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Filling old Wallstreet with more recent guts

Loa

Loa

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 5, 2003
1,733
79
Québec
Hello,

How feasible would that be? Given that new laptops are so much thinner than those old g3 powerbooks, would it be possible?

Thanks

Loa
 
I don't know, but it would be an interesting Mac.

I hope the Wallstreet was/is DOA though and you don't gut a working model.
 
IMO, The whole project wouldn't be worth the frustration. I hope your not tearing down a $1000 MacBook for it!
 
Pretty difficult. Remember that most of the Wallstreet was filled with bays of different sorts making fitting a board nearly impossible, and the input devices are not USB. Not to mention the entire problem of the bays not working with any current board (as I don't think they use a modern bus system either.)

It's probably not do-able without absolutely defacing the machine, and at that point...
 
Hello,

I'm willing to grind out any bays (as long as it keeps all outward appearances), but my two main questions are these:

-Keyboard (want to use the original, of course)
-Screen (how to path the cable)

Remember, I want to keep nothing from the original except the case: I still think it's the most beautiful laptop ever made.

Loa

P.S. and no, I would not kill a working G3!
 
It'll be impossible to do what you want. The current keyboards and trackpads are USB and the G3 uses ADB for those, so you would somehow have to engineer a new keyboard and trackpad if you want those to work. Also, heat dissipation is tightly integrated between the boards and housing in portable computers, so you can expect problems there too.
Then there's the aspect of getting a battery in there. The current hardware won't work with the old batteries or vice versa.
 
Hello,

Oh well, it was worth a thought. Today's macbooks (/pros) are nice and smooth, but those G3s (Wallstreet, Pismo, Lombard) had real style, some feline "grrrr" that's missing these days of industrial design... Do I look like an industry? :p

Loa
 
I like reading about other peoples' adventures

bumbling around...
http://www.pbcentral.com/columns/hildreth_moore/great.shtml
http://www.google.com/search?q="pc+...aptop+old+|+case+|+shell+-ironclads+-ironclad
http://www.google.com/search?q="pc+on+a+stick"+inside+|+usb+-ironclads+-ironclad
http://lowendmac.com/musings/11mm/less-expansion-options.html
"... transitional machines: WallStreet has ADB, Apple serial, and SCSI ports. Lombard replaced ADB and serial ports with USB. And Pismo replaced SCSI with FireWire, making it the first PowerBook with both USB and FireWire... "
 
If you have the means to manufacture the pieces you need you could be alright. Assuming you completely gut the entire machine, bays and all, and can fit a motherboard, anything else is possible with enough planning and work.

You'd have to either adapt the keyboard or fabricate an adaptor. You'd be better off simply replacing the screen, but you'd have to fabricate adaptors for it as well to get a screen of a different aspect ratio to fit properly. You'd also have to fabricate covers for the unused ports on the side and cut out appropriate holes for the new ones (and likely fabricate extenders to get the ports from the motherboard to the sides). You'd also have to fabricate a way to deal with heat.

Is it possible? Yes, just about ANYTHING is POSSIBLE. Is it more work than it's worth? Almost certainly, unless you're really diehard about this project.
 
Just for the info, these machines can still be found at pretty cheap prices: http://lubbock.craigslist.org/sys/2406597745.html

$50 for perfectly working one it seems sans battery.


Though ofcourse that's not to say I think there's any more or less of a reason to gut a working one, but for collectors sake they're still pretty cheap, at least for now :)
 
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