Me and the Old Mac Visit Exeter's Apple Store

I've arrived here, the floor of the  Exeter Princesshay Apple Store, because of Ebay. This is my story in two parts. 

Source: Apple Store

iPart 

My husband knew that I was on the look out for a new computer and happened across a little Powerbook G4 for only £50 on Ebay. It's a sold as seen affair, but for £50 we'd figure we'd give it a try. The battery and airport successfully replaced, I began web surfing only to find that the version of Safari that I have is from about 2008 and can't really handle pages like Twitter, Facebook or the latest Hotmail. After trawling around the web for fixes, I decided to take the Mac to it's maker at The Apple Store.

I walk straight past the iPods and iPads and serenely sleek PowerMacs up to the much more realistic IT help desk that they call the Genius Bar. From here it's the bits of broken tech and confused faces that you'll see in any IT space or doctors surgery.

The place is packed and the head Genius in charge tells me that I should have booked an appointment. Which means that I'll have to wait for 30mins. Except there's no chairs. So here I sit on the cold hard stylish tile waiting for my turn.

Looking around, the whole space feels like the bit in your trip to Ikea when everything goes from lovely Scandinavian vignettes of idealistic middle class life, to the last scene Raiders of the Lost Ark where you have to 'find it yourself' like an Argos recruit.

Now my Old Mac and I wait.

iiPart

Five minutes after my scheduled appointment, my PC veteran scepticism is melted away by Rob, a charming techie who is familiar with the Powerbook and listens to all of my complaints with at sympathetic ear.

Seeing the other people around me, paying bits and pieces ont their box fresh tech, I was convinced that anything I'd need would be absurdly expensive. He explains that they don't really keep old hardware at the Apple store, but if I can get the parts, they'll help me out and install the best operating system a G4 can handle for free. Yep. Free.

Thanks Rob.

The whole diagnostic and conversation took about 10 minutes and as I stole away home, I could help but think, maybe there's life in the Old Mac yet.

To be continued....