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Now you guys are in trouble, I got a Mac.

O

*old-guy*

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 22, 2007
161
0
Blackburn in North West England
I've been thinking about it for a while.
I've been reading up on stuff the experts have written in various Mac places and I've done a lot of thinking about what Mac would be best for ME.
I only had a limited budget of £200 so I didn't really have the choice of a brand new, top-of-the range Mac. I was more or less decided on a G4 iMac but I couldn't find one at the right price with the right spec.
Then I looked at eMacs and there were a few that I could have bought but I then had a look at a PowerBook. A G3 Pismo took my eye and I bought it.
OK, It's slow. I know that. The thing is that all the stuff I do on a computer is low power stuff anyway so as for actual use, the 400MHz chip is plenty fast enough.
So there you go.
When it gets here (it was an eBay buy) I'll have more questions but for now, put your brains on standby, lol
 
A PowerBook Pismo was my first Mac. You're about 8 years late on the Pismo, but (a) you got it for a better price than I did :) and (b) it remains one of my favorites to this day. From the expandable bays to the curve of the mouse button, the excellent bronze keyboard, and the ports on the back, I still think the Pismo was one of the last great Mac laptops (haha). Enjoy!
 
Congrats on your purchase. It's a pretty old computer but if you're happy with it, that's all that matters. I'll try to remember to check in on this thread to answer any questions you may have.
 
darwinian ... 8 years out of date??
That's nothing compared to the rest of my life. I still wear flares for Gawd's sake, lol

The second part of your reply more or less mirrored what I had been reading about the Pismo. Every Mac Guru column that I found seemed to say the Pismo was THE Mac laptop of choice for many people, even stacking it up against today's laptops, not in regard to speed, obviously, but more in terms of upgradeability and user friendliness.
All I know about the actual machine I will soon be the owner of is that it has the following specs .....
400 MHz, 40 gig HDD, 384 meg of RAM (this is my first priority upgrade) and internal Airport gizmo. It has all the disks and leads for Tiger and OS 9.2.2 as well as Microsoft Office 2004, iWork05, Appleworks6, Toast Titanium6, Soundstudio, WorldBook2004, PhotoshopCS, InDesignCS, GoLiveCS, IllustratorCS, iLife05 with Garageband, iMovieHD etc.

The thing is, (My first question, :)) I don't know the rules about software on a Mac. These extra programmes don't come with any official disks so to stay within the law, am I supposed to delete all the programmes on the hard drive except for the OS for which I have the proper disks?
 
*old-guy* said:
The thing is, (My first question, :)) I don't know the rules about software on a Mac. These extra programmes don't come with any official disks so to stay within the law, am I supposed to delete all the programmes on the hard drive except for the OS for which I have the proper disks?
Click to expand...

"Yes"
 
*old-guy* said:
Every Mac Guru column that I found seemed to say the Pismo was THE Mac laptop of choice for many people, even stacking it up against today's laptops, not in regard to speed, obviously, but more in terms of upgradeability and user friendliness.
Click to expand...
I totally agree. I simply love the Pismo laptops.

*old-guy* said:
400 MHz, 40 gig HDD, 384 meg of RAM (this is my first priority upgrade) and internal Airport gizmo. It has all the disks and leads for Tiger and OS 9.2.2 as well as Microsoft Office 2004, iWork05, Appleworks6, Toast Titanium6, Soundstudio, WorldBook2004, PhotoshopCS, InDesignCS, GoLiveCS, IllustratorCS, iLife05 with Garageband, iMovieHD etc.
Click to expand...

The Pismo runs the Adobe suite? I'm totally impressed.
 
jessica. said:
The Pismo runs the Adobe suite? I'm totally impressed.
Click to expand...

I have 2 Blue & White G3 Mac towers, 400 GHz & 350 GHz with 768 MB and 448 MB RAM respectively. Both run Photoshop CS very well.

Naturally, they are just standby computers since I have newer Mac, Compaq and Dell computers with Intel Core2Duos.
 
*old-guy* said:
I don't know the rules about software on a Mac. These extra programmes don't come with any official disks so to stay within the law, am I supposed to delete all the programmes on the hard drive except for the OS for which I have the proper disks?
Click to expand...

Actually, the dumb ass who sold you the computer was supposed to erase them.....but you should now go back to him/her and get the disks, or at least the license keys, and do a legal transfer. Look on adobe's website for the forms :p

And congrats on your 1st mac !
 
*old-guy* said:
...The thing is, (My first question, :)) I don't know the rules about software on a Mac. These extra programmes don't come with any official disks so to stay within the law, am I supposed to delete all the programmes on the hard drive except for the OS for which I have the proper disks?
Click to expand...

You may want to download and install AppTrap so it will remove all the preference files for the programs ;)
 
Thanks for all the replies, guys. I'm saving them all for reference when the Pismo actually gets here (Posted today so may arrive tomorrow or Wednesday)
Couple of points.
Re the software on this laptop that was left on by the previous owner.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to say that I'm cleaner than clean. I've downloaded a few things from Limewire that Mr Gates may have tutted at. The thing is, I WANT to be honest but I ain't going to cut off my nose to spite my face. With that in mind, Plan "B" has been devised. What I plan to do is keep the software on the Pismo for a while to see if it is of any use to me. After, say a month, if I find myself using the software a lot then I'll buy it on eBay, if not, THEN delete it.
Secondly, I have been searching eBay for any games suitable for the Pismo but either there are no games or I have been looking in the wrong places.
Cheers,
Steve
 
*old-guy* said:
darwinian ... 8 years out of date??
That's nothing compared to the rest of my life. I still wear flares for Gawd's sake, lol

The second part of your reply more or less mirrored what I had been reading about the Pismo. Every Mac Guru column that I found seemed to say the Pismo was THE Mac laptop of choice for many people, even stacking it up against today's laptops, not in regard to speed, obviously, but more in terms of upgradeability and user friendliness.
All I know about the actual machine I will soon be the owner of is that it has the following specs .....
400 MHz, 40 gig HDD, 384 meg of RAM (this is my first priority upgrade) and internal Airport gizmo. It has all the disks and leads for Tiger and OS 9.2.2 as well as Microsoft Office 2004, iWork05, Appleworks6, Toast Titanium6, Soundstudio, WorldBook2004, PhotoshopCS, InDesignCS, GoLiveCS, IllustratorCS, iLife05 with Garageband, iMovieHD etc.

The thing is, (My first question, :)) I don't know the rules about software on a Mac. These extra programmes don't come with any official disks so to stay within the law, am I supposed to delete all the programmes on the hard drive except for the OS for which I have the proper disks?
Click to expand...

wow how did all of that fit on a 40gb HDD
 
Guess what?
It's here. My Pismo arrived at 9:45am this morning and I am using it to type this post. Setting up the Airport card (internal) was a breeze once I told it my network's name.
I was a bit worried about what I would get through the post. Reason being that an eBay seller's idea of "In good condition and works fine" isn't always the view as the buyer's when it arrives. Happily though, all is well. In fact, it seems to be better than advertised.
I made comments earlier about the software that the seller was leaving on the machine for which I would NOT be receiving any legit software. Maybe I read it wrong or maybe the seller wrote it wrong (he's Swiss or Belgian or something but living in UK) but I now have about 25 genuine software disks. The ones that don't seem to be here are the Adobe ones.
BTW, to the person who asked about fitting it all on a 40 gig hard drive, there is still 22 gig unused.

It really is a nice machine to look at and the keyboard is probably better than any other lappy type keyboard I have ever used.
One thing that's bugging me is that I'm used to just tapping the touchpad as a means of "Left clicking" but it doesn't seem to work on this Pismo. Is there a way to make that work?
Also, as I type here, red lines are appearing under some words. I guess it's some kind of Spellchecker thing but what do I do to make the laptop recognise a new word or, if it is miss-spelled, get the correct spelling?

OK, That's all for now 'cos I need to play with my new toy, lol
Take care y'all
Steve
 
The Pismo was one of Apples best, many mourned its death when the Ti Powerbook arrived.

Clicking with the trackpad - Go in to system prefferences / keyboard & mouse then trackpad, you will see a tick box for clicking

The red lines or dots are spellings, control+click on them for the correction or to add to the dictionary.

have fun :)
 
OK, my first problem is the paltry 384 meg of RAM. As usual, I'll be buying on eBay and looking for 2 x 512 RAM chips to max this sucker out. I have done a bit of reading on the subject and I understand that there are two locations for the RAM chips - Above and Below. One being a lot easier to change out than the other but I reckon that when I get in there, either I'll be able to do the bottom one or I won't, either way there will be a new 512 chip in the top one giving a minimum of 642 depending on how the Pismo recognises memory sticks.
Here's the thing, though. I read somewhere that the chips I want are 144 pin, pc100 SODIMM but that I can also use pc133 which will run at pc100 speed. I also understand (I think) that the RAM chips don't HAVE to be the same capacity, ie a 512 meg chip and a 256 meg chip in the same laptop are fine BUT what I can't find out is if pc100 and pc133 will live happily side by side. Knowing the answer would be handy because it will make buying the RAM so much easier if it doesn't matter what speed the chips are.
Any clues would be appreciated.
Steve
 
SLY .... Tap for click now sorted. You're a star.
Not had the red line since so maybe my spelling is improving, lol
One thing I miss already, but will probably get used to eventually is the "Right click". I used that for so many things **Insert sad faced smilie**
 
*old-guy* said:
OK, my first problem is the paltry 384 meg of RAM. As usual, I'll be buying on eBay and looking for 2 x 512 RAM chips to max this sucker out. I have done a bit of reading on the subject and I understand that there are two locations for the RAM chips - Above and Below. One being a lot easier to change out than the other but I reckon that when I get in there, either I'll be able to do the bottom one or I won't, either way there will be a new 512 chip in the top one giving a minimum of 642 depending on how the Pismo recognises memory sticks.
Here's the thing, though. I read somewhere that the chips I want are 144 pin, pc100 SODIMM but that I can also use pc133 which will run at pc100 speed. I also understand (I think) that the RAM chips don't HAVE to be the same capacity, ie a 512 meg chip and a 256 meg chip in the same laptop are fine BUT what I can't find out is if pc100 and pc133 will live happily side by side. Knowing the answer would be handy because it will make buying the RAM so much easier if it doesn't matter what speed the chips are.
Any clues would be appreciated.
Steve
Click to expand...

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/
 
*old-guy* said:
Maccompaq ..... I don't see anything on that site about shipping to UK. Also, we have similar stores over here, Crucial being probably the best known.
Thanks all the same,
Steve
Click to expand...
The reason I sent you to that web site was to confirm what RAM your Pismo needs for sure.
 
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