Superdos
Well-known member
(I originally ended up writing this as an update post to my IIvx thread, but I decided that this required its own thread. I'm taking on some repairs to new client machines, so I'll be able to afford proper caps for the IIvx soon.)
So my friend that buys and sells machines and scrapmetal, the one that gave me the IIvx, calls me up two days ago. He says he has something he thinks I'll find interesting. Pull up, his car is half open and there's boxes in the back seat. The boxes are heavy and plain-looking. plop it down in the garage, and...
iBooks!
iBook G4's of all walks of life are in the first box. I'm counting 900MHz+ on some of them, 12.1 and 15-inchers (14-inchers?), able to tell which is which generation just by the keyboard feel (noisier if they're older, what I found, but I did cross-reference the spec sticker under the keyboard for a lot of them.). Went right up to the 1.42's, and all were max'd out on RAM at 1.5GB for those that could be, and 1.25 for the smaller iBooks
Second box, Powerbooks! and a few more iBooks. all Aluminum models, above 1.3GHz. 12.1/15/17-inchers. Couldn't get most of them working, something I later found out was because the keyboard was detatched in all cases to get to the hard drive. there were a few 12-inchers and 17-inchers that were badly put back together because someone did a "half-fast" job, to quote a recent ISP commercial.
what's even funnier is the reason they were decommissioned. Excessive Wear. Not that it's impossible, but come on. I understand it was probably done to write them off for taxes. but if you work for whatever company had 34 Power/iBooks that were worn out, at LEAST hire some competent workers that can spell WEAR in the first place!
Not only did the guy that removed the hard drive misspell wear as ware, he also misspelled ware as wave!
TOO MUCH WAVE! ABORT ABORT!
Others in the batch of 34 had wear spelled correctly or spelled as ware.
Sadly I could not save them all (didn't really want to for the most part, only half of them powered up in the first place), since said friend paid 20 bucks a pop for them WITH chargers; I did get out of this with a gem from the entire batch, the rest sold to some egyptian guy he does business with as well, that sends them off to a warehouse a town over to be refurbed and sold to a developing country (which I think is awesome and support 100%). I took him my TiBook 500, which was heavily battered and not working right anymore and faaaaaar beyond effort of repair (dead fan, needed a logic board swap, new battery, RAM upgrade, etc.), and traded him for a random Powerbook in the lot that worked. Went for a 15-incher.
(it works!)
put it in the car, waited for the egyptian guy to come and leave, beelined home, dropped in my TiBook 500's drive (80GB) and plugged it in.
What was I greeted with?
>2GB DDR2 SDRAM
And then it was totally worth it. a simple trade removed me of a nonworking Mac which I had no desire left to keep, and I instead got royalty amongst 15-inch Alu Powerbooks. Just like that, an HR 1440x960 unit. and the best part? everything works. Keyboard backlight works, Superdrive works, screen is nice and bright, no artifacting from the mobility radeon (knock on wood!), and the battery even lasts a few hours and holds 87% capacity still. I get a free power adapter with it too, so that was another plus to add!
I wrote this entire post with the Powerbook in TenFourFox. All things considered, I think I have a keeper!b:
So my friend that buys and sells machines and scrapmetal, the one that gave me the IIvx, calls me up two days ago. He says he has something he thinks I'll find interesting. Pull up, his car is half open and there's boxes in the back seat. The boxes are heavy and plain-looking. plop it down in the garage, and...
iBooks!
iBook G4's of all walks of life are in the first box. I'm counting 900MHz+ on some of them, 12.1 and 15-inchers (14-inchers?), able to tell which is which generation just by the keyboard feel (noisier if they're older, what I found, but I did cross-reference the spec sticker under the keyboard for a lot of them.). Went right up to the 1.42's, and all were max'd out on RAM at 1.5GB for those that could be, and 1.25 for the smaller iBooks
Second box, Powerbooks! and a few more iBooks. all Aluminum models, above 1.3GHz. 12.1/15/17-inchers. Couldn't get most of them working, something I later found out was because the keyboard was detatched in all cases to get to the hard drive. there were a few 12-inchers and 17-inchers that were badly put back together because someone did a "half-fast" job, to quote a recent ISP commercial.
what's even funnier is the reason they were decommissioned. Excessive Wear. Not that it's impossible, but come on. I understand it was probably done to write them off for taxes. but if you work for whatever company had 34 Power/iBooks that were worn out, at LEAST hire some competent workers that can spell WEAR in the first place!
Not only did the guy that removed the hard drive misspell wear as ware, he also misspelled ware as wave!
TOO MUCH WAVE! ABORT ABORT!
Others in the batch of 34 had wear spelled correctly or spelled as ware.
Sadly I could not save them all (didn't really want to for the most part, only half of them powered up in the first place), since said friend paid 20 bucks a pop for them WITH chargers; I did get out of this with a gem from the entire batch, the rest sold to some egyptian guy he does business with as well, that sends them off to a warehouse a town over to be refurbed and sold to a developing country (which I think is awesome and support 100%). I took him my TiBook 500, which was heavily battered and not working right anymore and faaaaaar beyond effort of repair (dead fan, needed a logic board swap, new battery, RAM upgrade, etc.), and traded him for a random Powerbook in the lot that worked. Went for a 15-incher.
(it works!)
put it in the car, waited for the egyptian guy to come and leave, beelined home, dropped in my TiBook 500's drive (80GB) and plugged it in.
What was I greeted with?
>2GB DDR2 SDRAM
And then it was totally worth it. a simple trade removed me of a nonworking Mac which I had no desire left to keep, and I instead got royalty amongst 15-inch Alu Powerbooks. Just like that, an HR 1440x960 unit. and the best part? everything works. Keyboard backlight works, Superdrive works, screen is nice and bright, no artifacting from the mobility radeon (knock on wood!), and the battery even lasts a few hours and holds 87% capacity still. I get a free power adapter with it too, so that was another plus to add!
I wrote this entire post with the Powerbook in TenFourFox. All things considered, I think I have a keeper!
b: 
