iMac!

Phewh! What a week. My throat is getting better and better so I guess by the start of next week I should've been able to eat something spicy. I'm craving nasik lemak. Huhu..

Anyway, yesterday I went to Low Yatt Plaza with Hariri and Raja Azraff. Hariri was looking for a FireWire cable for his iPod while I went browsing for some second hand computers at some of the stores. I love doing that coz you'll never know what you might find and guess what? Yesterday I struck gold! While walking pass a second hand shop owned by some Hindi fellas, my eye caught on to what seemed like a computer monitor way up on a cupboard. I immediately recognized it and pointed it to my also Mac geek friend Hariri; it's an iMac, the original iMac G3. Wow wow wow...

I've personally been checking eBay quite often for the G3 iMac and I've also been asking around at the Apple Store if they happen to have one for sale. Why do I want 'em? Well, mostly because of its cult status as the symbol of the renaissance of computer design of the late '90s which would look very nice on my desk. Though it is quite old, it still is a very capable computer considering what we actually do with our computers nowadays. Checking your MySpace account doesn't require a computer with Intel Core 2 Duo with Gigabytes of RAM isn't it? Then, there's also the thing about its simplicity that amazes me; the whole computer, just like that. No messy wires, no nothing. Isn't that cool? Unfortunately, the eBay ones are very expensive considering the shipping cost due to its weight. The local ones are either dead, or very, very expensive: who would want to buy an 8 year old computer for RM800?

So I went to the fella inside the shop and asked him about the price of the two Macs inside his store: the eMac is selling for RM1500 and the iMac, RM350. I was like, what? RM350? Are you sure? Wow, that's cheap! Thank god Hariri came along with his bargaining skills and we managed to persuade the seller to mark it down to RM300. Needless to say, we rushed to the ATM and after checking that everything was in order, we went home with an iMac though the original hockey puck mouse was missing. What a bargain! When is the last time you bought a computer for RM300?

Back home I started to set everything up and puff, the system loads perfectly. It was still running Mac OS 9, the same one I used last year in college so I was quite okay with it. Nevertheless, a cheap system comes with a price. The previous owner, Mr. Mokhtar Daud got a DVD stuck in the slot load DVD drive that won't come out. Then, the speaker can't sustain too much treble or too much bass so we have to play everything in moderation. Still, that was all okay to me considering how cheap it was.. Well, until it died on me. Jeng jeng jeng..

After a checkup at the Apple Store earlier today, it turned out that the analog board that controls the hardware of the iMac was faulty possible due to heavy usage in hot environment. Tisk tisk tisk.. Mr. Mokhtar Daud, you ought to take better care of your computers no? Due to its age, a replacement logic board would cost around RM1000 via the Apple Store since they have some refurbished pieces that comes with 3 month warranty.. or, we can look for it ourself on eBay for helluva cheaper price (just now I checked, it is around RM200) without any warranty whatsoever. Other than that, the iMac is great as an aquarium, a nightlight and of course, paperweight or door stopper.

While I'm still wondering of what to do with the iMac, it is gonna sit on my desk as an oversized desk ornament. Did I regret the purchase? Not really, though I was kind of frustrated when the Apple guy told me about that. Well, I guess I'm still gonna keep it and start a hobby of fixing it and maybe one day I'll be able to write a post for this blog using that lovable machine.

Labels: nerdery