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The disk is a standard 2.5" Hard disk, so you can just replace that with modern SSD if you want. Apple lifted the ban on 3rd party SSDs a while ago.

Opening up an iMac is easy. The screen part is just held together with magnets, IIRC

Really? Kahlon. I've bought with them occasionally for really hard to find stuff. They still have EDO RAM, if you really need.

the RAM I needed is so rare now it costs 4 times as much as the server.

Have you tried Kahlon? (Not affiliated, just a happy customer) A few years ago I had a multiprocessor system that required Registred ECC RAM. It could hold a total of 4GB RAM, but only had 1GB. When I wanted to upgrade the system to 4GB (so I needed 3x1GB), the stores in Europe asked around 300€ per stick. At Kahlon, I got three sticks of that price even after the horribly high import taxes. Now, I just checked and I could get those same RAM sticks for around 40$ each.

I do admit it was a pain to get them to trust me because they didn't take a credit card from my country (which is very small). I called them, said I would do a wire transfer and send them proof. A bit of a hassle, but it worked and I had my RAM.

I also used them ever longer ago when I needed 256Meg SIMMS (not DIMMS) for an old Pentium Pro 200 System.

It's the first place I go and look if I need "weird RAM".

I should check their RD-Ram prices.. I have a nice P-IV with 512Meg RAM with RD-Ram. Upping it to 1GB or more might make it desktop-usable again.

. So if you could get X amount of computer equipment, now you would be able to get X + Y.

Which is the case... Back then, I paid 300$ for 3 sticks of Registred ECC RAM, back then the conversion rate was about 1:1 and thus 300€. These days, for 300€, I get about 400$. Essentially, I'd get one "free" these days. Oh, and by now the price of that kind of RAM has dropped. For my 300€, I can get 17 sticks. Not that I need them...

newly minted foe

Be my guest....

For example, my 78 yo grandad runs xubuntu on his 600 MHz PIII w. 128 MB RAM. He doesn't like it, it is too slow, but he is not prepared to shell out $150 on top of a laptop for $500.

Look on eBay for PC100 RAM? Last time I actually needed to buy new RAM for old PCs, I went to kahlon.com (I'm just a satisfied customer). 2x256Meg will set him back 40$, and will make his PC on the same level as an Asus EEE PC 701 4G. It works perfectly well with 512Meg RAM and at 670MHz using Debian Lenny and LDXE

For example, my 78 yo grandad runs xubuntu on his 600 MHz PIII w. 128 MB RAM. He doesn't like it, it is too slow, but he is not prepared to shell out $150 on top of a laptop for $500.

Look on eBay for PC100 RAM? Last time I actually needed to buy new RAM for old PCs, I went to kahlon.com (I'm just a satisfied customer). 2x256Meg will set him back 40$, and will make his PC on the same level as an Asus EEE PC 701 4G. It works perfectly well with 512Meg RAM and at 670MHz using Debian Lenny and LDXE

Obviously, few (if any) business users need anything more than a Pentium III running at 500 MHz. That processor is perfectly acceptable for business applications like OpenOffice.

As for this comment: I know everybody is going to say that it isn't true. It is. I am writing this just right now on a P-III 600MHz laptop with 512Meg RAM and OpenOffice works just fine. It takes a bit to load, but once it's running, it runs fine. Of course, I know what runs on my computer and right now only 30 processes run. Far from typical in the Windows world where everyone and his dog run multiple spyware proggies ;-)

Um, I'm pretty sure that he meant they would exist, because the PCs most definetly did use an 8086 chip.