That's its reputation. "Good" to see that it still lives down to its billing in 2023. For building floppies, the best notebook to use is still the Wallstreet/PDQ. Makes a good bridge device as it is one of the few Apple computers with a full, mechanical floppy drive, which can boot MacOS and OS X natively.
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eBay bargains - what's your latest conquest?
- Thread starter Hughmac
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It's unfortunate as it really is a nice system. I knew about the
This morning I decided to unjam the floppy drive in the hope of revisiting the creation of the original disks (if anything I'd like to create the disk images to preserve them). Unfortunately, the drive appears unlikely to be salvageable. I checked Ebay and there are some donor systems I could buy for under $100 but that's more than I am willing to spend on it, at least for now. So it's likely to sit in my basement until a future date where I might revisit it or dispose of it.
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Picked up an inexpensive handheld oscilloscope to use in troubleshooting power supplies. I have a bench scope but wanted something battery powered to avoid potential ground issues.
I still don't get why people do it.
After months of regularly checking in on my building's electronics recycling bin, I found what looked like an intact Dell desktop computer (maybe I should still take it?) and this...
It's the wonderfully-named Samsung NP300E5E-A05CA from 2013, part of their Series 3 line which I think was one of the last range of mainstream notebooks they made before pulling the plug in September 2014. (They've just tried to have another go at it with the Galaxy Book line this year.)
Specs-wise, it was one of the better budget consumer notebooks out there, with what I think was 8 GB RAM and a 1 TB hard drive paired with a 2.6 Ghz Core i5 and a 15" 1366 x 768 screen. Not amazing, but better compared to many other competing offerings at the time.
Apart from a missing hard drive and RAM, the machine was almost in perfect working order – even the battery was in decent shape. I tossed in a spare 120 GB SATA hard drive I had lying around, a pair of 1 GB DDR3 DIMMS from a past A1342 upgrade project, and I was off. I had a bit of a rocky start with Zorin OS 16.3 Light, but with Lubuntu 22.04.6 LTS, this machine just sings.
So all it needed in the end was just a new hard drive and RAM. Why would someone toss out a perfectly good working machine like this?
After months of regularly checking in on my building's electronics recycling bin, I found what looked like an intact Dell desktop computer (maybe I should still take it?) and this...
It's the wonderfully-named Samsung NP300E5E-A05CA from 2013, part of their Series 3 line which I think was one of the last range of mainstream notebooks they made before pulling the plug in September 2014. (They've just tried to have another go at it with the Galaxy Book line this year.)
Specs-wise, it was one of the better budget consumer notebooks out there, with what I think was 8 GB RAM and a 1 TB hard drive paired with a 2.6 Ghz Core i5 and a 15" 1366 x 768 screen. Not amazing, but better compared to many other competing offerings at the time.
Apart from a missing hard drive and RAM, the machine was almost in perfect working order – even the battery was in decent shape. I tossed in a spare 120 GB SATA hard drive I had lying around, a pair of 1 GB DDR3 DIMMS from a past A1342 upgrade project, and I was off. I had a bit of a rocky start with Zorin OS 16.3 Light, but with Lubuntu 22.04.6 LTS, this machine just sings.
So all it needed in the end was just a new hard drive and RAM. Why would someone toss out a perfectly good working machine like this?
M.b. previous owner really hates it's resolution? (1366x768 is something which makes me really furious as hell
).
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Beats me.
M.b. previous owner really hates it's resolution? (1366x768 is something which makes me really furious as hell
1366 x 768 on a 15" screen may not be er...great, but it's useable for simple web browsing and light office tasks, which is what most of these machines ever did anyway. Maybe Windows wasn't great, but my Linux experience is very nice on this, even with the low-res screen. And specs aside there's simply nothing wrong with this computer apart from some slightly mushy trackpad buttons.
Now, if you want to actually talk about bad, I should show you my Proscan 10" MacBook Air clone with Windows 10 running at 1024 x 600. At that resolution you run into genuinely serious usability issues with Windows. But it sure is cute.
I don't think I've ever wanted to try 75% display scaling until I saw this 💀
If that makes you and @Tratkazir_the_1st angry, then you would have loved the Samsung laptop's competing offerings from the likes of HP and Compaq et al. that had 1366 x 768 on 16" and even 17" displays.
It made for some really interesting tech though; the problem was just that there was no regard given for build quality or the use of even just "good enough" components.
I also have the 10" Proscan's big brother, with a 14" display at (you guessed it) 1366 x 768. But the worst part of it is that it was given a 32 GB SSD. I couldn't apply the Windows 10 Anniversary Update because even with no additional apps installed, there wasn't enough space to download and install it. If it had even 64 GB instead it would have been fine. Hell don't even ship it with Windows at all, put Linux on it, and pass the savings on to the customers.
For the 10" if it had even a 1280 x 800 display and a bigger SSD it would have been a very usable for its size and price class.
Interesting in what regard? The original Eee PC had a 7" 800×480 screen. The (1998) Toshiba Libretto 100CT had a screen like that, and it wasn't tall enough back then. Why repeat the same mistake nine years later? (Rhetorical question I know.)
The HP Mini 2133 had a 8.9" 1280×768 screen. The Sony Vaio P had an 8" 1600×768 screen.
Just checked: I can still buy 39” LCD TVs with that resolution.
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Has anyone come across a late 2005 G5 Quad logic board on ebay in a while? I can only seem to find single socket boards.
One of my original coolant hoses split and sprayed the motherboard. I unplugged it as soon as I heard it, disassembled everything, cleaned up whatever liquid was remaining, rebuilt the LCS with new hoses and coolant, even gave the logic board a good scrub with alcohol and a toothbrush.
After reassembly, it no longer boots. The +5v trickle light comes on when it's plugged in (power supply bench tested good), and when you press the power button it sounds like it tries to start for a split second before shutting off. No chime, no fans. Power supply tests good, I took out the board again and ultrasonic cleaned it, another alcohol bath, same result.
Or does anyone have one lying around they wouldn't mind getting rid of? Or is there anyone from the WV/VA/northern NC/northeastern TN who has a G5 quad they're looking to get rid of?
One of my original coolant hoses split and sprayed the motherboard. I unplugged it as soon as I heard it, disassembled everything, cleaned up whatever liquid was remaining, rebuilt the LCS with new hoses and coolant, even gave the logic board a good scrub with alcohol and a toothbrush.
After reassembly, it no longer boots. The +5v trickle light comes on when it's plugged in (power supply bench tested good), and when you press the power button it sounds like it tries to start for a split second before shutting off. No chime, no fans. Power supply tests good, I took out the board again and ultrasonic cleaned it, another alcohol bath, same result.
Or does anyone have one lying around they wouldn't mind getting rid of? Or is there anyone from the WV/VA/northern NC/northeastern TN who has a G5 quad they're looking to get rid of?
“It’s not a pixel anymore. It’s The Blob!”I suppose pixel would be as large as horse hoof on it
I wanna see one of these early 42" 852×480 plasma TVs!
Small tech has always fascinated me, in that I've wondered how it's possible to make small or ultra-cheap small devices usable as daily driver devices.
That and in my own general experience...machines like that were never that common. Sure, devices like the Eee PC were things that were seemingly advertised everywhere, but in my experience, I never saw anyone actually using them (as opposed to mainstream laptops); at school and in cafés I'd always seen people using a MacBook, or a random Dell or HP/Compaq 14" or 15" laptop. There were lots of obvious reasons why of course...
Same here, but my fascination concentrates on classic (small, lightweight, expensive) ultraportables.
I saw plenty of netbooks at university back in the day. I even saw a student with the original Eee PC back in 2007. Sure, there were MacBooks and bigger laptops too, but netbooks were certainly a thing. I've had a couple of very small devices too (e.g. Sharp Zaurus, UMID mBook BZ, Fujitsu UH900) but they were never usable enough to replace even a normal ultraportable: they were just toys to me, not tools.
I still have a couple of the original eeePCs. They weren't really that good as daily drivers because the keyboard was too cramped and by the time you added peripherals to get past the hunt and peck keyboard and tiny screen resolution, you might as well have paid half the price for an Acer nettop, which at least wasn't limited to 4GB of onboard storage. As a secondary device, they were fun for a while and I did use mine at work until better netbooks came out. I got an MSi Wind U100 with a better 1024x600 screen and hackintoshed that. There was a dedicated forum for that and Snow Leopard ran very well on it - even sleep worked. Sadly, due to the processor, you couldn't progress beyond SL but Apple hadn't got on the yearly upgrade cycle yet, so it was good for a few years.
I hackintosh'd a Dell Mini 9. It was fun within the limits of the hardware.
AFAIK it's resolution of Nokia N900
. I wonder who ever coud decide that it suits 42" .Almost. The N900 is 800×480.AFAIK it's resolution of Nokia N900
If the viewing distance is at least 10 or 15 metres, it may be fine.I wonder who ever coud decide that it suits 42"
Because... not tossing it requires serious effort. You have to list it somewhere, possibly take photos, wait for people to contact you, meet people and/or go to the post office to ship something, etc. For computers, unless you are okay just selling it with a wiped drive, add some time to reinstall an operating system too.
Not to mention, when selling older full computers (less so with parts), there's going to be the 'wrong' kind of buyer out there. The right kind of buyer is some enthusiast who appreciates that some older thing has ability X or historical significance Y. Or someone who just wants to shove an SSD into something, install some Linux distro and do something or other with it. The wrong kind of buyer is somebody who has never installed an operating system in their life who thinks that a 2003 G4 might be a perfect computer for their niece's light web browsing and school work. And if you sell it to the wrong kind of buyer, they may potentially be asking you for tech support, asking for refunds, etc, which takes up time you don't have. Look at every eBay listing for a vintage Mac - there's a reason they tell you in black and white that it's not suitable for modern web browsing and YouTube. I once responded on a reddit thread to someone who had dug up a Performa 63x and was thinking that it might be a suitable web browsing machine for a non-profit!
And how much is an average consumer Windows laptop from 2013 worth? $50? $100? Not to mention, if you wanted a Windows laptop from 2013, you could pick up a business laptop like a Lenovo T440 that you can actually find parts on eBay for. And a service manual on Lenovo's web site. And a full set of drivers, including a BIOS update from 2020. You might even be able to call up Lenovo and order a non-sketchy battery for a T440.
Believe me, my living room is full of stuff that needs to be re-homed (no Mac stuff except a TB2 to GbE adapter and a 6X DVD-ROM from my MDD) and... it's sometimes very tempting to just pick it up, put it in the car, and drop it off in Worst Buy's e-waste pile. Especially the higher-end stuff, e.g. who would want a 2011 quad-core Sandy Bridge Dell laptop with a SSD, 16GB of RAM, 802.11ac upgrades, and a whole bunch of parts replaced over the years? And I have three such Sandy Bridge Dells... great machines, in perfect operating condition and near-perfect cosmetic condition, can still do everything (including unofficially run Windows 11 just fine), but who in 2023 is going to want to acquire one of those?! We're talking about a processor that Geekbench 6s at 485 single-core, 1350 multi-core - my 2017 12" MacBook (not exactly a machine with a reputation for being a speed demon) will Geekbench 6 at 900 single-core, 1800 multi-core.
I can't believe no one else bid on this what I believe to be...
2 first gen MBP
1 17'' PowerBook G4
2 iBook G3
1 iBook G4
Offered as broken and for parts - If only one works I still have heaps of parts for future projects.
So excited!
2 first gen MBP
1 17'' PowerBook G4
2 iBook G3
1 iBook G4
Offered as broken and for parts - If only one works I still have heaps of parts for future projects.
So excited!
