game of Chutes and Ladders. I have yet to order a replacement part, but I will update you when I do this.

Moment of brief lucidity​

There was a moment while I was writing this thread where the computer actually booted and ran perfectly fine for a single session. I have absolutely no idea why or how this even happened, but I was able to spend the brief moment I had to actually look through the system and experience a glimpse of what Mac OS was like back in the day for the first time. It definitely messed with some of my habits as a long time Windows user, but it was fairly easy to adapt to the differences once I figured out what they were. The UI design has aged beautifully and the built-in wallpapers are iconic. I also found old versions of various applications like Microsoft Office, Spotify, iChat, iTunes, and more, which was a fun trip back in time.

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Exploring the computer's files further revealed that it was last used around 2016/2017, and file dates and browsing data indicate it became gradually less used with time. Speaking of browsing data, it seemed that the previous owner was a frequent browser of various film sites and communities along with... adult entertainment. I won't elaborate further, but I didn't expect to see an adult site appear as one of the Top Sites while browsing through Safari.

The graphics card eventually caved in later on and the system froze entirely after some point. A shame, I was really getting used to it.

My future plans​

After getting the graphics card replaced, I intend to set the computer up in at least a dual boot configuration if not a triple boot configuration. I really like the skeuomorphic user interface design that older Mac OS versions had and I want to preserve these, but at the same time I would like to set up a feasible development environment to begin writing mods with Mac OS in mind. I also wouldn't mind having something I could set up to play music in my room. I'll have to explore this further in the future.

 

[darwin]

how tf did you get Safari 5 to work in 2025

 

[videogamesm12]

how tf did you get Safari 5 to work in 2025

I didn't. Safari of this era had the option to generate previews of websites you visit so that you can have a more visual representation of the sites instead of a list. I haven't even connected the computer to the internet under Mac OS because I wanted it to be largely preserved, so all the thumbnails are of sites as they were the last time the owners visited them.

 

[Telesphoreo]

I can't wait to see your reaction when you do a clean reinstall and see the OS X OOBE.