eFamily

About the eFamily (formerly The Family)

Not my biological family, you dummy! But my computer family. Currently, it is composed of:

iMac G3 Graphite

This one is a refugee from a company that wanted to throw it away. It got so close to becoming e-waste, but luckily, I was able to save it in time before it was too late. It booted up just fine, but due to company policy, they had to remove its disk. As soon as I got an HDD I plugged it in, now I just have to figure out a way to install a way to install OS9 on it without a disk reader.

This one was also by far the nastiest. When I got it, it was covered in some sort of brown goo which seems to also have gotten into the circuitry. The disk reader is also in a very poor state (I tried fixing it but it got worse). After doing a proper cleanup, I was horrified to see that its inner bezel has been degraded by time, to the point where merely applying force in it with my hands would crack it. I also broke one of the tabs in the outer bezel by accident (OUCH), but I'm hoping I will be able to fix this. In order to open it I also had to break all of the tabs of the inner bezel (OUCH OUCH OUCH).

For reasons that are far beyond my comprehension, there are also lose pieces of plastic inside it, whenever I turn it on I can hear them being thrown around.

Note: If for some reason you happen to know where I can get a disc reader replacement for a tray loading iMac G3, please let me know.

I honestly didn't know what to expect. This is the only thing that can happen to a cheap computer after years of neglect and mistreatment. Before I can call this a mere restoration, I would need to:

iMac G5

Younger brother of the iMac G3 Graphite, coming from the same company. It enjoys from a semi-modern design and what I believe is an LCD screen. This one, from the start, was able to boot up, play the chime, and display the "system not found" icon successfully. It had no hard disk due to the aforemetioned company policy. Worth noting it was also incredibly nasty, but not as much as the iMac G3 Graphite.

After a good cleanup and installing an HDD repurposed from an abandoned school's computer, this Mac was able to boot up the Tiger DVD. After a lot of disc burning and patience, I was able to install Leopard on it, and it's been living happily as the last iMac model being able to run PowerPC apps natively. No issues, no stutters, just an iMac running smoothly and not being e-waste after years of abuse and neglect.

iMac G3 Bondi Blue (rev. A)

This one is definitely the hardest to fix. This poor thing has such a poor ventilation that its CRT died while it was idle. Its flyback transformer melted, and needs to be replaced. I do already have the replacement, but I'm too scared to do it, as I've never soldered anything so dangerous before, and I'd rather not risk it with this one.

eMac G4 (USB 2.0)

This one was infected by the capacitor plague, it has been fixed since then and is happily running OSX Panther. It's my favorite nowadays. :)

What's the purpose of the eFamily?

To have fun, to learn, and to reduce e-waste (pun intended).

Why eFamily?

I chose the name eFamily as a parody of the now abandoned Apple eMac (Education Mac). At first, it was going to be named iFamily, but it sounded too Apple fanboy-ey, so I thought eFamily was appropiate.

Can I sell/donate a computer to the eFamily?

If you have no use for said computer and prefer leaving it to somebody else who can take care of it such as me as an alternative to throwing it out, then sure! Think of it like a weird kind of donation where I pay money. :)

I of course can't accept each and every computer, and whether or not I can accept yours is up to the device and the situation.