Pismo With box

[iamdigitalman]

So, after getting sad after the LCD broke on my last pismo, I caught the itch to aquire another one. This is actually my 3rd, they are just too nice machines to pass up. I came across this ebay auction with one with the original packaging. I have seen the box before, but never one with the accessories kit. I snagged it up for a cool $76, but it was well worth the money. The packaging was mostly complete, minus the manual, but that is easily printable from a PDF version. It even came with 3 coupons for apple stuff. It was packed with the charger, weight saving device, phone cord, the original DVD-ROM, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive from MCE.

The machine it's self is in good to fair condition. Originally a 400mhz model (and a reconditioned one at that according to the label on the box), it has a 500mhz card in it, matching 512mb sticks, bringing it to a full 1gb of RAM. It came with a Orinoco Silver wifi card, but I happened to have a spare Airport card laying around from the last one (and I have a second one around here somewhere). It also came with no hard drive, but a quick trip to Micro Center later, and I have a Samsung Spinpoint 160gb HD rocking the max 128gb of storage in this bad boy, along with a USB 2.0 card.

In the auction description, they did mention, and even photograph a crack in the trackpad area, which is right in the middle. Does not bother me too much, plus the trackpad button even feels better than the past 2 pismos, so why fix it if it aint broke? it's just cosmetic. Same thing goes for the missing feet, not a big deal. My only concern is there is a hint of pink/red in the backlight when it first comes on, but after it warms up after 30 seconds, it does go away. I have seen worse.

As for software, I installed Mac OS 9.2.2, and Mac OS X Tiger. I might triple boot with some sort of linux at some point, but for right now, it will work as a good classic machine, both OS 9 and X. I have some older apps that won't run on my macbook pro, even with Rosetta installed, but they work excellent on here.

The guy also said the battery does not hold a charge for more than an hour or so, but I did charge it up, it stalled at 26%, but then climbed up slowly to 100%, all 4 lights come on on the battery, so I unplugged it, ran the battery down. I ran out of time last night, but it had been running for over an hour, and was still sitting at 50%, which is a good sign it has another hour in it, so 2 hours total.

Here is the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120697248409&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

And the unboxing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0la9huRy2g

enjoy!!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Nice snag, comrade! :approve: I never saw that one, but I'm not in the market anyway.

I got mine locally off craigslist along with the Wallstreet I've always wanted . . .

. . . and a Bondi Blue Bum Board that I NEVER wanted! )

Snagged another Pismo off craigslist, just to get the BookEndz Dock that came wth it! [] ]'>

Have fun with your new toy!

 

[Sludgedragon]

My only concern is there is a hint of pink/red in the backlight when it first comes on, but after it warms up after 30 seconds, it does go away. I have seen worse.

I had a monitor that did that. I set the desktop picture to be nice scenery over water, and when I started up, it looked like dawn breaking!

 

[coius]

Oh yeah, your backlight is on the way out. The rule of thumb with backlights on LCDs is:

Backlight comes on regular, then turns off -> Inverter

Backlight is red/pink EVER -> CCFLs bad

You can try to repair by replacing the CCFLs, but it's a difficult job, the other is just to pull open the laptop and try to find that model of LCD on ebay...

Make sure you get the same revision, as revisions will actually either change the plug, the pinout or the data communication the laptop makes with the display.

You can find LCDs cheap, and probably for a laptop of that vintage, maybe no more than $30 + Shipping.

It would be worth it just replacing the LCD then installing it yourself. Not an overall difficult job so I would go that route.

 

[kite210]

Backlight comes on regular, then turns off -> Inverter

In some cases the small wire that runs from the inverter board to the CCFLs can come off of the actual tube from either overheating (caused by bad ventilation), or from shoddy manufacturing. It can be repaired using a soldering iron, but it's really difficult, as you have to take apart the LCD Assembly, which can have consequences if dust gets trapped in between the optical layers and the actual LCD glass.

It can be done, but it took me about 6 hours to repair one, mainly due to the evil that is called plastic clips >

 

[coius]

I am more specifically referring to laptops. Everytime I have seen an LCD come on on a laptop then shortly off yet the image on the actual LCD is on, it's almost always the inverter. I have yet to see heat come from a LCD on a laptop so intense that it causes the wires on the CCFL to melt.

Laptop LCDs are also more complex/compact than desktop LCDs in that it's lower power, and the parts are smaller. The desktop LCDs also have huge boards that do power conversion/data conversion from VGA/DVI to whatever connector the LCD uses. Those boards can sometimes be as big as a laptop itself.