'Found gold,' or the 'WTF? PDQ PowerBook'

[dudejediknight]

I mentioned this in Conquests, but I snagged quite the PowerBook yesterday. Bottom specs read 14.1 inch 233mhz with 32mb RAM, 2GB HD... nothing all that special, definitely not worth the original asking price in my opinion. But at least my curiosity led me to the truth of the matter... that it was literally some found gold, or perhaps more appropriately a real WTF? PDQ PowerBook!

It's actually a 500MHZ G4 with 512MB RAM and a 20GB HD... definitely a thrilling find. A late '98 Wallstreet PowerBook judging by the original specs on the lower case. It's been quite the adventure so far trying to get it into a more usable state.

The way it was all set up was a bit puzzling to me. Running 10.2.8 (that part actually made sense, last officially supported OSX for that model), bizarrely set up with 3 partitions for some reason: basically 3 6.5GB partitions, with X on the first one and the other two completely blank. Not sure what it was actually used for, considering the very hackneyed OSX install it had. It worked fine, but not all that usable since The X install didn't even have Safari (among other things) anywhere on the drive.... and no Classic whatsoever on any of the partitions.

But still, considering what it has hidden beneath the surface, it definitely has loads of potential At least the drive itself was quite roomy at 20GB. The ports found on the back though are fairly good, minus the whole lack of USB/Firewire: HDI-SCSI port (at least I already had an adapter for my PB1400, so that wasn't a problem), ADB port, Printer/Modem port, ethernet port (very useful considering the lack of a wireless card), and VGA out for an external monitor, as well as the S-Video out port!

For me, first step was creating a more logical and useful partitioning scheme and getting a bootable OS9 on this baby. It was definitely an adventure trying to get os9 installed, since it wouldn't take an install from any of the system-specific 9.0 disks I have sitting around (iMac DV, iBook Clamshell, or iBook Dual USB). Had to sneak around the problem by using the Clamshell's restore CD with SheepSaver to install onto a blank disk image so I could upgrade that to 9.1. Deep down, I just knew that I wouldn't be lucky enough to have the burned CD image end up being bootable, so I had to somehow manage a barebones working 9.1 install onto the only other SCSI option I have right now: the 100MB Zip drive.

With a bootable barebones 9.1, I could at least use the burned CD to manually drag the whole System folder over to the PB's HD. As I had thought, the CD ended up not being bootable, so the Zip disk was essential. Now it has been more suitably partitioned (7GB exactly for OSX later, and about 13GB for OS9 and all the games and such that just won't work in Classic. After dragging over the System Folder and Applications folder from the 9.1 image CD, I have a bootable OS9 install on the second partition. At least now I can use it to play all my favorite pre-X games that don't agree with Classic mode.

Of course, getting OSX going is probably going to be a much trickier proposition. The 10.2.1 disks from my crippled Dual USB iBook just will not work as a boot volume... it just will not move past the 'dark gray apple on a lighter gray background' screen...waited about 20 minutes for the spinning windmill thing to come up, but it just wouldn't get there. So that leaves just unsupported 10.3 and 10.4 XPostFacto installs, something I've never done before. Seems like a good time to take a step back and take a break to ponder the situation.

First off, I know I'm going to have to find some way to put USB and/or Firewire on this thing... need at least one way to be able to transfer more than what a single Zip disk can hold. I'd like to go with both on a single PC Card if possible, so long as it'll work in both 9 and X. I know about not getting USB2 speeds in OS9 Would that kind of Firewire be used to boot from? Or be usable for Firewire Target Disk mode? Then probably a wireless card for the other slot... again, 9 & X preferred if possible. Having ethernet is good, and the PB using 9.1 can be accessed by the rest of the network... but being tied to that wire to go online is less than ideal.

Sorry if I'm being long-winded, but hopefully it makes sense to everyone else... and I can get lots of useful advice on how to proceed from here.

 

[Byrd]

Nice - sounds like a Sonnet G4 upgrade! By the sounds of things you know this, but OS X must be installed on the first 8GB (and smaller) partition; OS 9.x can be installed anywhere. You might also want to use XPostFacto to install OS X - go for 10.3 (and update to 10.3.9) which should run well on this. 10.3 requires XPostFacto install, and I recall 10.2 is the same.

JB

 

[Bunsen]

Truly an extraordinary find! I believe those G4 upgrades were not made for very long.

I've tri-partitioned boot drives before - one for X, one for 9 and one for Linux - perhaps that's where the previous user was headed?

 

[beachycove]

I have also tri-partitioned disks: one partition for system and apps, one for storage, and one for short-term storage/ scratch use. This sort of setup makes it nice and easy to use for Hotline downloads and such that you want either to archive or else to install and then jettison, or for working with large audio files and the like. Keeps things neat and tidy for such uses. However, this is not the reason for the small partitions. The fact is that there is a recommended drive limitation of less than 8GB for any system installation on a Wallstreet, just as there is also on beige G3s of the same era. If you system files go beyond the 8GB limit, you get problems. LEM even recommends a 7GB partition, just to be sure!

As for OSX and OS9, I know from experience that X.3 will run reasonably well on even a 266MHz Wallstreet (with XPostFacto), so I would not feel bound to stick with X.2, which is actually slower as well as less capable than X.3. The G4 should also give X.anything a nice boost, although sadly, as there's not much that can be done for the graphics, it is hard to see how the original outlay for the G4 was a good financial decision for the first owner. Her loss, however, is your gain: maybe with the G4, you might want to give X.4 a try. Or just flog the G4 processor on eBay and buy a Pismo if what you want is a G3 PowerBook for OSX work. There is a world of difference there, though you'll not notice much difference between a Pismo and a Wallstreet in OS9.

My Wallstreet runs OS9, as I have better things to run OSX on, and as I can't tolerate the loss of localtalk ports etc. It is a very stable and able OS9 machine. Although it now is mostly used for niche purposes (e.g., it runs my copy of Network Assistant for the "lab"), it was my daily laptop for several years and, as such, was used heavily, and never skipped a beat — with the exception of the batteries, which can be a real PITA. But I have a lots of respect for these machines, just as others do for the Pismo.

 

[H3NRY]

With my 300 MHz G3 Wallstreet, I found the easiest way to install OS 10.4 is to pull the HD and put it in an external FireWire case, then use my iBook to install. It can be done with subterfuge and XPostFacto, but takes forever and there are a couple of tricks which I never remember from one install to the next. FireWire Target mode isn't possible because FW isn't in the old world ROMs. SCSI target mode is, but isn't useful for OS X. I have an ADS Tech USB Turbo 2.0 cardbus interface, a Belkin FireWire Notebook Adapter, and a Netgear MA401 802.11b WiFi card which uses the IOXperts driver in both OS9 and 10. It's a nice Old World Mac with SCSI, serial ports, ADB, floppy, CD-ROM, and all the classic conveniences. It runs Tiger reasonably well, but is clearly pushing its luck a bit, since a crash inevitably results in booting to OS 9.