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I am currently attempting to set up Debian 12 "Sid" on a PowerMac G5 Quad. The installer (recently fixed to provide proper GRUB setup on PPC64) runs without a hitch. Unfortunately, upon rebooting the system and using GRUB, the system hangs at "smp_core99_bringup_done", just after loading the...

Having finally revived my Umax Pulsar (SuperMac S900) I thought it was about time I had a poke around in Open Firmware and took a look at if and how this patch could be applied to it. For context: The S900 is quite strange. From a hardware perspective it is very similar to a Power Macintosh...

I got my hands on one of these nifty old monitors (and matching SE/30 card) recently. The card works perfectly but the monitor was very badly stored and has needed a fair amount of TLC. I've patched up the PSU so that it no longer instantly detonates the fuse when power is applied. Luckily, the...

TL;DR: Have you got a chip labelled 343S0150-B or CS4217-KL on your Power Macintosh's logic board? Over the last week or so I have been at war with my SuperMac S900, which died an unceremonious death last year. The machine's current status is that it either, A: emits 50-100% of a chime but...

I have rebuilt the battery for my DLSD with new 18650 cells but sadly things are not going quite to plan. The current situation is that I have the battery fully reassembled, voltages are good, the operating system sees it as fully charged and healthy, but the machine will not actually run off...

I got a rather lovely PowerBook G4 15" (high-res) in today and my first port of call was to take it apart and inspect the lithium polymer PRAM battery. As feared, it has become quite a spicy pillow. Has anyone here ever successfully replaced one of these? I did some searching based on the...

It is finally time to unveil a project that I have been working on for the last month or so. This is CircuitTalk, a recreation of the StealthSerial and GPort cards that were briefly available for the PowerMac G4 around twenty years ago. What does it do? This card replaces the modem card in...

Hi all, I recently came into possession of two Duo 230s in a lot of six random old Apple laptops. Sadly, these machines were the only ones in the lot without power supplies. I'm obviously going to have to buy a new power supply or two but I was wondering if the supplies from any other...

Hi all, The SuperMac S900 is based on the Power Macintosh 9500 and I would like to assess how feasibly a 9500's board could be used as a donor for an S900's. Since I do not own a 9500 I will need access to some images of someone else's logic board in order to compare the various chips on their...

Replacing dodgy old SMT capacitors is fast becoming one of the hallmarks of this hobby. Every year people are discovering new machines that have bad caps, whether they've leaked or simply fallen out of spec. I've even heard rumblings that G4s are starting to need new caps. To this end I decided...

Earlier this month I made an impulse purchase of something I'd always wanted: a Macintosh SE/30. I've been trying to find a good deal on one of these machines for half a decade or more but they simply keep getting more and more expensive in working condition. I finally decided that I was going...

Hi all, Yesterday I finally got around to doing my SuperMac S900 ATX power supply conversion and it was a roaring success. I wanted to share my work so that others might do the same. The SuperMac C600 uses the same supply as the S900 but at a 200W capacity. Parts and tools needed: SuperMac...

Hi all, I just wanted to share a little (<4 mins) video I made about the 5400 and why I think it's such a cool computer... so long as it's black. I bought the black 5400 about eight years ago and it saw periodic service as a TV. It was a sort of "buddy" system to my G4 for a good long while...

Hi all! I've rebooted my YouTube channel and the first video is about one of my favourite Apple laptops: the PowerBook 1400 series! Here's a little backstory on the machines in the video: The first, nice-condition 1400cs was purchased off eBay around five years ago for something like £4.50...

Let's do this all over again! This is the combined edition of my two previous posts about my Umax Pulsar (AKA Umax SuperMac S900) revival project, which were both lost in "the event". I picked up the Pulsar (left) along with some other machines/ goodies from @joshc just last month. It was in a...

Today I finished phase one of my Performa 5400 refurbishment project. This machine works well but has started to present a geometry issue with the display, so I decided to remove all the electrolytic capacitors and test the actual capacitance of each one versus its supposed values. Below are the...

Hi all, My Performa 5400 is starting to show its age and is exhibiting unstable video at times (normal colours, wavy geometry on the Y-axis). I believe failing electrolytic capacitors on the analogue boards to be the likely culprits as the machine's problem gets worse as it warms up. It is, of...

Having A/V input on a computer of this vintage is just so damn cool. 

A couple of months ago I was using my Performa 5400 when the mouse suddenly stopped working. I gave it a frustrated tap on the table and the ball cover fell off, about a dozen pieces of plastic following it. This was clearly the mouse's last day of functionality for the time being. A fair few...