About the eFamily (formerly The Family)
Not my biological family, you dummy! But my vintage computer family. Currently, it is composed of:
iMac G3 Graphite
- Status: Critically degraded.
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. Sadly, I don't have any compatible HDD lying around, so I'm waiting to get an adaptor and plug in an SSD. I'm not very sure if it works or not yet, and it showed a sign of a faulty flyback transformer (by zapping when turned on). At first, all it was able to do was turn on and show a blue screen, but after resetting the NVRAM it gained back the capability to play the startup chime.
This one is 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 was also in a very poor state. 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. Its disk reader is also broken.
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:
- Install a hard disk.
- Replace its inner bezel.
- Fix whatever is going on inside the disk reader.
- Clean up the insides.
iMac G5
- Status: Restored and functional.
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 aformetioned 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)
- Status: Non-functional.
This one is my favorite (it's the logo of this website), and also 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, since I've never soldered anything before, and I'd rather not risk it with this beauty.
eMac G4 (USB 2.0)
- Status: Semi-functional.
Such an amazing computer, such a heavy one... it boots up, and it works relatively well, but not for long. One of the capacitors in its GPU did capacitor things and exploded. As a result, it can only stay on for a limited amount of time before freezing or glitching out. This can be fixed by tweaking a kernel argument, at the expense of running on software graphics. I'm planning to replace the capacitor.
What's the purpose of the eFamily?
To have fun, to learn, and to reduce e-waste.
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 donate computers 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. :)
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.