Although I’m not in the EU, it can’t hurt to ask you nevertheless whether you have a bottom case for the key lime cladding and/or the centre clutch cover in the same. Those parts, offered as parts, have been nigh impossible for me to find for years. Cheers.
That link is incredibly fascinating, thank you so much for finding it! I've read through it, and aside from a very detailed description of how a laptop works, there are some really intriguing quotes...
So basically, the rubber on the outward side of the iBook was meant to reduce vibration but in a stylish way, with "high aesthetic value". Heh, I'm not sure how well they could protect against shocks but the iBook does have small rubber feet. And it's very stylish.
On the topic of how to prevent damage to the laptop...
I would agree with this, if it wasn't for the fact that I own an early Panasonic Toughbook just for the looks 😛. I'm fairly sure it weighs less and is smaller than the Clamshell, but then again, the clamshell was a few years behind. Interesting to see the evolution.
102=laptop top half, 104=laptop bottom half.
The specific plastic they used for the translucent shell plastic. The one that cracks.
116=top screen rubber, 112=top screen plastic.
Describing the rubber material.
128=port side rubber.
I wonder if they ever considered doing a completely clear version.
Looks like they considered adding some sort of colored plastic on the palm rest besides the trackpad and keyboard.
I also find it very interesting that they mention the five fruit colors, but also, "[...] or a combination of colors". I'm trying to imagine an iBook with multiple colors, or maybe even the dalmatian/flower pattern, but it's admittedly difficult.
Well, Ive, if you ever wished you could've seen a new fruity iBook, now you can:
I can do a more detailed write-up later, but for now, this is how it is.
The rubber is very rough looking, because it swallowed almost all of my red tint, requiring me to put lots of layers, which made it difficult to sand it down. The CD bezel cover looks fairly smooth, though, but it could be thinner.
Speaking of, the buttons for the CD player doesn't really work because it flexes too much. Whoops.
Interestingly, the battery panel graphic art for the blueberry/tangerine are high quality printable versions of the OS9 wallpapers. It's a really stubborn ink printed on the backside that required me to sand it down for a long time. I scanned and re-designed the whole thing in InDesign and printed out my own version.
The trackpad button works wonderfully, though, as does the hinge. All these resin plastic has a slight rubberiness to them, say, when you press down the nail on them, compared to the original parts. It doesn't disturb me too much.
Overall, now that this is mostly done/usable, it feels strangely natural/believable for what it is. The red tint "feels" fruity, just like the tangerine and blueberry. It feels like Y2K apple. But anyways, the laptop works (with a broken xga display upgrade), but I haven't had time to take a better photoshoot. I'll take some more soon!
So, aside from compiling software for the powerpcs now and then, I do some hardware hacking and upgrading. I happen to be enamored with the colorful Aqua+Pinstripe era when things came in a variety of different delicious colors. Not that I hoard iMacs, they're too bulky, but I've collected a fair amount of Apple's tech in various colors: B&W G3 (upgraded to G4), the orange and blue clamshells, usb keyboards in various colors, and other random third party accessories in translucent colors.
But if there's one brief moment from Y2K that I wish they expanded on more, were those clamshells. Why, oh why were they only tangerine and blueberry, as compared to all the iMac colors?! Damnit, we're missing Grape, Lime and Strawberry from the 2000 Clamshell lineup (yes, I know there is Key Lime clamshell, but it's when they started moving towards the boring white as aesthetic. I can never find one for a reasonable cost, anyways).
So I can't collect (nor afford) all five. Very disappointing. But I had an idea. I can create all five...
Thus started the journey of resin casting (and inadvertedly creating spare parts for the Clamshell). After a moderate financial investment and watching youtube tutorials, I carefully disassembled and took apart pieces of my working clamshells to create silicone mold: for example, a piece meant to hold the CD bezel in place that I had broken before on my blueberry. The spare part was created and tested to work perfectly... unobtanium was created! A few other parts was also created, and the concept was proven. (originals are the clear/blue parts)
Then I realized something. It's known that these logos fall off all the damn time. If I could somehow color match them to tangerine and blueberry, I would be able to produce lots of spare parts and help people revitalize their Clamshell collection. So for two weeks straight, I've casted, recasted, and mixed colors over and over to get close and closer to the original color. Lots of headache, but I think I made it. Here's the result. View attachment 1816287
Sample: (original is the bottom-most apple) View attachment 1816263
Perfection. It filled in the missing leaf on my tangerine clamshell. With the exception of very slight differences in color and transparency, the color is strikingly similar in different light conditions. It definitely beats having nothing there...
My goal then became crystal clear: create the sought-after logos in tangerine and blueberry (possibly more down the line) in order to finance my ultimate goal: create a strawberry, grape and lime version of the transparent clamshells.
