Lombard & Tangerine

[conceitedjerk]

Damn! Sorry Bunsen, I wish I'd seen this thread earlier as I have a spare 400MHz Lombard logic board w/DVD decoder that you could have had for next to nothing...

 

[Bunsen]

Ah, I see that you've answered my question here cj.

Why do all that work when you can use a PCMCIA card

Have you seen the price of those cards? Besides, a/ there's only one Cardbus slot, and I have other plans for that, and b/ you call field-stripping a black'book "work"?? Man, that's like my idea of sex.

Seriously though, I'll have it open to upgrade RAM/HD/optical, so what the heck.

In other news, the guy with the lobo has a 512MB SODIMM for the iBook for US$50 - thoughts?

 

[Bunsen]

Daystar have a G4 for Lombards, but it's $299. Yeowch

... hmmm...

$55 rebate if you send your CPU and heatsink back to them afterwards

$100 rebate if you send it to them first - they upgrade it and send it back.

$199 is a bit more feasible, but not this week

 

[conceitedjerk]

Ah, I see that you've answered my question here cj.

No, I answered it elsewhere

(sorry, slow day at work)

 

[Byrd]

$50 for a 512MB SDRAM SoDIMM is pretty good; I just forked out $60 for 2 x 512MB for my PB Ti, "fastmemoryman" is cheaper but appears to have heaps of negative feedback.

I only thought the PCMCIA decoder card worked in OS 9 anyhow, and for Wallstreets only?

JB

 

[benjgvps]

Man I would LOVE to have an iBook G3 Clamshell. I really love the design. Too bad that I can't find any of them except on powerbookguy.com and it does not look too good for being in Canada right now because:

For international orders paid by credit card or PayPal, we may require a copy of the credit card (front and back) and some form of picture identification such as a driver's license that shows where the goods will be delivered. For international orders of $100 or more, we may require payment by bank wire, Western Union wire or certified funds (bank check or money order in US funds payable through a US bank). International customers are responsible for any customs duties or taxes levied by the importing country.

Meh. This is annoying. Silly US companies having all the good stuff I need.

 

[LCGuy]

MacDan says they'll take any standard laptop optical drive [] ]'>

And he is very much-so correct, provided that you're running OS X. (or OS 9 if you have third-party drivers)

 

[Blessed Cheesemaker]

Daystar have a G4 for Lombards, but it's $299. Yeowch

... hmmm...

$55 rebate if you send your CPU and heatsink back to them afterwards

$100 rebate if you send it to them first - they upgrade it and send it back.

$199 is a bit more feasible, but not this week

I've been considering this (the G4 upgrade). I love my little Lombard. I have OS 9 and OS X Tiger on it. I never boot into 9, I use this for my web surfing and email only (well, and Quicken) and it does all I ask. Well, iPhoto too, now that I think about it.

I have 512 MB ram in it (2 x 256 Ram modules). AFAIK, this is the max ram you can put into it. Also, officially it can only take 384 MB of Ram, so if you try to install an OS onto it with more than that, it won't work. I took out one module, installed the OS with 256 MB ram, and then put the extra ram back in.

Anyway, as others mentioned, the SCSI interface, USB, and ability to use Firewire or USB2 via Cardbus really helped me make the transition from the Classic OS to OS X. And, the screen is brilliant!

I'm really thinking of hanging on to this when I upgrade, and running OS 8.6 or 9.1 on it, as long as it chugs along.

 

[Bunsen]

MacDan says they'll take any standard laptop optical drive [] ]'>

And he is very much-so correct, provided that you're running OS X. (or OS 9 if you have third-party drivers)

Hmm. I was under the impression that as long as it was a Matsushita UJ-x series drivers wouldn't be a problem. That's what I'm looking for now.

Cheapest way to get them seems to be looking for ones that are listed by someone pulling them out of x laptop and saying it's only compatible for x.

On another note, after hunting high and low on ebay for a decent price on RAM to max out both machines, the cheapest option by a long shot is to order them new from OWC. Even with the US$27 shipping.

 

[lee4hmz]

I have my Lombard (which I got off eBay in the spring of 2006) tricked out with the DayStar G4 upgrade; it's not a huge speedup (just barely fast enough to play DVDs, even with AltiVec) but it makes a difference. The CPU it came with had the LoneStar lockup bug, and I was feeling adventurous, so I splurged on the G4. And I concur on the screen; despite being from 1999, it looks good even now.

It's running Tiger at the moment, but seeing as Leopard won't support anything older than about 2002, and XPostFacto is all but abandoned, I may put Ubuntu on it.

 

[Bunsen]

That's the first I've heard of that lockup bug. I've just googled it, and found a list of affected CPUs and an Apple Support Forum thread with an official seeming reply.

I'm awaiting delivery of the 400MHz logic board with the hardware DVD decoder, so I'm not worried about DVD playback. I am concerned that I may have to fork out for a new CPU earlier than I had hoped, though the machine had OS X (10.0) installed and bootable when it arrived.

From your report, I would be more likely to go with a far cheaper 400MHz CPU off ebay.

 

[LCGuy]

Hmm. I was under the impression that as long as it was a Matsushita UJ-x series drivers wouldn't be a problem. That's what I'm looking for now.

Provided you're running OS X, you should be pretty much right. Hardware-wise, they use an industry-standard laptop ATAPI connector, the same as just about every PC laptop ever made, so as long as you have driver support, you're covered. A couple of years ago i tried a TEAC DW-224E Combo drive in my iMac, it was from Dad's Toshiba laptop, and was not ever intended to be used with a Macintosh whatsoever. The iMac, and OS X picked it up as a TEAC Combo drive, and had no problems with it whatsoever, and i can't imagine it being any different on a Lombard.

 

[lee4hmz]

I was under the impression that as long as it was a Matsushita UJ-x series drivers wouldn't be a problem.

I'm using a Hitachi-LG DVD-ROM drive scavenged out of a defunct ThinkPad on my Lombard, and it works great in OS X. It also seems to work in OS 9.2.2 as well, though I haven't tried it with a non-HFS disc yet.

ETA: Something I forgot to mention is that the Lombard's media bay adapter isn't set up for cable select; the drive that originally came with the Lombard (a Panasonic) has a switch on the back to force master/slave. If you try to put a modern drive in, it'll come up as slave (something OF doesn't like), since all modern notebook drives are cable select. Fixing this requires soldering together two terminals on the adapter board (they're small, but they also happen to be next to each other; I'm not the best solderer in the world and I was able to do it with a ColdHeat). At some point I'll tear down my adapter and post pics for the mod.

 

[WorkgroupServer]

wow I wish there were free g3 powerbooks around here! congrats on the awesome conquest!

 

[Bunsen]

The new logic for the Lombard and the RAM for both machines arrived today. I've got a good deal pending on a pair of 80GB Seagates, and a slot-loading Combo drive for the Lombard out of the scrap pile (yes I know I'll have to mod or remove the bezel)

 

[benjgvps]

wow I wish there were free g3 powerbooks around here! congrats on the awesome conquest!

Don't worry. Your not the only one :'( . Though I would run across a 10 lane freeway 50 times for one. This etower and the PB150 aren't going to do it for me.

 

[Bunsen]

Update: Just did the RAM/HD swap in the iBook and installed OS 9 no problem. And then discovered all my OS X CDs are pooched. Ordering some new ones.

Note to Apple: getting to the hard drive should not involve dismantling 3/4 of the machine.

 

[Franklinstein]

The original iBooks (and the later ones, to a lesser degree) were quite difficult to extract the hard drive from and leave the machine looking as it did before it went into surgery. I've done the chore several times, though, so it's possible to have a drive in/out of one of those things in 30 minutes with no scars. Practice (or repeated attempts) makes perfect, after all.

As far as the placement of the drive, I'm not really sure if they made them that way because it was the most cost-effective in manufacture and design, or because they wanted people to throw them out when 3.2 or 6GB (in the originals) didn't cut it anymore (or the drive died, whichever).

 

[Bunsen]

I've just ordered a Panasonic UJ-841 DVD-RW for the Lombard. $AU55 inc shipping from the UK and with warranty

 

[Bunsen]

The wheel turns ever slow, and yet it doth turn...

I'm typing this on the Lombard right now. It's got OS X 10.2.8, 512MB of RAM, the original 333 CPU and logic, a new 80GB 5400rpm Seagate, and a slot-loading Combo drive from an iBook, sans bezel.

The UJ-841 didn't seem to want to boot - I'll take note of all your earlier hints when I go back for another attack at it. It's annoying that it won't work/boot in OS 9 - there's no firmware hack to get around that?

So far I haven't got around to doing the logic board, PRAM battery, CPU or replacing the bewildering Japanese keyboard. Hey at least it's improving my touch typing.

One thing: having no bezel for the optical drive really takes out a lot of the case stiffness in that area. I don't recommend it.

Another slight annoyance I discovered on Apple support pages: the Wallstreets have the ability to run from the mains with no battery and two media bay storage devices. The Pismos don't - you must have a battery installed.