exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi all,

Starting this topic to avoid further derailing of the CL4 items for sale discussions...

With the imminent arrival of a Mac Mini to fix (thanks in advance @CiH !) I'll be asking for any helpful links or suggestions to help fix up and then use this Mac for something...

I think I have a slightly newer (probably working) Mac Mini "somewhere" in my stash, so I might learn some of the basics with that but the last time I used a Mac was back in 1987... :roll:

No real urgency for this yet...hobby time won't increase until early November and the new addition will come home after CL4 (hopefully)

Do you know which model you are getting? The PowerPC ones are the most interesting (to me) as they can dual boot into MorphOS.

JezC wrote: 29 Sep 2025 08:29 If there are any good guides to these Macs then I'd be very interested if someone can share them!

The main thing to avoid are the 1st Gen Intel Mac Mini's 2006-2009 especially those with "T1200 Core Solo". If you end up with one with a Core Solo, swap out the CPU for a "T7600 Core2Duo" (or a T7200 as they are much cheaper). Also update the RAM to 4GB as the SODIMMS are dirt cheap and add a DOM.

But even with the fastest CPU you can fit, they are extremely slow and the latest version of MacOS you can install on them is very old (10.7 Lion). If you factor in the time and money you will spend upgrading a 1st Gen Intel Mac Mini, I personally would buy a newer Intel Unibody Mac Mini which are as little as £30 (2014) these days.

The Apple website should be your first port of call when trying to find MacOS installs (for USB) to install a new HDD.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250003906

Internet Archive is your friend if you need a disc image to burn a disc (I wouldn't bother but hey)

If you don't have a Mac keyboard you can use a PC one. MacOS requires 2 special keys; command key is typically mapped to the Windows key and the Option key is typically AltGR.

@CiH may well respond anyhow later today, but I also know about this machine.

It's a 2011 Intel Mac Mini, with a replacement SSD installed inside it as the original hard drive had stopped working.
I'm not sure which version of the OS was originally on it though, hopefully not too ancient.

Hope this helps,

Rich.

It's a 2011 Intel Mac.

From memory, it had the better graphics card option, Radion rather than the integrated graphics.

If it is a 2011 i5 4GB RAM you'll be able to upgrade (with fan made patches) update to MacOS 15 Sequoia which is still in use today.

Although from a performance point of view it might be better to stick with the last officially supported Mac OS which is 10.13 High Sierra.