Artifacts from years past

Technology goes out of date so fast these days that when I look at my shiny white iMac from 2006, I feel positively ancient for it. 2006, 2-0-0-6 ! That's the year Casino Royal came out. That's the year Final Fantasy 12 was released. And for some reason, 2006 feels like 4 years ago when it's actually almost EIGHT. I booted up the com (which I haven't touched for 4 years) and found out unsurprisingly that every programme on the desktop was out of date. Ok, cool. I can deal with that. Just go to the websites and download the latest versions right? I'm not talking Photoshop CS6/CC which requires everything and your liver before it deigns to install. But now the latest Firefox and Safari requires OS10.5 and above to install. The grandad version (2008 one) that I use is no longer supported on my OS10.4.8.
Ok keep calm, I thought to myself, where was that free copy of Snow Leopard that Apple gave you with the Macbook Pro? Aha! I poured the pile of dust off the CD and proceeded to install 10.6 onto the com. Except---------------- Deng Deng Deng Deeeeeng--------------- It required my mac to be on 10.5 first! And short of spending money on an OS10.5, which makes absolutely no sense because OS10.7 is the newfangled boy-toy of the town, I won't even be able to access my mail properly. It pains me so badly, but the iMac that I had once thought was the pride of the study room and a status of incomparable tech-savviness and class is now a fossilized animal. An animal called Mac OS10.4 Tiger.