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What have you done with an early Intel recently?
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Directly in front of me?
Four. Two attached to each Mini.
Off to the side? One attached to another Mini.
So, a total of five.
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Years ago, I cracked open an iBook G4/1.42 I had at the time. I was immediately glad I'd had all the upgrade parts on hand, as that thing had previously been opened (and the frame damaged). It was very much a "I'm never opening this again" situation.
The polycarb MacBooks are 10x better in that regard.
When my trusted 14" 700 Mhz iBook G3 finally kicked the bucket for the last time, I decided to try to salvage the hard drive. What followed was the worst experience I've ever had with the internals of a personal computer.
It's an amazing contrast with my A1181s. Just take out a handful of screws and the entire machine's internals are laid bare for you, from the fan and heat sink, to the optical drive and AirPort card.
This is precisely why I abandoned an attempt to replace the 10GB HDD in my iBook G3/500 with an SSD and I have an iBook G4 going unused because it has a disc jammed in the optical drive. The disassembly process is a nightmare! Who on earth thought that such a design was a good idea?
I suppose there's the argument that it would deter a consumer from delving inside and potentially causing more harm than good during a failed DIY attempt but this level of complexity would also hinder Apple staff with ridiculous turnaround time when they needed to perform upgrades or repairs - especially involving a component as volatile as HDDs often are.
Recently I landed another iBook G4 but a wave of dread crept over me when I realised what a chore it would be to remove the 4200 RPM HDD.
Likewise with the A1278 and onwards. When I wanted to upgrade the RAM on my 2011 13" MBP not too long ago, I only needed to unscrew the bottom plate and within a few minutes the task was over.
This is precisely why I abandoned an attempt to replace the 10GB HDD in my iBook G3/500 with an SSD and I have an iBook G4 going unused because it has a disc jammed in the optical drive. The disassembly process is a nightmare! Who on earth thought that such a design was a good idea?
I suppose there's the argument that it would deter a consumer from delving inside and potentially causing more harm than good during a failed DIY attempt but this level of complexity would also hinder Apple staff with ridiculous turnaround time when they needed to perform upgrades or repairs - especially involving a component as volatile as HDDs often are.
Recently I landed another iBook G4 but a wave of dread crept over me when I realised what a chore it would be to remove the 4200 RPM HDD.
Likewise with the A1278 and onwards. When I wanted to upgrade the RAM on my 2011 13" MBP not too long ago, I only needed to unscrew the bottom plate and within a few minutes the task was over.
I replaced the stock 6GB hard drive in an iBook Clamshell around 2011 because I was restoring it for daily use as a note taking machine and I absolutely adored the aesthetic of them. Probably the worst repair I’ve ever had to do. I’m not exactly a novice and it took most of an afternoon and required gutting half the laptop.
When folks get sour about how unserviceable Apple products are now I don’t think they remember the dark times/translucent plastic era.
Whenever I've seen the Clamshell iBooks for sale on eBay and the seller has stated that the HDD has been removed, I've thought: "Wow, you were determined!"
Quite and yet accessing the internals of the contemporaneous desktop models is a cakewalk in comparison to the sadistic difficulty which was imposed upon the laptop range.
There's a difference between a hard drive being difficult to replace and a soldered-on SSD being (pretty much) impossible to replace.
There's a difference between a hard drive being difficult to replace and a soldered-on SSD being (pretty much) impossible to replace.
Don't forget the soldered on RAM that's extremely difficult to upgrade for all but the most committed souls.
There's a difference between a hard drive being difficult to replace and a soldered-on SSD being (pretty much) impossible to replace.
Totally. I would like to see less of that nonsense for sure. But like, getting into these machines, even the brand new M2 Air, is easy, and looking at iFixIt, replacing certain parts like the battery cells are pretty straightfoward. I'd have already dug into mine to check it out and add a couple thermal pads if not for the fact that it's still on AppleCare. Nothing internal to the G3/G4 laptops was easy to access, even if you could technically replace parts.
The PowerBook G3 was a dream to work on.
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Eh, kinda. RAM, CPU, and IIRC disk weren't too bad, but beyond that it was a lot of screws too.
The Unibody Macs onward have generally been much easier to work on for sure.
I've never had the pleasure of opening one of these laptops but given the descriptions given here I'm not sure I would buy one. I would wonder how much care (or, likely, not) was used in the disassembly/ reassembly.Whenever I've seen the Clamshell iBooks for sale on eBay and the seller has stated that the HDD has been removed, I've thought: "Wow, you were determined!"
Personally, I'd only buy a Clamshell if it were being offered very cheaply. Don't get me wrong: they look great! The case design is lovely but the prices on eBay are ridiculous. Other contemporaneous Macs can be obtained for a pittance but I suppose there are people who're willing to pay that level of a premium for retro gear and I can see the appeal if you're a collector because of their aesthetic value.
Indeed. Especially with sellers who just want a quick turnaround.
Just finished refurbishing a 2008 iMac 20". There is not a spec of dust in it now, everything has new thermal paste & pads, fans are all lubed, upgraded CPU, the memory has been increased and it's also got an SSD now too. Boots & runs better than new. I'll be using it next week for digitizing some old home VHS tapes during my time off of work, I want to get that done before too much data rot happens. I went ahead a took a wider shot of that side of my office, my Mac Pro is working on video encoding, and there is a 2005 iMac & 2008 MacBook off to the side on display, along with my upgraded video iPod (128GB flash storage & new battery).
That looks awesome. I see your macpro is custom painted. Do you have a thread about that process?
I do, I sort of documented the process.
Paint/Personalize my 5,1
Hi all, long time follower but first time poster here. Thanks to the amazing support through the years, you guys are heroes. I've had a idea floating around in my head for a while now to do some customizing of my 2012 Mac Pro, but due to it being my daily driver I didn't take the plunge. But...
forums.macrumors.com
Here is a current picture of it.
Attachments
For whatever reason, I swore you ran either High Sierra or Mojave on your 17-inch
Someone here does. I just can’t remember who!
* holy etienne, I need coffee
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A-ha! I knew it was somebody around here!
You both are right.
My 17" MBP was bought (by me, off eBay) some time in 2014-2015 I believe. It was my primary Intel laptop until around mid-2018 when @bobesch sent me a…A1260.
PS. It's running Catalina.
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Decided to give Tiny Core Linux another look recently. Now i have Firefox 108 when needed on Snow Leopard. I set the zoom level to 80% in Firefox so that full pages show in an 800x600 window without having to side scroll.
Which version of VirtualBox VM are you using with Snow Leopard?
EDIT to also ask: Out of curious amusement, how small did you make your virtual hard drive for TinyCore?
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I'm at 4.3.6 due to having neglected updates, so I'd give the last 4.3 release a try.
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