iBook G4 with a Touchscreen!

[Appleanche]

Hey all,

I've recently got back into collecting some Macs after a hiatus and was doing my usual eBay trawling and saw one labeled 'Apple iBook G4" in newly listed, usually wouldn't be something I'd look at too deep but clicked it and noticed it had a weird "Troll Touch Touchstar" on the back and had some educational software all over it.. looking into it some it was an add on available back then for various Macs.

The other thing that caught my eye was that the iBook was in amazing condition, like usually these are fairly yellowed, scuffed up, etc.. it was like new out of the box looking. I honestly wasn't sure what I was buying and the seller didn't seem to know anything about it, since it was found in a storage locker. So I just decided to commit to a certain amount (and I nearly hit that..) worse case I had a super clean iBook G4.. best case I had one with a touch screen add-on.

Fortunately it does have the touch screen, the big humpback with USB cable dangling was clear evidence, and after calibration it works, at least for taps, etc.. I'm guessing this may have used a stylus rather than fingers back in the day. There's a lot of quirks with it as you can imagine, when it boots I typically have to unplug and plug the USB in for it to work, and then on top of that calibrate it each boot so far or when resolution is changed.

The being clean thing was no joke, I can barely see any signs of use on the ports, dust, keyboard, anywhere, it's nearly pristine. Even the OEM battery still works seemingly really well (had it on battery a couple of hours) - the cycle count according to the computer was 0, no idea if that's accurate or not.

It looks like this was going to be used in adult education/charity work kind of setting but it was either infrequently used or possibly never actually used.

 

[dcr]

Very nice. I wonder why it has to be recalibrated on each boot? Seems like the configuration data isn't being stored for some reason. I don't think iBooks have PRAM batteries, do they?

Makes me wish I could get a touchscreen on my 11" MacBook Air, except without the humpback.

 

[Appleanche]

Very nice. I wonder why it has to be recalibrated on each boot? Seems like the configuration data isn't being stored for some reason. I don't think iBooks have PRAM batteries, do they?

Makes me wish I could get a touchscreen on my 11" MacBook Air, except without the humpback.

I'm not really sure why, like I'd imagine it would be stored on the actual OS and in a file somewhere. The iBook keeps time OK after I set it.

I also honestly don't know what exactly is in the "hump" maybe there's a battery in there that keeps that alignment data and it's dead?

 

[dcr]

I also honestly don't know what exactly is in the "hump" maybe there's a battery in there that keeps that alignment data and it's dead?

I was thinking about that after I posted but, from the pictures, I don't see an easy way to open the hump to change a battery.

 

[Dude.JediKnight]

Can’t say I ever saw a G4 laptop get this treatment before. I remember seeing photos ages ago of an old clamshell iBook converted to a touchscreen device (I think for accessibility reasons) … and also remember the later ModBooks that you would send your 2008? MacBook to and the company would convert it into a touchscreen tablet for an extra cost.

So it kinda makes sense that somebody was also doing this with G4 laptops back in the day as well… probably a specially made device, or at least a fairly limited aftermarket thing. Certainly not something Apple was doing themselves.


Make sure you back that drive up ASAP in case there’s some otherwise unavailable software that drives that touchscreen. I’d hate for the internal HDD to die on you, and then you lose whatever special sauce makes it work.

 

[leshazen]

Hey all,

I've recently got back into collecting some Macs after a hiatus and was doing my usual eBay trawling and saw one labeled 'Apple iBook G4" in newly listed, usually wouldn't be something I'd look at too deep but clicked it and noticed it had a weird "Troll Touch Touchstar" on the back and had some educational software all over it.. looking into it some it was an add on available back then for various Macs.

The other thing that caught my eye was that the iBook was in amazing condition, like usually these are fairly yellowed, scuffed up, etc.. it was like new out of the box looking. I honestly wasn't sure what I was buying and the seller didn't seem to know anything about it, since it was found in a storage locker. So I just decided to commit to a certain amount (and I nearly hit that..) worse case I had a super clean iBook G4.. best case I had one with a touch screen add-on.

Fortunately it does have the touch screen, the big humpback with USB cable dangling was clear evidence, and after calibration it works, at least for taps, etc.. I'm guessing this may have used a stylus rather than fingers back in the day. There's a lot of quirks with it as you can imagine, when it boots I typically have to unplug and plug the USB in for it to work, and then on top of that calibrate it each boot so far or when resolution is changed.

The being clean thing was no joke, I can barely see any signs of use on the ports, dust, keyboard, anywhere, it's nearly pristine. Even the OEM battery still works seemingly really well (had it on battery a couple of hours) - the cycle count according to the computer was 0, no idea if that's accurate or not.

It looks like this was going to be used in adult education/charity work kind of setting but it was either infrequently used or possibly never actually used.

Very neat!

 

[Appleanche]

Can’t say I ever saw a G4 laptop get this treatment before. I remember seeing photos ages ago of an old clamshell iBook converted to a touchscreen device (I think for accessibility reasons) … and also remember the later ModBooks that you would send your 2008? MacBook to and the company would convert it into a touchscreen tablet for an extra cost.

So it kinda makes sense that somebody was also doing this with G4 laptops back in the day as well… probably a specially made device, or at least a fairly limited aftermarket thing. Certainly not something Apple was doing themselves.


Make sure you back that drive up ASAP in case there’s some otherwise unavailable software that drives that touchscreen. I’d hate for the internal HDD to die on you, and then you lose whatever special sauce makes it work.

Oof good point on the drive, I thought about it but I'll mirror it ASAP.

 

[bibilit]

clamshell iBook converted to a touchscreen device…

The Gemini, but in this case, the keyboard was not present anymore.