Okay, so you know that iMac (mid-2011 model) I rescued from a thrift store for fifteen dollars? After some struggling and a little panic about the screen not working (it was just a cable that disconnected, no biggie), I got it back up on its feet. Hooray for me!
There’s just one problem, though. What the heck do I do with this thing? I gave some thought to turning it into an emulation station, but I’m not sure that a machine this old would be much good for 21st century console emulation (ie PS2, GameCube). I tried installing Dolphin for testing purposes, only to be told that the OS (El Capitan) was too old and that I’d need to download a legacy version instead; one that’s likely less optimized and slower than the latest ones.
I’ve been doing some research and have discovered that this iMac can run a more modern OS, Catalina, with a patch. Would that newer operating system even be feasible on such an old system, though? Years ago, I bought a netbook that someone foolishly installed Windows 10 on, and it was dreadfully slow. (The previous owners put Windows 10 on a damn netbook. What were they thinking?!)
Also, I’m quickly discovering that Mac OS doesn’t work the same way as Windows. When I downloaded and installed the Dolphin software, it just plopped it on the desktop, rather than letting me specify a folder and then creating a desktop shortcut to it. Is there a guide somewhere that would help guide me through the differences? Windows is intuitive for me after using it for a quarter of a century, but Mac OS, not so much. I think I’m going to need a Mac for Dummies book to really feel comfortable using this thing.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
EDIT: This wasn’t mentioned in the original post, but I wanted to clarify that I’ve already put an SSD into this system. It’s the reason I had to open it up in the first place… and then put in the terrible, terrible screen screws. (Ugh, I’m still having flashbacks.)
This is a bit bogus. I just retired a 2012 iMac because I needed a new version of macOS to match my other devices. The only thing I ever did to the iMac was replace the original fusion driver with a SATA SSD (Samsung). It ran faster - boot times well under 10 seconds from the Apple chime.
Replace the HDD with an SSD . Update it to the latest macOS that hardware supports and it will be fine for web, email, basic office duty stuff, if you are sticking to Apple. I could also Bootcamp and run four instances of EVE Online with no issues.
There are a bunch of other things you can do with it outside of macOS but it really is getting up there in age.
SSD is already in there, and I’ve edited the original point to reflect this. Used a Y-splitter to get around the fan speed issue, because I’m not buyin’ a forty dollar temperature sensor for a fifteen dollar computer!