Q My mother bought her current Mac, an ‘angle-poise’ iMac, over ten years ago, and it is now starting to fail. However she needs a screen that can be positioned flexibly and easily, and I am loathe to get rid of it. Could I get it reconditioned, or is there a suitable replacement from Apple’s current range?

A Sadly these versatile models are no longer supported, and obtaining replacement parts for them is well nigh impossible. Whilst a good Mac engineer might be able to keep it on the road a little longer, sooner or later it will suffer a hardware failure that renders it beyond repair.

On the other hand, all her old applications will need to be upgraded if she is to use them on a current Mac, and she may not take kindly to the enforced changes in them, and in OS X itself. You will need to devise a strategy to address that.

The closest that a modern Mac will come to the angle-poise concept might be a Mac mini with an external display mounted on a monitor arm, such as those offered by specialist supplier ErgoMounts. These arms are now also widely available from general online retailers, although specialists have a wider selection, of course.

Unfortunately it would not be possible to drive the display in her old iMac from a modern mini, and modern displays should prove both inexpensive and superior.

Updated from the original, which was first published in MacUser volume 27 issue 22, 2011.