{"id":46893,"date":"2026-01-20T07:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=46893"},"modified":"2026-01-27T10:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:13:43","slug":"it-lives-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2026\/01\/20\/it-lives-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It Lives Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wherein I rummage through the graveyard of my old computers and try to cobble together a monster that will serve me in this modern age.<\/em><\/p>\n

As much as I love computers, the constant insistence that they be upgraded every few years at a staggering cost leaving the husk of the previous, staggeringly expensive computer isn’t working for me any more.<\/p>\n

The other issue is storage. I can’t bring myself to throw out old computers, but I can’t warehouse any more retired workhorses either. Eventually I would have to move into an airplane hangar.<\/p>\n

It would be one thing if they had actually died through some mechanical or electronic failure, but they still work. They power up. Lights go on. They make sounds. Keyboard works. Mouse makes the pointer move around the screen. It still functions. It may be a little slower than when the machine was new, but it functions. I have at least half a dozen functioning computers lying around unplugged, collecting dust.<\/p>\n

Right now I am typing this on a thirteen year old iMac<\/em> with a gorgeous 27-inch display. The mechanical hard drive beneath that beautiful screen has seen some better days, and it stopped receiving updates when\u00a0<\/span>Apple designated it as “obsolete”<\/em> in December of 2022. I dragged it out of obsolescence with a Linux<\/em> operating system fed to it from an external solid state hard drive. It’s incredibly peppy and may stay that way for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

I did the same with a 2012 Mac mini which I refer to as The Mac Minty<\/a>, and I use that computer every day.
\n\"An<\/a>