Dammit, after many years of hard use, my aged but ever-faithful old iMac has begun to seriously shit the bed over the last three-four days. Not complaining mind; like I said, the old girl has been through one hell of a torture-test with me and until now has provided nothing but stellar, hiccup-free service. But the past several days, her advanced age (she’s a mid-2007 24-inch iMac) has been showing through via repeated lockups, hard crashes, and some truly frightening video-card glitches which are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. And being a dedicated Mac user since September 1998, believe when I tell you I’ve seen it all by now.
The interesting thing this time around is how fast this death-spiral has been. The other Macs I’ve murdered to death went radically, clinging to their fading existence with a desperate tenacity that was trul pitiful to see, just heartbreaking, honestly. But this time, it’s almost as if my girl just can’t give up the ghost quickly enough. The harbingers and portents have been doubling down on End of Runtime in a way that has left me slackjawed with astonishment.
So after the initial jagged lightning-bolt flashed across the screen, black with a thin white pinstripes all around the edges of it, which blanked out every pixel it lanced over for a split instant, it left me with such an ominous dread deep in my gut that I hastened to start checking the various refurbed-Mac sites I know about to see if there was anything available in my price range, which as usual was dismayingly low. Imagine my surprise when I found several refurbed mid-2017 27-inch iMacs whose asking price was in the five-six hundred dollar range, plus the usual stroke-inducing baksheesh for the goobermint—doable provided I scraped, scrounged, and fasted fiercely enough.
The only hitch is that the one I’ve decided has my name on it comes with free five-day shipping, and it feels like to me that the odds of my old one lasting that long aren’t encouraging. So if things do go sour, as I fear they’re likely to, and you suddenly experience total radio silence from here for a brief spell, well, at least now you’ll know the reason for it. As always, I’m extremely thankful for y’all’s kind attention, and wouldn’t want anybody out there worrying about me unnecessrily. Back soon, all.
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Time to make a donation anyway, so check your paypal.
Convert the old girl over to Linux. Writing this as we speak on a 2009 iMac that I converted to a Linux OS (Mint). Excellent and stable system, plenty of tutorials and info on the web to do it. Best of all…its free! Just my .02.
This really is a good idea. You can do so much with so little. In the early 2000s I once used PC from like the late 80s or early 90s to build my own custom firewall box. That’s of course a geek thing, and really not necessary; even a total nerd like me doesn’t bother with this anymore.
But if you can do that with a machine THAT old… well just imagine what your iMac can do…
Something tells me this is all Trump’s fault.
🙂
Of course.
Ditto on making an extra donation. Check your PayPal. Use for anything you need it for. The replacement system, medical expenses, etc. Appreciate this hog waller more than I can express.
Threw some shekels in the PayPal tip jar. You’ve had enough adversity for one year. Love the site!