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Club 15

lepidotós

lepidotós

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 29, 2021
684
755
Marinette, Arizona
Ah what the hell, since there's already the other two might as well get one of these up.
Hi-Res, Aluminum, Titanium, all 15"ers are welcome if they don't start with the Mac- prefix because this is the PowerPC forum. All 14" iBooks and PowerBooks, too -- at least, until someone makes a dedicated Club 14 -- because we're a welcoming sort unlike those 12" goons! ? 14" iBooks and PowerBooks go here now.
I have a 15" SMS, but it's on loan to my mom for however long she needs it, so I can't get up a photo. I do have a 15" Hi-Res that should get here in a few days, however! I love my 14" iBook G4, it's a beast of a machine, but 1024x768 does get kinda tiring when every single computer you own is in that resolution. Plus, 3:2 (and the wonderfully simple 640:427, which rolls off the tongue smoothly) is just a lovely aspect ratio!​
 
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Here we go, managed to get a picture of the SMS. It's actually in pretty great shape, though one of the screws on the bottom is stripped so it's still at 512MB. I wanted to upgrade it to 2GB.​
 
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lepidotós said:
because we're a welcoming sort unlike those 12" goons! ?​
Click to expand...

I’ve never been exactly warm to the “Club 12” restrictions, as it excludes every 12-inch iBook, and it also omits every single 12-inch PowerBook G3 (e.g., the Kanga and Wallstreet versions shipped with such). I’d even go as far as to petition @Amethyst1 to update the title of that thread to “PowerBook G4 Club 12”. :)

As well, if anyone ever plans to fuss with starting a “Club 14” sharing thread, it ought to be inclusive of the 14-inch iBooks as well as every 14-inch PowerBook G3 shipped with such. With those considerations, it would invite lesser-seen appearances on the PowerPC forum of Pismo, PDQ, and Wallstreet PowerBook G3s.

Now, as for a PowerPC “Club 13”? Well, that would be a tumbleweed thread filled with nothing but… tumbleweeds and a very occasional 13.3-inch Wallstreet PowerBook G3 still in use in 2022 or later. :D

(Additional thought, mostly for the Early Intel Macs forum: I’d find a Club 11 forum to be entertaining as heck.)
 
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Could always make this Club 14.65!
Also, I managed to get the cover off and get both sticks in there and working, but I lost the screw so it's still loose while I look. Wish they were captive! I'll get a photo up when I can.​
 
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lepidotós said:
Could always make this Club 14.65!
Click to expand...

I’m not entirely sure why that would be necessary.

The 15-inch aluminium PowerBook G4 came equipped with a 15.0-inch display (with only the final, 1.67GHz DLSD model sporting a 3:2 aspect ratio) — whereas the titanium PowerBooks came with a 15.2-inch display (and, for the later models, a wild, 640:427 aspect ratio, just like the aspect ratio of all but the last 15-inch aluminium PowerBooks). :p

(Counting down the moments before @Amethyst1 comes crashing in here with a completely cogent argument behind why 640:427 was, well, actually, 3:2, even though that would need to be a 1281x854 resolution to make it a bona fide 3:2). :D

EDIT, after seeing the change of the thread title: Wait what, oh noooo, whyyyyy… ?‍♀️
 
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You're right, it should be 14.766... ?
There it is, all maxed out! I just wish I could find that screw... and when I tried using a screw from my iBook G4, it seemed like it was captive. And then I tried to use one from my SSD kit and that one also ended up falling to the floor.
IMG_20220208_192501.jpg
 
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My only 15-inch Mac laptop is what I treat as a mule. It lacks a working:
  • battery
  • AirPort/Bluetooth bus (connecting it to the logic board, which is not its original board, invokes kernel panics early in booting)
  • PCMCIA slot (it invokes the same kernel panic when connected to the logic board)

But… but… BUT!

It’s an A1138 DLSD model which:
  • enjoys a higher resolution display than both its immediate predecessors and Intel successors
  • is what I use entirely for testing Build 10A96 of Snow Leopard on PowerPC
  • works just fine with gigabit ethernet
  • is otherwise a pretty stable system
  • cost me only $25 plus shipping to buy it from a seller on the west coast (of Canada)
  • runs like a dream with an SSD
  • is presently messy and could use a cosmetic clean-up at some point
It lives on a messy desk, so it’s right at home anyway. And yes, I’ve been using the iSight FireWire camera for testing in Snow Leopard, and yes, it works in Snow Leopard. And also, my phone camera is garbage, but I like the form factor of my phone. :p

And yes, on “About This Mac”, that does say 10.6, which comes directly after 10.5.8 (because, nope, there was no “““10.5.9”””).
 
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My 2004 G4 1.5 15-inch, on my desk at work. 1Gb RAM, used for a whole bunch of things, but currently Word X.

The eagle-eyed might spot the PowerBook 520c and 180 behind the phone, and a Performa 630CD under the desk....
IMG_2603.jpg
 
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za9ra22 said:
My 2004 G4 1.5 15-inch, on my desk at work. 1Gb RAM, used for a whole bunch of things, but currently Word X.

The eagle-eyed might spot the PowerBook 520c and 180 behind the phone, and a Performa 630CD under the desk....
View attachment 1956424
Click to expand...

That desk vaguely looks like an EXPEDIT desk extension, probably in ebony or walnut.
 
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B S Magnet said:
Additional thought, mostly for the Early Intel Macs forum: I’d find a Club 11 forum to be entertaining as heck.)
Click to expand...
Done. :)

B S Magnet said:
The 15-inch aluminium PowerBook G4 came equipped with a 15.0-inch display (with only the final, 1.67GHz DLSD model sporting a 3:2 aspect ratio) — whereas the titanium PowerBooks came with a 15.2-inch display (and, for the later models, a wild, 640:427 aspect ratio, just like the aspect ratio of all but the last 15-inch aluminium PowerBooks). :p
Click to expand...
That’s absolutely correct, so I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you :)

B S Magnet said:
I’ve never been exactly warm to the “Club 12” restrictions, as it excludes every 12-inch iBook, and it also omits every single 12-inch PowerBook G3 (e.g., the Kanga and Wallstreet versions shipped with such). I’d even go as far as to petition @Amethyst1 to update the title of that thread to “PowerBook G4 Club 12”. :)
Click to expand...
Done. :)
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Done. :)
Click to expand...

Nice work! :D

I couldn’t create it myself because I don’t have an 11-inch MBA yet.

Amethyst1 said:
That’s absolutely correct, so I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you :)
Click to expand...

You should absolutely correct me whenever I’m wrong! And you’re kind of our resident display expert here, so if there be any deferring, it’s me to you on all matters LCD and CRT. :)

Amethyst1 said:
Done. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. :)

If you’re able, you ought to link back to this mini-discussion on that thread post you just made to explain the origins of the title name change.
 
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lepidotós said:
@B S Magnet how is the performance? I know AGP isn't accelerated in 10.6, but I've been wanting to try it and the HR arriving in a few days is a pretty good opportunity.​
Click to expand...

Generally, pretty decently, especially given all the strikes against Snow Leopard running on a PowerPC Mac out of the box.

Buuuut… bear in mind that what you see running on my PowerBook is heavily modified with all the many findings and fixes amassed over the duration of the Clouded Leopard project (most conspicuously, all the kext and Framework swap-outs I’ve done on Build 10A96). Once those are in place, it runs fairly well even if it lacks hardware support for Quartz Extreme and Core Image.

I’ve promised on here to do this at a while back, but I need to figure out how to build pkg installers so that I can set up a Build 10A96 install with all the tweaks I’ve made, with each tweak in their appropriate pkg location as expected by the OS X mpkg installation script.
 
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I'm plagued with visions of having a cosmetically challenged Titanium and 3D printing a PowerBook G3 style shell for it, including rubberized coating, and figuring out how to get the dual bay setup. I wonder if the keyboards, or at least caps, are compatible...
In the meantime, my A1138 arrived today, here it is next to two of my four 14" laptops. Not pictured are my iBook G3 or my Dell Inspiron 2200. I bought 2GB RAM to max it out, but it came maxed out already. At least it was only $3 in total.
My bed is looking more and more like an episode of a certain show.
IMG_20220215_171335.jpg​
 
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lepidotós said:
In the meantime, my A1138 arrived today, here it is next to two of my four 14" laptops. Not pictured are my iBook G3 or my Dell Inspiron 2200. I bought 2GB RAM to max it out, but it came maxed out already. At least it was only $3 in total.
My bed is looking more and more like an episode of a certain show.
View attachment 1959575​
Click to expand...
Nice! When I was 11 or 12, right before the switch to Intel, I thought the 15” PowerBook G4 was the absolute coolest laptop in the world. I still think that the pre-unibody form factor is extremely handsome, despite its long-term wear and repairability issues.

Speaking of which, is that some pitting/tarnish I see in the G4’s palm rest? I have a *very* beat up 2007 17” MBP I got for free as a project and it has much worse pitting in the same spot. Was wondering if anyone here knows of a cosmetic fix for that.

As for myself, I’ve got a Pismo and a 14” iBook G4 (1.42 GHz Mid 2005, fastest iBook ever made!), but despite always wanting one as a kid I’ve never owned an actual 15” mac laptop (one day...). Unfortunately the Pismo’s PRAM battery is dead and won’t boot, and the iBook is missing two keys on its yellowed keyboard and has a broken display hinge (still works great, just bends a little concerningly if you’re not careful), so they’re both in need of some care. Is there an “adventures in PowerPC repair/restoration” thread for sharing progress on projects like that, or is that part of what these club threads are for?
 
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ahurst said:
Speaking of which, is that some pitting/tarnish I see in the G4’s palm rest? I have a *very* beat up 2007 17” MBP I got for free as a project and it has much worse pitting in the same spot. Was wondering if anyone here knows of a cosmetic fix for that.
Click to expand...

It’s curious you bring this up right now, as I was idly thinking about asking the forum about that peculiar phenomenon.

Before it was stolen, I used to own a 15-inch A1226 (Santa Rosa) MacBook Pro which began to pit badly in the palm rest area, even though it was only a year old. I’d seen it happen to another MBP from around that time (2008–09), so I was both disappointed and also resigned to this being an inevitability.

But,

I’ve been using this A1261 MBP as my daily driver almost constantly since last July. Surely by this point I would expect to see pitting (much as I did with that 2007 15-inch which I only got to use for just under ten months). I don’t. In addition, in 2020 I was using my 17-inch PowerBook, the A1139, pretty regularly as a semi-daily driver. It lacks pitting (though there’s one tiny pit from a nick from prior to my buying it which is oxidized black… but again, tiny and not spreading). And the A1138 I use for testing Snow Leopard has also gotten considerable use. It also doesn’t have pitting.

Now, when I reflect on this, and then reflect on how I relied my 2011 MBP as a hard-usage daily driver for about seven years, it also lacks pitting of any kind. But I also understand that the unibody approach — water-cutting from a solid block of aluminium (versus stamping aluminium pieces in the pre-unibody models) — might factor into the unibody’s surface integrity.

And now you mention another 2007 MBP with pitting. It is leaving me to wonder whether there was something about the quality of the aluminium in that series of MBPs, or perhaps a particular batch of aluminium within that series.


lepidotós said:
bought 2GB RAM to max it out, but it came maxed out already. At least it was only $3 in total.
My bed is looking more and more like an episode of a certain show.
View attachment 1959575​
Click to expand...

Hey… HEY… HEEEEEEYYYYY…

Go start your own Club 14! Two of these don’t belong here! ;)
 
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lepidotós said:
All 14" iBooks and PowerBooks, too -- at least, until someone makes a dedicated Club 14 -- because we're a welcoming sort unlike those 12" goons! ?
Click to expand...
That's on someone else to do! I can't hoard all the screen sizes -- besides, I'm pretty sure that at this point, if I make too many more threads before 2023 I'll be banned for spamming! :p

@ahurst Yeah, it's really kinda beat. The screen latch button is loose, several keys are worn away, the side is a little warped. It runs is the important part, even if it's in dire need of almost every single screw. That's definitely some wear -- this thing spent years probably being handled and used by all sorts of students at Virginia Commonwealth University according to the sticker, so who knows what kind of a biohazard it actually is.

I'm probably going to repurpose my iBook display mods thread to be about restoring and modding all G-series laptops.

Also, I'm happy to report that it seems to be otherwise 100% working, including both RAM slots. The battery holds over four and a half hours of charge with normal power settings, and I really want to repack it with 3400mAh cells.
IMG_20220215_204826.jpg
Less happy to report that it's being held together with only five screws, two of which I can't unscrew to install my SSD because they're """T6""" and I only have a T8.​
 
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