Powerbook G3 Bronze Keyboard help.

[Silvershark]

I just recently obtained a powerbook G3 for free! The only downside, I have to wipe it clean and reinstall the OS (10.3) and it did not come with an installation disk. My local Apple store does not stock these.

The box has firewire which is a plus.

It only has 186mb memory when I go into the OS.

How much memory can I upgrade to? Does regular 100mhz memory that goes in PC laptops work in the G3 as well?

Sorry for all the questions. I am really new to the PowerPC architecture. I only have worked on Leopard intel based mac's.

Also, the battery wont charge. I have tried the reset on the back by the RJ11 and the video card and the battery light just flashes green when I hit the indicator. It has been plugged in for about 3 hours and still shows 0%.

Thanks!

 

[MultiFinder17]

If it has a pair of FireWire ports out the back, what you have there is a Pismo, the king of PowerBook G3s. Congrats, they're great machines!

When it comes to RAM, you can bump them up to a gig, and yes, they take regular old 100MHz laptop RAM. I run Tiger (OS 10.4) on my Pismo, and it runs like a champ with 512 megs of RAM. If you're looking for Panther or other older versions of OS X, check places like eBay and your local craigslist. As I mentioned, the Pismo will run Tiger just peachily, and that is often easier to find.

The battery is more than likely toast. After all, they stopped making that machine in January 2001, so it's getting near a decade old now! There are very few working original batteries for those machines anymore.

Good luck with your PowerBook - it is considered by some to still be the greatest laptop Apple has ever made