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Here is a cool use for old Mac motherboards you may have never considered. Use them as decorative wall ornaments. I am not much of an "artsy" person but I do appreciate industrial design. Unlike PC motherboards, Mac boards are very nifty. They are well designed and thoughtfully laid out. Best of all, they are compact and frame themselves very well.

Please don't even consider this if you can find a computational use for a motherboard. We must protect the Mac heritage. Every old Mac that is turned into an aquarium or gutted for use as a wall hanger depletes the working supply in circulation. I personally own five old SE's and five old Classic II's in various states of disrepair. I only use what I can spare.

Macintosh Classic motherboard

Believe it or not, the boards appear custom-made for hanging. There are small holes at each of the four corners. They work perfect to hold the board in place with nails or to tie a string through for a fashionable hanger. I have some of my boards hung by leather shoe strings. The effect is pretty cool.

Mac SE motherboard with a leather shoe string hanger

PRAM Batteries

Preparing a board to hang is easy. If the board is shot and no longer usuable, you can run it under the sink for a few seconds and give it a good cleaning. Boards can get quite dusty inside a Mac because the fan circulates air in and out pulling dust along with it. If you have some old RAM chips laying around, by all means stick them on. It doesn't matter what the MB size is so you can use those old 1 MB chips you replaced with 4 MB chips for pennies in one of your other vintage Macs. A PRAM battery is essential. A Mac board without a lithium battery just isn't a Mac board. Since most of the PRAM batteries on these older Macs are dead by the time you get them, you should have a good supply of older batteries laying around. Don't ever throw them away. New PRAM batteries cost $10 at Radio Shack.

So dust off those old boards and hang them up. They are sure to garner the attention of anyone who visits you. And if they make your PC-using friends shiver with fright, so much the better.

Macintosh Classic II motherboard with a leather shoe string hanger