Goodbye To My 7-Year Old PowerMac

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on April 14

At long long last I got rid of my old PowerMac G4 today, the one I bought nearly seven years ago during the summer of 2001. I haven’t used it actively for about a year, and hadn’t powered it on even once in 2008.

I went down to Tekserve, a venerable institution for Manhattan Macheads for years, and bought a few things: Two Macally hard drive enclosures, one for each drive inside the G4, and 1-Terabyte LaCie d2 Quadra external hard drive.

I opened up the G4 and removed the hard drives, and had them embedded into the Macally enclosures in minutes. I’ve got files on those drives, that date back as far as 1988, as well as full system backups of the two Macs I owned before this one. That’s where the new LaCie drive comes in. I spent the better part of the weekend going through files and grabbing the important stuff.

But the highlight of the project was retiring not only the G4 case, but also the 17-inch Apple CRT studio display that had occupied so much useful space on my desk without being useful itself. Gorgeous for its time, it had become an eyesore. Here Tekserve came in handy as well. They take old computer equipment, and recycle it.

Handing the gear over to Tekserve and knowing it wouldn’t end up in landfill lifted a weight off my shoulders. It would be disassembled, and the parts re-used, recycled, or properly disposed of I was told. All I had to do was get it down to the store.

I’m told that on April 26 and 27, Tekserve will be co-sponsoring an electronic recycling drive. Bring in old electronic gear of nearly any type: computers, fax machines, cell phones, VCRs, etc. (No home appliances like Microwaves or refrigerators.) If you live in the New York area and want to get rid of any old electronic junk, your big chance is coming. More information here.

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