The Laptop - Dumpster Mac
**UPDATE - 30 May 2017 ** So after being told by the snarky hipsters at a San Antonio Apple Store a
month ago that Dumpster Mac was no longer supportable, I jammed in 6GB of
RAM and a new battery I found at NewEgg.com, and upgraded the OS to El
Capitan. It now runs like a scalded dog once again - after just 2 afternoons
of upgrading the OSX from Leopard 10.5, to Snow Leopard 10.6, updating that
to 10.6.8, then finally finding macOS El Capitan 10.11 to download and
install. Nothing like the feeling of prolonging the life of a basically 'free'
$2800 laptop... especially after being told by so-called experts that it
can't be done.
So one of my friends from the base has the job of checking the dumpsters for
flammables, along with his many other duties. He happened to come
across a laptop case in one of the dumpsters by the student dorms. He
fished it out and found a fairly new Apple MacBook Pro laptop inside.
He wasn't sure what was going on with it, so he brought it to me and asked
if I knew anything about them - he said he'd already booted it and found a
vertical streak about an inch wide of dead screen. Well, I really
didn't know much about them, but I told him I could definitely fix the
screen and that I'd see what I could figure out. It booted up wanting
a password, and of course we had no idea what it would've been, but I
noticed that OSX looks a LOT like UNIX, so I booted into console mode,
changed the master password, and now I own the box! Almost too easy.
The new LCD showed up a few days later, along with a power supply and new
Mac OSX DVD. I showed him that the box was basically fixed and
everything working again. He was happy, and said that his daughter had
always wanted a Mac. I asked him what she currently had, and he said,
"A Dell." (light bulb goes on for me) I told him that if she
played with it for awhile and decided she didn't like it or whatever, that
I'd buy it from him. He agreed and took it to his daughter. I
kinda figured he'd be back, but after a month or so... but no, he came back
after the weekend asking if I was still interested. Well, Heck Yeah, I
was! He only asked for what he'd paid for the new LCD, power supply,
and Mac OSX DVD - something like $160 or so - I can't remember.
Ridiculously low price. I asked if he wanted more than just that, and
he said, "No - you're the one that fixed it in the first place... I just
need my money back for the parts." SCORE!!
I went to Best Buy one day and saw their MacBook Pros for sale, and learned
that as-equipped, mine was about a $2800 machine. Holy Crap!
Best computer deal EVER!
I'm still not much of a Mac Guy, but I do take it with me when I travel and goof
around with it occasionally.