400Mhz Pismo

[coius]

Bit more expensive than I thought, but considering the local conquest I would have gotten, someone didn't know what they had when they posted it:

400Mhz G3/1MB L2/100Mhz FSB!

14.1" LCD

8MB VRAM (Yay!

6GB HDD

64MB RAM (could be more, the guy read the specs off the apple's site possibly)

DVD-ROM

Working battery (not sure how good), good physical condition, Power Adapter

I have an Airport wifi card already waiting for it. was going to throw it into my Power Mac G4 MDD, but it will go in this instead.

So yeah, the 100Mhz FSB gave it away. It was

$60 USD Shipped.

Just to be safe, I picked up a 512MB Low-Density PC-133Mhz RAM Module (guaranteed to work!) for $19.28 Shipped.

Can't wait. It was a bit more expensive, but I was looking at a lowly Clamshell BlueBerry 300Mhz for $50, and I think this will be a better use. Before anyone asks, this will be an OS 9 Only machine

Maybe at max 10.3, but that's pushing it. I can't wait for it to arrive

firewire, Wifi, USB, DVD, etc... I will probably pull the DVD-ROM drive and throw a slot-load SuperDrive in it instead so I have DVD burning. I have a spare ATAPI one from a MacBook 2006 somewhere around my house.

I am stoked!

btw, the last time I had a Pismo was back in 2003, and it broke the trackpad connector when I took it apart after spilling coffee into it for the 4th time (those #&@#ers are TOUGH!!!)

 

[coius]

Even better idea. I just bought a LIF -> 44-pin IDE adapter. It will allow me to hook up my Transcend 16GB SSD LIF Drive (16GB SolidState) to the PowerBook.. Will give me ~ 15.37GB of usable space (formatted), super-fast speed (over 30MB/s sustained/Random) on the HDD bus. It will run very nicely.

i recently pulled it from my Netbook after upgrading the HP Mini NetBook (1030nr for those wondering [such as Trash80]) to a 30GB LIF 1.8" HDD. This little SSD will work very nicely in the Pismo. It cost $4.39 shipped from Hong Kong and I can wait for it to arrive by putting a spare 20GB HDD in the pismo in the meantime.

My mouth is drooling with what I can do with this!

 

[J English Smith]

The Pismo is a lovely machine - I use mine as my daily driver notebook. Very sturdy and decent battery life. I wish Camino could handle javascript faster, but that's about my only grumble with it. For a machine that's 11 or 12 years old, it works amazingly well.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm not sure what the Spec are on my Pismo, but the guy who craigslisted it had hacked some kind of CD/DVD RW drive into it along with the software so it'll just stat playing a DVD Movie whenever I pop one in.

It had a WiFi card faster than any airport card that'd work inside the thing and it came bundled with a PDQ and a Bondi Toilet Seat for $150!

How do you like the 1030nr and what are you putting inside to replace the SSD?

 

[coius]

The 1030nr is actually the second one I have owned. I bought one a few years ago, the Linux version, and I ended up selling it. My friend (which is disabled) bought one for school, but when he stopped going to school, I ended up buying it off of him and gave it to my dad. He used it for a year before I got it back when he bought a Dell Zino HD off me (net top) and I got it back. I then hit eBay and bought a 1.8" 4200RPM 30GB LIF/ZIF HDD that they used in the early iPods. Trash80, if you do the mod, you can use ANY hard drive that uses the LIF/ZIF 1.8" factor, keep in mind you might need the cable for it (Hitachi uses a different cable than the Toshiba) and you will need to take out that small USB port they shipped the 2GB Mini Flash drive in. You will also have to take out some other stuff including a plate, but once it's in, it runs like a top. it's faster than the SSD (mainly as the SSD is a Class 5 Flash drive, aka USB 2.0 Flash drive chips on a board with an IDE controller on it) so you would see an improvement. You can put all the way up to 250GB (I think it's the current highest sized 1.8" HDD) and it would give you a huge advantage.

I have run a variety of systems on it from Linux to windows. I prefer windows because I do NetFlix and Sliverlight doesn't work on Linux with NetFlix (the clone gets seen right through and netflix refuses to work).

Trash80, I dunno if you got the windows or linux version, but if you want instructions and help to do the mod, let me know and I will send you pictures of the inside (heck, I will post them here) and you can see what it looks like installed. It is very nice and the biggest advantage is the size. the 16GB SSD is small and my iTunes library takes up 14GB itself (no video) so it does help a lot.

I saw my time to load windows shorten by 3/4ths due to how long it takes for the SSD to initialize. the hard drive immediately initializes and did I mention it uses LESS[/b ] power than the SSD? yes, the SSD uses 500ma@ 5V and the LIF HDD uses 320ma@ 5v. Weird huh? yeah, well the hard drive gives me close to an hour of extra time. the advanced sleep states of the hard drive also help (the SSD never sleeps, it's pulling power 100% of the time whether it's accessed or not since it's not a true SSD)

 

 

As far as the Pismo, I just can't wait. it's gonna be very fun to use it

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Mine's ubuntu NetBook Re-Mix all the way! Shipped w/XPH3, which crashed so badly HP couldn't talk me through a re-install with the tools provided in the package. For 10 days all I could do is boot it from the full desktop version of ubuntu CD as a "live session" . . .

. . . and did HP ever PISS ME OFF!!!!

I made a call to the guy who ran my support group at church, and less than 4 hours later, (after over a week of waiting for HP support to grow a brain stem) I had a thumb drive delivered into my hands at work, I installed it when I got home and haven't looked back since!

Bought a 2 GB Ram Upgrade for it and I'm now on my third ReMix version and I LOVE IT!

I just got one of the 6 cell batteries for it and it's actually my main machine ATM!

I've got the full service manual, printed & bound the .PDF, but I'd love to see pics of how you did the hack!

 

[coius]

I got the hard drive on eBay, but this is the procedure/pics for the Hard Drive installed

You first start by removing the screws located under the battery (you have to remove the battery)

There are two screws, the lower:

once you remove the screws, you pull the keyboard back, then up and away (careful with the ribbon)



After that, you will have access to the hard drive.



Keep in mind, you will have to remove the USB port prior to installing the drive. The SSD is actually smaller than a SoDIMM in a laptop.

but this is what it looks like externally without the USB port



That's pretty much it!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks, c!

I downloaded the Service manual from a link over on the myhpmini forums so I could study it for hacking.

The main reason, aside from habituallly collecting the Service Manuals/DevNotes/Manuals for everything I own or have any desire at all to own, was to remove the SSD so that I could load the XPH3 that shipped with HP_Mini onto a KeyChain Drive. I never got around to it because I REALLY hate anything Windows "developed" since Win98 . . .

. . . the pinnacle of Redmond's achievements! :lol:

All I miss is MSWorks, as I've been running that cute lil' puppy since it was a DOS app. IIRC, I moved it over to my PB100 under SoftPC in lieu of Zedcor's Desk looong before the release of ClarisWorks. Having an app with a KBD shortcut for every command in an hierarchical menu on a laptop is da/ bomb! [] ]'>

 

[olePigeon]

So YOU'RE the bane of my existence! Gah. My district is Mac only, so when I have students bring in their files in Microsoft Works, I can't open them. I hate Microsoft Works.

 

[coius]

Supposedly the Pismo was going to be here today, but it looks like it will be here tomorrow. Talked to the guy and he said USPS told him it would be here by tomorrow the latest. I didn't see it on the porch, but I may not have looked hard enough. Oh well...

I will check when I get home and see if it arrived. If it did, the next post on this thread will hopefully be from that machine

The guy doesn't think it has been upgraded at all, so it might not even have wifi, but I have a card sitting just for that and will throw it in right away. I will have to wait for the memory ugprade, but I think I have a 128MB SODIMM module I can throw in it to bump up the RAM till the 512MB Module comes. That and I might have a 20 or 40GB IDE HDD I can throw in as well. I will get really good pics but it's supposed to be in excellent condition with a max of 2 months use. He said it was his wife's and it didn't get used much after she got it. so I may have a prime machine right here. I will get pics of it and post it the second I get it

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I snagged mine from the grlf's place tonight just to post the specs:

Beater_III

OSX 10.4.11

500 MHz G3

1 MB L2 Cache

768 MB SDRAM

PowerBook 3,1

Hitachi HDD 37.26 GB

Chipset ATI (0x1002)

ATY, Rage M3

Quartz Extreme Not Supported! [] ]'>

Firewire 400

DVD Player 4.6.5 Installed

Hacked into standard DVD ROM Case:

H-L Storage

CD-RW/DVD Drive

Model GCC-4241N

DVD Movies fire up automagically when inserted! :approve:

Dunno what the guy did to this lil' puppy . . .

. . . the two DVD-ROMS that he gave me won't even mount a Movie DVD! :disapprove:

TWO good batteries came with it along with 2 or 3 chargers, the 333 MHz Wallstreet (Beater_II) w/extras and a Bondi Blue Toilet Seat! [] ]'>

SOMEWHERE around here . . . :?: . . . there should be . . .

. . . a second Pismo that I craigslist-nabbed just to get the BookEndz Dock for Beater_III!

Good luck getting yours tomorrow, c!

 

[coius]

AAURRRGGGHH!!!!

The guy sent me a Lombard!

it has a SCSI port, not FireWire...

I am going to have to think about this. I don't think the guy realized that it was a Lombard, considering it was 400Mhz (higher end) with 8MB video. I should have asked if it had FireWire 400 on it.

Well the good news is that it has been upgraded "Somewhat"

it has a 256MB RAM Module. So that gives me some extra RAM. If the 512MB Low-Density Module works as 256MB I would be happy, but this kind of sucks.

While I am not that mad, I do realize after talking with the guy through ebay prior to even receiving it, he didn't know much about it, so I believe it was a genuine mistake, but I dunno if I am going to keep it or send it back...

 

[macgreg]

What a pain!

I guess a lot depends on what you paid for it. Still a cool machine though - I did a few years at Uni with one of these as my workhorse.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep! More than likely an honest mistake by a MacNoob.

Sorry about your disappointment. Who pays the freight back? }

My vote: give him a lesson he'll remember by lightening his wallet! :approve:

Dunno about Lombards:

No ADB + No FireWire = Why bother?

IMHO, of course!

 

[coius]

Actually, it's in extremely nice condition, and I have a Wifi card already. I bought upgrades and they would go to waste. Even if I put the 512MB SODIMM in it, it will still recognize half of it (256MB) which is fine, and the fact it has another 256MB Low-Density Low-Profile DIMM makes it better.

It's in super nice condition. I will just give him positive feedback and not mention it in the feedback about the mistake, and just keep it. I think it will serve nicely for my classic OS purposes

 

[coius]

The only ADB Peripherals I have is mice (tear-drop) and ADB Keyboards. I would much rather have USB. I can do more with that.

I dug out an old WiFi card that I have a SN and app to make it work under OS 9. It will work great.

While it doesn't have FireWire, I probably don't need it. It would make things nicer, but seeing as this is going to be a classic OS machine, it will work nicely and also since it's a higher-end model, it makes it nice too (it will play DVDs as well!)

I think I will chalk it up to my stupidity. I didn't see that it says "Macintosh PowerBook G3" on the screen bezel. That should have tipped me off there (Pismo's just say "PowerBook G3" and I think the logo is flipped on the lid of the screen on the Pismo.

So it's partly my fault for not checking, but I think I will be happy.

I booted it up and I got an "Ilegal Trap" even when doing no extensions. I think the OS is bad. I am doing a "Zero" out on the drive, and will reinstall with Mac OS 9.2.2 and leave it at that.

EDIT: I just took the power adapter out of the package. It's the original one to the machine! It's incredible. Apple designed a pretty cool looking adapter (Jet black, textured with a small black apple logo in the center)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

If you're happy, don't mention the mistake except in a PM to him.

Enjoy!

 

[coius]

Yeah, I pretty much only told him in a PM then left him Positive feedback with "Excellent seller, friendly and shipped quick!"

Btw, to show how fast this shipped, I bought this Sunday night, it was in my hands by 9AM this morning.

I am on it right now at a coffee shop. I had to buy the ioexpert's Wifi driver. Apparently the key I had was for another Lucent WaveAccess, which I think I gave away to a friend (I had two of them) So I had to buy it again.

Either way, I am surfing on it using Classilla, and it runs very nicely. I am currently running with 256MB RAM (I took out a spare 128MB I had in it when trying to troubleshoot an Illegal Trap message) and it runs pretty quick. It's got Mac OS 9.2.2 on the drive (I reinstalled after Zeroing out the drive) and can't wait for the other RAM and SSD to get here.

USB has already come in handy, I transfered files through a USB flash drive (16GB TransMemory Flash drive) and will probably include my USB Zip 100 (Bus-Powered) in the kit with it. The battery is acting wonky. gonna have to try to run it down and start over. It charged, then it worked, but I didn't realize the system wasn't plugged in right and when I I ran it off of battery, it ran for 10 minutes at almost no charge. So the battery is good, I just think it needs a full charge.

The battery might last quite a while

 

[iMac600]

I think I will chalk it up to my stupidity. I didn't see that it says "Macintosh PowerBook G3" on the screen bezel. That should have tipped me off there (Pismo's just say "PowerBook G3" and I think the logo is flipped on the lid of the screen on the Pismo.

Easy enough to mistake the two. Not often you get a port shot indicating which model it is. The identifier is simple, as you stated, but to clarify:

Wallstreet: Rainbow Apple Below LCD. PowerPC above LCD. Macintosh PowerBook G3 printed to the left, below LCD.

Lombard: White Apple Above LCD. Macintosh PowerBook G3 printed direct center, below LCD.

Pismo: White Apple Above LCD. PowerBook printed direct center, below LCD.

In the market for a Pismo myself, and it's one thing i've had to look carefully for. Apart from that the machines are otherwise identical, apart from the ports of course (which aren't always pictured in auctions).