If you have a powerpc collection, how often do you take your items out of storage and charge/clean them? I usually would do it between 2-4 times a year and check over them, if I wasn't using them for anything. Just asking out of curiosity.
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How often do you check your collection?
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I usually clean those in storage once I notice the amount of dust that has collected on them has become bothersome.
Aside from both working and non-working PowerPC Macs I don’t plan to keep, all of my PowerPC Macs in the “permanent collection” are in 24/7 use. Of late, that number is three — one each of a G3, G4, and a G5 — down from four (after I brought my A1138 offline a few months ago). For now the A1138 is still “in the collection”, but it’s being stored in a place where dust is not liable to accumulate.
I'm in the "when I want to use it" camp.
When it's not in use it's in the server hallway. I don't get a lot of dust buildup anyway (being allergic to everything is funny that way) so it's not a huge concern to me.
When it's not in use it's in the server hallway. I don't get a lot of dust buildup anyway (being allergic to everything is funny that way) so it's not a huge concern to me.
Fair enough, lol. I think a lot of people are like that. I took mine out tonight to clean them, and to check the screen on the 17" PowerBook G4. All's good. I'm charging it up now. It works fine, and the fans are good. It's not overheating. I cleaned the 12" and 15" ones too. I forgot that I stuck an SSD into the 12 and 17" ones. They run well cause of it.
I see. Do you use them for file transfers/servers etc?
Server hallway sounds ominous but cool. I see.
I do.
The A1047 DP2.0 G5, ontologia, is the home’s steadfast file server as well as an nircd server.
It has the compromised U3/backside issue, which causes it to overheat when RAM sticks from different makers are mixed together, but I have 4GB of matched sticks working on it just fine. 4GB is adequate for the file server duties assigned to it. I picked up this G5 and a 20-inch acrylic ACD roughly ten years ago this week for the low, low price of nothing.
The M6411 iBook G3/466, simbologia, is my baby and my oldest, extant system, having purchased it on this very week in 2007.
These days, I mostly keep it in a “up-clamshell” position on my desk (much as you can see in my avatar and how they were displayed during the 2000 Apple campaign for the Rev C models) and connected to the LAN, via Ethernet. These days, most of my accessing it is via Terminal and Remote Desktop.
It was (and remains) my test bed for assessing what builds on the G3 architecture (e.g., macports, which was building gcc7 at the time of the above screen cap, via Remote Desktop); what runs; and assessing what it absolutely cannot do well at its (current) clock speed with (current) PowerPC projects still kicking about (like the above-displayed Speedometer 2.1, which seems to freeze the script built into the bench test about 19 tests into the 480). It also has a 32-bit built of Debian_sid on there, though I haven’t done much with it for a couple of years.
I did use it not too long ago to demonstrate the (reportedly) impossible: running Civilization III on a clamshell iBook (as that game necessitates at least XGA resolution, which mine, following my mod, does). I still have upgrades planned for it, including a bump up to a 700MHz PPC750CXe CPU (one which might be overclockable, but will probably require some kind of active cooling measure, like a low-profile fan, for that).
The polycarbonate plastics are getting very brittle, however, so that’s an ongoing challenge. Fortunately, the silicone on the upper and lower case are fine, albeit less punchy and vibrant than they once were.
And given how its predecessor, an indigo 366 (named etymologia) I’d owned since 2004, seemed to not POST after I shut it down and stored it for a couple of years, I remember what my old sound engineering instructor said to us early on about intricate electrical devices: “They [i.e., complex electrical equipment] like either being shut down or running. It’s the power cycling which kills them.” He was referring to professional equipment like 48-track solid-state mixing boards and the like, but the principle was applicable to other things, as well. Whether true or not, I also like to use my key lime iBook as a case example of stability and utter reliability. Its record for uptime is well north of 365 days (closer to 400, as memory serves, before we suffered a power outage at a time when it was bundled with a dead battery… this was back in 2015–16).
For a while in 2018, when I had an aftermarket battery which functioned for a whopping six months, I would take it out to cafés and use wifi with an 802.11n USB adapter for pretty glacial speeds, but at least it worked.
The A1139 PowerBook G4 DLSD, deontologia, meanwhile, gets used for occasional browsing, though these days it’s principally, my PPCMC music video aggregation box for pulling music videos from YT to queue those for archival work.
Whenever I find something on my daily driver, I copy/paste the YT, via Remote Desktop, and let PPCMC go to town. The DLSD, as with the other two, gets macports updated regularly. It’s also where my aggregated work for the Clouded Leopard (Snow Leopard on PowerPC) project lives, now that I’ve pulled the A1138 from the mix. [The A1138 and A1139 are technological and feature twins, though the A1139 had one additional USB port and a bigger display.]
I picked up this A1139 locally for roughly CAD$80 in March 2019.
It still runs a device-native Airport 802.11n solution. It was one of the two laptops I first tested my passive thermal upgrade project in late 2022. I also have a couple of hardware upgrades in mind for it, including a significant display upgrade (seeing as mine had a dead horizontal line running across the middle of it now) and, should stars align, a CPU upgrade to a MC7448 at 2.0 GHz.
UPDATE: Links added!
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Most of my old Macs are for use, and the plan was that they would be in regular, if not routine, use and get cleaned on a regular basis.
Best laid plans... because I ended up with far more than I needed, many don't get used and therefore rarely cleaned. I do have a PowerBook 5300, 3400, a Wallstreet, a PDQ, a G3 iBook 600, and 12, 15, and 17 inch PowerBooks all with good batteries, and they all get a recharge every month or so, but the longest time between cleaning is a (non-Mac) TRS-80 Model 4P, which I haven't dusted off in 2 years, and a Beige G3 desktop, which is now over a year overdue for a bit of TLC.
Most frequently used are a Tandy 200 and 102, and PowerBook 170 and 180 - these get checked over every couple of weeks.
Best laid plans... because I ended up with far more than I needed, many don't get used and therefore rarely cleaned. I do have a PowerBook 5300, 3400, a Wallstreet, a PDQ, a G3 iBook 600, and 12, 15, and 17 inch PowerBooks all with good batteries, and they all get a recharge every month or so, but the longest time between cleaning is a (non-Mac) TRS-80 Model 4P, which I haven't dusted off in 2 years, and a Beige G3 desktop, which is now over a year overdue for a bit of TLC.
Most frequently used are a Tandy 200 and 102, and PowerBook 170 and 180 - these get checked over every couple of weeks.
If I am honest, it's not 'storage', It's more of a 'discard pile' which I sometimes come back to.
If I do not have a current use for it, then it is not on and it's sitting somewhere in my garage. When I transitioned fully to Intel in May 2020 the Quad and 2.3DC went into the garage. They haven't been turned on since May 2020. The 17" PB I have is pulled out from time to time for various things but rarely sees use.
The plan has always been to retire older machines as they either fail or develop problems. My PM G3 B&W gave me enough at some point that it was retired and the G4/500 took up it's duties. I have some pie in the sky plan to someday create a PowerPC OSX graphic design cluster with the G3, an MDD (yet to be bought) and the Quad G5. Lord knows I have enough monitors of various sizes. But, even if my garage were to be magically cleaned and prepared for that I still have to account for the fact that there aren't many power plugs in the garage.
The G4/500 is the last PowerPC Mac I have online 24/7. It's basically a glorified NAS sharing a large 6TB hard drive to my network. When it finally goes I'll take the drive out, slap it in a NAS or enclosure and the Mac Mini I currently have online serving as a download depository for all my computers will take up the role.
I'm not a collector and I do not have a collection. I just have a series of Macs that I've used over the years (some I liked, some I did not), been given some because I had a purpose for them, and then retired the systems as newer systems were acquired. Being about 15 years behind the current Mac model and with the ease of acquiring older models of Mac no one uses anymore, it just makes me look like a collector.
If I do not have a current use for it, then it is not on and it's sitting somewhere in my garage. When I transitioned fully to Intel in May 2020 the Quad and 2.3DC went into the garage. They haven't been turned on since May 2020. The 17" PB I have is pulled out from time to time for various things but rarely sees use.
The plan has always been to retire older machines as they either fail or develop problems. My PM G3 B&W gave me enough at some point that it was retired and the G4/500 took up it's duties. I have some pie in the sky plan to someday create a PowerPC OSX graphic design cluster with the G3, an MDD (yet to be bought) and the Quad G5. Lord knows I have enough monitors of various sizes. But, even if my garage were to be magically cleaned and prepared for that I still have to account for the fact that there aren't many power plugs in the garage.
The G4/500 is the last PowerPC Mac I have online 24/7. It's basically a glorified NAS sharing a large 6TB hard drive to my network. When it finally goes I'll take the drive out, slap it in a NAS or enclosure and the Mac Mini I currently have online serving as a download depository for all my computers will take up the role.
I'm not a collector and I do not have a collection. I just have a series of Macs that I've used over the years (some I liked, some I did not), been given some because I had a purpose for them, and then retired the systems as newer systems were acquired. Being about 15 years behind the current Mac model and with the ease of acquiring older models of Mac no one uses anymore, it just makes me look like a collector.
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I need to pick up a TRS-80 Model III or IV someday. It was the computer that I learned Z80 assembly on, and I have fond memories of them from high school. I helped pick out and set up the networking system in our computer lab for those machines when I was a sophomore (and didn't have to do any of the schoolwork for that class during that semester, since I already knew what was being taught). The Radio Shack guys loved me and let me hang out in the store, since I knew those machines almost better than they did and could demonstrate them to customers while I was hacking away.
On topic, I pull my PPC machines out when I want to try something specific on a particular machine. I find that I usually have to do a minor repair on whatever machine I pull out, or some new glitch has arisen in its time in storage. For instance, my Bondi iMac is dead again, although it booted a year ago. I wanted to set up a Playstation emulation system, since my Bondi has a 400mhz G4 in it.
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Radio Shack was a big deal when I was young. For my dad, who was an electrical engineer in the aerospace industry and employed by Rockwell and TRW, Radio Shack had always been a go to for him.
It was always therefore a record scratch whenever I heard him complaining about TRW 'bean counters' using Radio Shack parts in the various ICBM programs he was involved in. I think he used that statement derisively and not truthfully, but you never know.
My 4P has had a FreHD added for sort-of hard drive use, two replacement and serviced floppy drives, and a new PSU, and works just about flawlessly. It's one of my most prized old systems, but also one of the least compatible with the modern world. Hardly surprising since 180k 5.25 floppies aren't exactly common in newer systems.
It is a reminder of how well built many of that generation of computers really were though - and why 'portable' isn't quite what you'd call portable.
It's just a hallway that happens to hold my homelab, nothing too deep.
Looks like there's some large posts here, so I guess I'll elaborate as well.
All but two of my PPCs are project machines, really. I need a machine for something, I'll drag it out.
vittorio (A1025 1.0) is a permanent OS 9 machine. It contains my entire suite of Classic Mac OS apps and games and does well enough with a majority of these and thus makes it the first of the two exceptions.
Her sister littorio (A1001 667) is currently out as part of my project taking a look at the BSD Holy Trinity as an OS option for Power Macs, with NetBSD installed currently.
Joining littorio on this project is enterprise (A1046 1.0) which will be seeing FreeBSD in its future.
belfast (M4405 233) is DIRTY AGAI--
belfast (M4405 233) is still awaiting its Beige Restoration. I missed my opportunity to pick up a floppy bezel on the 'bay so I'm waiting there and elsewhere to see if one will pop up. Rhapsody is a fun time on it. And there's some crumbs and whatnot atop the little lip that I'm dealing with yesterday.
surcouf (A1104 1.5) is in limbo.
amagi (A1102 1.0) sits and looks as pretty as an eMac with gorilla tape holding the front bezel in place can look. Top Unreal Tournament machine.
Which leaves shiratsuyu (A1139 1.67). shiratsuyu lives on my desk and is my readily available multipurpose PPC. The near-FHD display really helps with handling various content and environments, and having maxed RAM and an SSD and the other creature comforts is such a nicety. It's obvious this this is the second of the two exceptions; after all, it is the unit keeping me in the PPC space and not completely moving on to something like.... oh, I don't know, old Wintel workstations with double Xeons and more expansion than one person will ever need?
Oh.
Oh.....
I might have a problem.
I never knew that two different brands of RAM could make a system overheat, but again, I always end up using the same brand of RAM when I upgrade because I usually get twin sticks. And the old ACD displays are nice looking. I have one, but it's one of the newer mid 00s ones. I actually use it as a secondary monitor for my 5k iMac, and I think that it still has a good picture. It's handy having a screen dedicated to file browsing and other apps to not get in the way of the main screen.
That's a lovely iBook. If they weren't so expensive, I'd probably buy one. The earliest iBook I own is a 2001 one running Mac OS 9.2.2 (I think?) It's one of the Snow models. But it's cool how much use you are still getting out of yours. I never thought about having a G3 testbed. Most of my PPC machines (except 1-2) are G4.
And CIV III looks cool running on the iBook. But yeah, I can imagine that the plastics are gtting brittle. I can't imagine the state of some of my iBooks, lol. I'm scared to try and open some of them up.
Yeah, I keep mine shut down when I am not using/charging them. I think that it's true with the laptops, too. I think tht the laptops that I use more have better batteries. My iBook G4 1GHz used to have a better battery, but I didn't use it for a while and it's kinda janky now. It probably needs me to use it more. I should have taken the battery from it.
Six months out of an aftermarket battery seems like... a bit of a rip off but again, a lot of the batteries are old now.
The A1139 PowerBook G4 DLSD, deontologia, meanwhile, gets used for occasional browsing, though these days it’s principally, my PPCMC music video aggregation box for pulling music videos from YT to queue those for archival work.
Whenever I find something on my daily driver, I copy/paste the YT, via Remote Desktop, and let PPCMC go to town. The DLSD, as with the other two, gets macports updated regularly. It’s also where my aggregated work for the Clouded Leopard (Snow Leopard on PowerPC) project lives, now that I’ve pulled the A1138 from the mix. [The A1138 and A1139 are technological and feature twins, though the A1139 had one additional USB port and a bigger display.]
I picked up this A1139 locally for roughly CAD$80 in March 2019.
It still runs a device-native Airport 802.11n solution. It was one of the two laptops I first tested my passive thermal upgrade project in late 2022. I also have a couple of hardware upgrades in mind for it, including a significant display upgrade (seeing as mine had a dead horizontal line running across the middle of it now) and, should stars align, a CPU upgrade to a MC7448 at 2.0 GHz.
I will probably re-visit and edit this reply later once I have the time to dig up and link to other MR forum discussions referencing much of the above.
UPDATE: Links added!
Yeah, I do that with my 15" 1.67 GHz Powerbook G4, but I don't use remote desktop. Just look up the song on Interweb on the laptop, and copy/paste link to download it from the PPCMC app. I could probably do it via remote desktop if I wanted to, but I prefer doing it the way I chose.
I never really looked into the Clouded Leopard project but I am sure that I could do that with one of my PPC macs if I wanted to. It's just making time to execute it properly is the hard part. I tried to do a passive thermal upgrade on my Macbook Pro 2006 (well, one of them) and it never worked out for me, so I wouldn't risk it on the PBG4s, cause mine are alright at the moment.
It looks good for a $80 Powerbook. Upgrading it would be fun.
That's a good plan. I should use mine more regularly tbh.
That's a pretty cool collection with the old Powerbooks. I'd like to get my hands on some of those as well, but they are far too overpriced on UK eBay. Two years to me is a long time between cleaning, but again, usage does play a big part in it. And you have Tandies too? Cool!
Ah, I see. Funny enough, I pulled out my PB 17" this weekend, and it's working fine. And yeah, retiring when they fail/develop problems is the best idea, imo. And yeah, lack of power points in a garage is annoying.
Yeah, I saw the G4 on your setup picture. I was wondering what it was for, but that makes sense. I have two Mac Minis and one of them runs fine. The other has a RAM issue but they are pretty versatile, and slim machines.
Fair enough. I have a collection but also want to make them have some use. But if the Mac Pro still works for you and youre happy using it, why upgrade for the sake of it? I'm keeping my 2019 iMac for as long as I can because it works fine for what I need it to do and am happy with it.
It's just a hallway that happens to hold my homelab, nothing too deep.
Ah, I see. I'd love one of those but my hallway is used by other people lol.
Yeah, I agree. I like to test things and do projects on them. But it's nice to just browse and use them at times.
I'd love one of them for a good price in working condition. My only OS9 machine is an iBook G3 Snow (I think it's g3). It's one of the 600 MHz ones. I like to use it for Classic stuff, too.
Nice. I have never heard of BSD before as an OS. Maybe only Open BSD is that right? Whatever Action Retro ran.
Cool.
Belfast is always dirty when I go to it
jk I hope the restoration goes well. Rhapsody seems like a good time too.
Oh no D: I actually have one of those as well, in limbo. I need to open it up again and replace the HDD inside it with an SSD, but haven't got around to it yet. I use my 1.0 GHz PBG4 12" for music playlists and stuff.
Cool that it still has a use.
I have a 17" PBG4 too and stuck an SSD in it and it runs much better. Think I maxed the RAM in it too. I like it, good machine but it definitely needs more work. I'd like to do a screen replacement and have it almost FHD but I don't want to ruin the machine, lol. PPC Powerbooks are pretty good.
Old Wintels are alright. As long as they don't run Vista, lol.
Is that a bad problem to have tho?
For a few years I had the G3 doing the same duty. Dual Gig-E NICs and a 2TB external enclosure. The G3 had server software. But I am not in the same spot as I was in 2011 when I joined this forum and not even in 2017 when I got my Quad G5.
I own enough Intels now and using PowerPC finally got tough enough that I left the scene in 2020. That G4 was a Reddit castoff that someone local to me was trying to find a good home for. It also has dual Gig-E NICs, but the 2TB enclosure is now attached to my MacPro.
Do I really need a glorified NAS, powered up and running 24/7 just to share ONE 6TB hard drive? No. But I do it so that G4 has purpose and is not just sitting there unused. Someday it will fail and I will be sad about that. But it won't last forever and enclosures and NAS devices are cheap. The G4 has given me zero issues so I don't expect that to happen for a long time though.
Yeah, the MP can go current with OCLP so it still has much life left. My current tripwire for that to occur (should I not actually do it before then) is when iMessage stops working on Mojave.
I inherited the G5 with mixed RAM (including sticks with their own metal, passive-cooling enclosures… probably intended originally for the gaming market). From that assemblage of mixed RAM, there were four 1GB sticks, but all from different makers. When I bought 4x1GB later on, all of those came from the same source (Aliexpress, as memory serves). Those are what run in there now, as I don’t have any 1GB RAM sticks in a quantity greater than those four. The four I bought had slightly different rated clock speeds from the four 1GB sticks in there previously (and even those weren’t consistent-spec between one another). The mixed-rating DIMMs is what, I think, stressed the U3/Memory backside chip.
Perhaps, eventually, I might add four more from the same seller, if still sold. But more than likely, this G5, as well as it’s served, (mostly) quietly for ten years, will get replaced by a dual-core A1117 2.3 or, more likely, a Mac Pro 3,1, upgraded to 4,1; a 4,1; or a 5,1 — or, for as long as I have internal, RAID 1-mirrored HDDs and a need for PCI(e) slots for other tasks (including, yes, more internal HDDs).
Even in 2007, the key lime premium was alive and well. In 2004, I bought the indigo 366 for USD$400; in 2007, I bought the key lime 466 for USD$450. My indigo was still functional, but its wear and tear had become obvious (like the blue silicone on the bottom case de-laminating entirely from the polycarbonate substrate).
Ever since 2000, I had always wanted a key lime iBook. (This was only amplified further when I was in the soundbooth of an October 2000 rave my friend was DJing and a brand new key lime, the first I’d seen in person, was being used as a USB midi controller for some board-related tasks.) Announcement of the key lime iBook was probably the only time I can remember actually falling in love with an Apple product (though the introduction of the five fruit iMacs in 1999 came pretty close: I fell in “like” with those).
But more to the point, as my indigo was wearing out, I had come to embrace the unparalleled utility and ruggedness of the clamshell form factor. I don’t think Apple really foresaw that in their rush to hurry out a more conservative rectangular iBook after all the hostile fuss by people not liable to ever buy an iBook of any kind anyhow.
The coloured silicone and the handle were an industrial design secret sauce enabling one to be basically anywhere, indoor or outdoor, even using the laptop by holding onto the handle with the hand not used for most typing, resting the laptop base on the forearm of the same, and quickly using it in that novel capacity wherever one was.
So when I got the key lime iBook, it was going to get similar usage — not stuck on a shelf as a trophy. It did just that, sometimes even being an in-car jukebox. And that is how and why my key lime now needs things like a replacement centre clutch cover and a new bottom case (it’s currently paired with a graphite 466 bottom case, post-2020), as the rough-and-tumble of over fifteen years took its toll on those plastic elements (mostly internal, where bolt/screw anchors once lived).
As for their cost these days, spare parts especially, you can put your bullseye on the intensely-despised “polka-dot man” on ebay. He ruined so, so much in his quest to flip “crafts” as “““art””” at a dramatically inflated price. I hope he never travels to Canada, because he’s in for a world of pain.
The later G3 CPUs (CX/CXe/FX) were the most efficient and coolest of the G3 CPUs, and they also run very stable over time (even if, relatively speaking, they feel extremely slow to us with the software we have around now). As for my own iBook, it’s been a place to test how far I can push it, given the limited technical skills I have.
It now burns dual-layer DVDs internally. It uses an LED-backlit 1024x768 glossy display (albeit heavily hacked by me). Its GPU is software-overclocked (not by a tonne, but every little bit helps).
There’s now ample space inside, with modem removed, to add a compact USB hub. (Soldering that hub to the one USB port, meanwhile, has not yet been attempted as I’m not terribly deft with a soldering iron.) I’ve successfully used 802.11n USB adapters on it for wifi access (slow, but at least compatible with modern routers). I’ve done the same with a USB BT 3.0 adapter. There’s even locations on the clamshell main boards for soldered RAM which Apple ultimately never used. I’d like to think there’s a way to access those to bump up its RAM cap.
Yes, it may be slow now, but its stability and sheer reliability are why this clamshell iBook will stay with me and will run for as long as it can. It’s not a collectible, but a working unit.
It might seem scary, but it would probably be worth your while to inspect your unused iBooks to test them for successful POST and hardware functionality, as well as to inspect for trouble spots (like embrittled polycarbonate and also the real possibility of LCD “vinegaring”). And if you plan to use them, given their age, cleaning out their innards and applying fresh thermal paste is the best thing you could do for them now as preventive maintenance.
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Forgot to respond to this in the last:
I find it’s easier for me to do the YT link search on a faster Intel Mac, then do the copy/paste via Remote Desktop, than to do it all from within Interweb-PPC. In this sense, every Mac involved is doing the best work according to their capabilities.
I ended up doing passive thermal pad upgrades to both the A1139 and A1138. Their internal thermal dissipation designs are a bit different, relative to the constraints in form factor. Even more than a year later, I can’t get the A1139 to exceed 57°C under sustained load (such as when building gcc). The top case gets warm, but it also should, as passive cooling means the case is doing more of the cooling work. Most noteworthy is the two fans in the A1139 never reach maximum as they once did.
Well, CAD$80, HST included, so in freedomdollars, that was probably closer to $55.
It was in remarkably good condition. Everything within was functional and, apparently, original to the BTO/CTO build. (They bought added RAM at the time, one of the few options one could customize at order for the A1138/1139.)
The original owner never wiped the drive, so for a brief few hours, I was privy to their personal world (via photos, ca. 2006–07). The original owner was some inherited-rich brat who seemed to party at posh bars around this city. It wasn’t clear what kind of work he did or how rigorously he used the laptop. It’s even less clear how it ended up, locally, at a swap shop, but its last use, based on time stamps, was probably late 2008 or early 2009. There were only a couple of minor scratches on the left palm rest and typical hairline scratches on the bottom case. It still has the original, OEM battery (which holds 2.5 per cent of original charge).
The A1138 I found a few months later, for CAD$25 (before shipping, which brought it closer to $45–50), was owned by an avid snowboarder and house-painter in small-town B.C. (the lid had some snowboard brand vinyl decal slapped onto it, which I removed promptly). That was also a dude who had owned it originally. It’s astonishing how original owners don’t think to wipe their personal contents first. It has a nearly-new OEM battery, but there’s a faulty charge board which prevents it from using that battery (and reports it, correctly, at 0% charge).
The A1138, compared with the A1139, lived a much harder life and has had its logic board replaced at least once (and even so, there are still problems with it, such as kernel panics when either the internal AirPort or PCMCIA cage is connected to the board).
I find it’s easier for me to do the YT link search on a faster Intel Mac, then do the copy/paste via Remote Desktop, than to do it all from within Interweb-PPC. In this sense, every Mac involved is doing the best work according to their capabilities.
I ended up doing passive thermal pad upgrades to both the A1139 and A1138. Their internal thermal dissipation designs are a bit different, relative to the constraints in form factor. Even more than a year later, I can’t get the A1139 to exceed 57°C under sustained load (such as when building gcc). The top case gets warm, but it also should, as passive cooling means the case is doing more of the cooling work. Most noteworthy is the two fans in the A1139 never reach maximum as they once did.
Well, CAD$80, HST included, so in freedomdollars, that was probably closer to $55.
It was in remarkably good condition. Everything within was functional and, apparently, original to the BTO/CTO build. (They bought added RAM at the time, one of the few options one could customize at order for the A1138/1139.)
The original owner never wiped the drive, so for a brief few hours, I was privy to their personal world (via photos, ca. 2006–07). The original owner was some inherited-rich brat who seemed to party at posh bars around this city. It wasn’t clear what kind of work he did or how rigorously he used the laptop. It’s even less clear how it ended up, locally, at a swap shop, but its last use, based on time stamps, was probably late 2008 or early 2009. There were only a couple of minor scratches on the left palm rest and typical hairline scratches on the bottom case. It still has the original, OEM battery (which holds 2.5 per cent of original charge).
The A1138 I found a few months later, for CAD$25 (before shipping, which brought it closer to $45–50), was owned by an avid snowboarder and house-painter in small-town B.C. (the lid had some snowboard brand vinyl decal slapped onto it, which I removed promptly). That was also a dude who had owned it originally. It’s astonishing how original owners don’t think to wipe their personal contents first. It has a nearly-new OEM battery, but there’s a faulty charge board which prevents it from using that battery (and reports it, correctly, at 0% charge).
The A1138, compared with the A1139, lived a much harder life and has had its logic board replaced at least once (and even so, there are still problems with it, such as kernel panics when either the internal AirPort or PCMCIA cage is connected to the board).
I bet it was a cool machine back then with the server software on it. But yeah, things change.
You stuck it out for a long time. A lot of people wouldn't last that long. So many of them jumped the gun soon, and did it with AS because of the planne obsolesence. It's good it went to a good home, though.
Yes, let it run for as long as it can go.
Yeah, I am keeping my iMac on Mojave for as long as I can. I may dual boot it with Sonoma or the one after because I need the old apps still running for me, and upgrading completely will ruin that.
Ah, that makes sense. I have experimented with the different clock speeds, and they are usually fine. But never had different rated DIMMs. Yes, you should add some more if you can. And yeah, Macpros don't have the cooling issue, or suck as much energy as G5s, if I am right.
Yeah, I remember iBookG4Guy or whatever his name was back on Youtube, he used to sell them still in 2008/9 before he moved onto iBookG4s. He was still running those 'til like 2011-12. The Key Lime is a good looking laptop. I think I prefer that over the Indigo, and the orange, even though the orange is still pretty.
Yes. The handle was a great idea. Pity they did away with it.
The idea of it being a car jukebox is great. And it lasting for fifteen years is cool.
As for their cost these days, spare parts especially, you can put your bullseye on the intensely-despised “polka-dot man” on ebay. He ruined so, so much in his quest to flip “crafts” as “““art””” at a dramatically inflated price. I hope he never travels to Canada, because he’s in for a world of pain.
I saw him and I want to hit him. They're honestly not that amazing, design wise. What he did.
The later G3 CPUs (CX/CXe/FX) were the most efficient and coolest of the G3 CPUs, and they also run very stable over time (even if, relatively speaking, they feel extremely slow to us with the software we have around now). As for my own iBook, it’s been a place to test how far I can push it, given the limited technical skills I have.
It now burns dual-layer DVDs internally. It uses an LED-backlit 1024x768 glossy display (albeit heavily hacked by me). Its GPU is software-overclocked (not by a tonne, but every little bit helps)
There’s now ample space inside, with modem removed, to add a compact USB hub. (Soldering that hub to the one USB port, meanwhile, has not yet been attempted as I’m not terribly deft with a soldering iron.) I’ve successfully used 802.11n USB adapters on it for wifi access (slow, but at least compatible with modern routers). I’ve done the same with a USB BT 3.0 adapter. There’s even locations on the clamshell main boards for soldered RAM which Apple ultimately never used. I’d like to think there’s a way to access those to bump up its RAM cap.
Yes, it may be slow now, but its stability and sheer reliability are why this clamshell iBook will stay with me and will run for as long as it can. It’s not a collectible, but a working unit.
It's amazing what you can do, mod wise to such an old machine compared to the modern ones. I didn't know that you could put a glossy screen into it and a USB hub. For someone with limited tehcnical skills, you're doing better than me.
Yeah, I could open up one of the more "janky" ones. I am wary about opening up my 1.07 GHz iBook G4 12" that I used to be enamored with because it is still in pretty good condition. I am fine with PBG4s and opening them. I could open up one of the iBook G4 14" first and do one of them up to see how it goes. Just need a table and some time, which is ahrd to come by now.
Yeah it is faster. I could do that as well, but I like the novelty of doing it on the PBG4.
That's really good. Keeping it under 57 is a good temperature. I think I have never extended 63 ever on a PBG4. I could have cleaned out my 12" when I was in there, but I didn't. Maybe I will take it apart another time and do that.
That's probably like less than 55 here, maybe 50GBP. That's a great price, I found my PBG4 15" for around 57 GBP, which is probably 85 CAD. I put RAM into mine, but it's cool yours came with added RAM.
That happened to me once with a MBP 06. The lady before didn't know how to wipe it, and I had to use the reset command to do it and make a new account. The pictures and history sounds interesting. But he could have had it in a case, or at home if it wasn't too badly damaged. My iBook was used in a library, or a government office once. It was in pretty good condition for it.
Yes, take off the vinyl lol. Yeah, I make sure to wipe mine before I sell them/put them up for selling. And a new battery is always a great bonus. At least it's just a charge board issue. I hope it gets fixed soon.