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As was discussed in this thread, here's a Quicksilver that I bought via eBay for £25 GBP just before my mobility was curtailed due to the UK COVID-19 lockdown.

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It lacked an HDD but I recycled a couple of redundant drives, one of which was pulled from an iMac G5: a donor machine that keeps on giving life and upgrades to my working Macs. Problem is that with two IDE to SATA adapters installed, the case wouldn't close so as you can see, I had to replace the IDE cable with a longer one and position the second HDD in a makeshift position so that the door could close.

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I'm waiting on a PCI SSD bracket to arrive and then I'll fit a spare mSATA drive, remove the 2nd HDD and retain the larger capacity one that's mounted under the fan as a slave device.
 

(NOT MY AUCTION!!!)

What do you think of this? It's a PB 270c that's had a 2300c logicboard swapped in. I'd be interested in it as a reasonably fast System 7.6 (and maybe 8.1) box... Cool or better to stay clear?
 
What do you think of this? It's a PB 270c that's had a 2300c logicboard swapped in. I'd be interested in it as a reasonably fast System 7.6 (and maybe 8.1) box... Cool or better to stay clear?

I have a couple of Duos and I have to say I'm not that fond. One of mine has the well known vignetting disease against which there is no vaccine. I think the later models may be less susceptible but I would read up on it. If it doesn't come with a port replicator then there isn't much you can do with it exept mess around with what is already installed and maybe trying to network into it.

You would need at a minimum the micro-dock so that you can hook up a mouse and at least start looking for a HDI-20 floppy drive. The mouseballs on both of mine are pretty much useless needing several spins to move an inch or so, as if the tracking were superslow but I think that is true of many mouseballs of that age, which is why we got trackpads.

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The one thing I will say for the 2300, it has an IDE hard drive and you're not left with the small capacity ticking time bombs that are SCSI laptop drives.
 
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@weckart: Thanks for the input. This one includes a port replicator and floppy drive but seems to be on the original 240MB SCSI hard drive. All things considered I'll probably give it a miss then.
 
@weckart: Thanks for the input. This one includes a port replicator and floppy drive but seems to be on the original 240MB SCSI hard drive. All things considered I'll probably give it a miss then.
The 2300 has an IDE hard drive as said, so no need to worry about the "SCSI hard drive" ;) . If that is your main concern, you can confirm that with the seller. I took a look at that auction and it's clear the seller has expectations as to the final price. At least it comes with some memory.

it's just my personal opinion that apart from the form factor, which I assume was reasonably wow for the period, there isn't that much to recommend this range of PowerBooks. A bit like the G4 Cube. However, you can get the huge Duo Dock II and turn this into a bulky desktop. When I got my Duos, nobody wanted those docks and they sold more or less for the cost of postage. I doubt that is still the case today.

If you want a decent 8.1 system, get a PDQ. They are plentiful and with the floppy module very useful for creating floppies for older systems. For a fast 7.6 system, the fastest laptop might be the PB1400. I got a couple with a NewerTech NUpowr G3 upgrade cpu installed, both from Germany as it happens, so you're in the right place. Failing that, the 3400 series will also run 7.6 and has the benefit of more potential RAM if you are lucky. The 240MHz 603e is also arguably a tad faster than the same speed G3 processor as people seemed to find with the 250MHz Kanga.
 
For a fast 7.6 system, the fastest laptop might be the PB1400. I got a couple with a NewerTech NUpowr G3 upgrade cpu installed, both from Germany as it happens, so you're in the right place. Failing that, the 3400 series will also run 7.6 and has the benefit of more potential RAM if you are lucky. The 240MHz 603e is also arguably a tad faster than the same speed G3 processor as people seemed to find with the 250MHz Kanga.

You've convinced me, I'll look for one of these, minding the leaking PRAM battery in the 3400. I'm actually more interested in 7.6 than 8.1 anyway.
 
You've convinced me, I'll look for one of these, minding the leaking PRAM battery in the 3400. I'm actually more interested in 7.6 than 8.1 anyway.

Yes. Do ask the seller about that if the listing is untested/spares and repairs. If the main battery shows corrosion on the contact points, then it's a fair bet that the internal battery has probably wreaked havoc inside. Most sellers won't have a clue about the state of the internal battery in the 3400 because you have to unscrew a fair bit to get at the insides and snapping the case open takes a bit of nerve and practice.
 
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A 1400c/117 with 48 MB RAM has popped up on the local eBay. Are these also at the mercy of the PRAM battery? And is there any chance of Rhapsody taking to it?
 
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Yes, I saw that come up but I would counsel against that particular model. It's the slowest model and lacks L2 cache. I somehow ended up with four 1400 notebooks (don't ask) and that one is by far the slowest to boot and do anything with. It also has proprietary RAM and you will struggle to find any, let alone for a reasonable price. In any case, the 1400 range tops out at 64MB against the 144MB of the 3400, so it depends upon what you want to do with it. The 3400 is a much better notebook albeit much heftier.

To answer your questions, it also is prone to battery leakage and it is a poor fit for Rhapsody because of the RAM issue (you need 32MB minimum) and the Nubus architecture. The 2400 and 3400 are PCI based and are Rhapsody compatible.
 
@weckart Many thanks for the comprehensive info - I had planned to keep it on 7.6.1 due to CPU & RAM constraints but will probably pass on it.
 
@weckart Many thanks for the comprehensive info - I had planned to keep it on 7.6.1 due to CPU & RAM constraints but will probably pass on it.
There is one other issue I forgot to mention in case anyone else was thinking of getting a 1400. Apple in its wisdom used a fairly thin plastic lid in the display which is fairly weak at the display hinges. The hinges, on the other hand, are quite strong. It is quite common to see cracked or broken display lids as the plastic gets more brittle with age.
 
Are Core Duo Mini's frowned upon for some reason?
32 Bit so you have to take the hammer to it a bit to get it up to speed. This means a firmware hack to make it think it is a Mac Mini 2,1 (the logic boards are identical otherwise) so you can double the RAM from 2GB to 4GB and a C2D transplant so that it can run 64 bit applications under Lion. The sticking point is the GMA950, so anything above Lion is going to mean subpar performance.

I frown upon mine because I did all the necessaries above and then one of the RAM slots failed. The whole thing packed in about a year later. I'm going to frown upon it some more today because I've been reminded of its ungratefulness after I tarted it up.
 
Depends on the price ;)

Mine was the equivalent of US$47 including shipping. Probably a bit on the expensive side but Macs are more expensive here than in the US, and it was cheap compared to what Core Duo MacBooks or iMacs are going for.
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so you can double the RAM from 2GB to 4GB

Isn't the chipset limited to 3 GB accessible RAM? Going for 2 × 2 GB still enables dual-channel mode though.
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The sticking point is the GMA950, so anything above Lion is going to mean subpar performance.
Yep, that's a sore spot... but also what an eGPU is for ;)

I frown upon mine because I did all the necessaries above and then one of the RAM slots failed. The whole thing packed in about a year later. I'm going to frown upon it some more today because I've been reminded of its ungratefulness after I tarted it up.
Wow, that's bad luck. Hopefully mine won't do the same.
 
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Mine was the equivalent of US$47 including shipping. Probably a bit on the expensive side but Macs are more expensive here than in the US, and it was cheap compared to what Core Duo MacBooks or iMacs are going for.

Glad you said that because I haven't found much evidence of the notion here that early Intels are now cheaper than PPC.
I keep a lazy eye on ebay for such and have only bought 2 cheap Intels in 5 years - one of them because it was listed in the wrong section.
 
Mine was the equivalent of US$47 including shipping. Probably a bit on the expensive side but Macs are more expensive here than in the US, and it was cheap compared to what Core Duo MacBooks or iMacs are going for.

Macs are also more expensive over here in the UK than Stateside. Deals can be found but they require patience and eagle-eyed observation. I missed out on a boxed 12" iBook G4 in immaculate condition for £25 GBP because it involved travelling to the other side of the UK, which would've been possible with a cheap coach ticket but I lacked the resolve and besides, you can't have everything. :)

one of them because it was listed in the wrong section.

That's how I bought my MacBook 5,2 - it was listed on eBay as an iMac! :D
 
Glad you said that because I haven't found much evidence of the notion here that early Intels are now cheaper than PPC.
I keep a lazy eye on ebay for such and have only bought 2 cheap Intels in 5 years - one of them because it was listed in the wrong section.

I just looked up sold listings for G4 Minis and they ranged from the equivalent of US$30 to US$70 so it's not a clear win for PPC. However, I have a feeling that first-gen Intel machines have also begun to be sought after by collectors.
 
Glad you said that because I haven't found much evidence of the notion here that early Intels are now cheaper than PPC. I keep a lazy eye on ebay for such and have only bought 2 cheap Intels in 5 years - one of them because it was listed in the wrong section.

It's not exactly early Intel but I following the death of my 2006 Mac Mini, I managed to snag a boxed late 2009 Mac Mini for £31 a couple of months ago, which will run everything from Snow Leopard to Catalina and is probably the most versatile Intel Mac. From what I can see, CV19 has pushed the price of everything up online as people aren't trading as much as normal. You might have to bide your time or get really lucky. Every day is like Sunday as people aren't at work and are shopping online out of boredom, which makes it a seller's market now.
 
Tbh, I thought it was ok because at the time they were averaging about £50, maybe £60 unless they were stuffed with extras like SSDs and maxed RAM. Just looking at eBay now is :eek:

I can only dream about being able to pick up a 2009 Mini for these kinds of prices...
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[...] I managed to snag a boxed late 2009 Mac Mini, [...] which will run everything from Snow Leopard to Catalina

It will run Leopard as well :)
 
I snagged two g4 and early-intel laptops labeled as untested/for-parts for a bit under 100 shipped. Little pricy, but I did it for the a1139 dlsd 17inch g4. It looked to be in great condition so I took a risk on it. And it paid off great! It's in amazing physical condition and works great. Just needs a new battery and HDD. I'm also replacing the keyboard as well.

The intel laptop is a mess. But I don't really care about it. I may just resell it for whatever I can get.
 
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