Greetings Computer people !

[HickPicker]

I am not a computer person. However, I am a junk person, and I knows good junk when I sees it. Two days ago I spied three Apple puters in the electronics recycling bin, and decided to drag them home. Apple puters are a rare sight in this neck 'o the woods. One is a A1186 and two are A1224's. Both "all in ones" boot up and I was able to connect and browse the web (bought a cheap keyboard and mouse),but they both want the os restored, so I'm guessing they were wiped before dumping. The 1186 powers up, but I will need to get a monitor and cables to go further w/that. There is a 500 gig hard drive that has "new 2/25/15" written on it. On one of the removable PCB there is a pair of two gig memory (?) banks. On the other is a pair of 4gig banks. The vid card is an Nvidia p345.
I have never liked MS but that's what I've always used. I tried an open source OS once, but couldn't make it work. I use an ipad for most of my web time now.
My question is, do I keep them and play with them for kicks, or would they just be black holes sucking time and money ? I would have to buy an OS if I wanted to use them I guess. Should I try to find them a new home ? I'm really kind of far out (two hrs south of Pittsburgh, where the nearest Apple Store is). Or maybe just sell the removable bits and move on. Thinking out loud and kicking it around....
Best,

 

[honestone]

First, for the model A1224, there are a number of "variations" of those iMacs:

https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=a1224

So, hard to tell how much RAM each of them have, along with the size and type of the internal drive. Not sure, though, what you mean by "Both "all in ones" boot up and I was able to connect and browse the web (bought a cheap keyboard and mouse),but they both want the os restored, so I'm guessing they were wiped before dumping.". Please explain "they both want the os restored". The maximum Mac OS those iMacs can run is El Capitan, OS 10.11.6. The current Mac OS is High Sierra,. OS 10.13.6, and the next one, Mojave, OS 10.14.x, will be arriving in the fall.

Similarly, for the A1186, there are a number of "variations" of those Mac Pros:

https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=a1186

The maximum OS those Mac Pros can run is OS 10.7.5, Lion, which of course is way behind the most current version.

If you just want to "play around", then those machines should be OK. Of course, as time goes on, software that can run on either machine will be less and less supported, and any such software which involves security could be a concern.

Finally, I suspect Office 2008 can run on the Mac Pros, and Office 2011 on the iMacs. But, neither of those are supported anymore. Office 2016 is the most current version of MS Office for the Mac, and it is still actively supported.

 

[HickPicker]

Thanks for the link. I looked up all three and came up with this:
The A1224's are 2.4 ghz core2 Duo 1gig ram, 250gig HD.

The A1186 is 2.66ghz, QX/2x512/7300gt
...and the rest that I got looking in the cabinet.

"Not sure, though, what you mean by "Both "all in ones" boot up and..."

I mean both A1224's will boot up, but they open with OS X Utilities prompting me to reinstall Mountain Lion. If I choose Get help online, Safari opens, and I can sidestep that, and go to, say EBay, or yahoo, but that's about it.

A "kid" I showed these to pointed out that the tower has two optical ports. He speculated that the two A1224's could have been networked with the tower and used as monitors. Is that possible ?