novusgordo
Well-known member
TL;DR version: I liberated an iBook G4, in good working order and even with AirPort! For free!
So I used to be active back in the earliest days of the 68kMLA, but then I had to move in an emergency and give up my collection. I've managed to acquire a few bits and pieces over time, but I've wanted to become more active for a while.
I recently put up a Craigslist wanted ad, just to see what would happen, and I had a gentleman message me about a slightly-problematic iBook G4 he had collecting dust. I went out to meet him at a local Starbucks, and he handed me a 12" iBook, a power adapter, and anti-static bags containing a RAM SO-DIMM and an ATA hard drive. (Free! He wouldn't even let me buy him a coffee!) He told me that the hard drive currently in the unit had been problematic and the power adapter was acting up as well.
When I got it home, I replaced the plug on the power adapter (which was clearly messed-up) with one from my drawer, and it worked perfectly after that. I booted it off a 10.4 DVD, but neither Disk Utility nor System Profiler could see a hard drive. So I opened up the unit to see what was going on... lo and behold, the ATA ribbon cable had come disconnected from the motherboard. When I reconnected it, the drive was recognized right away, SMART status checked out, and it even had a clean bootable OS install!
It turns out I got an iBook G4/1.2GHz, with 1.25 GB RAM, a 160 GB HD, a working optical drive, and a working AirPort card (which came standard with this model). The display hinges are slightly wonky, but it works great. I've been celebrating the last few days by digging through my software library for games that I haven't been able to run since the Intel switch-over. (Now where is my Burning Monkey Solitaire installer, anyway?)
So I used to be active back in the earliest days of the 68kMLA, but then I had to move in an emergency and give up my collection. I've managed to acquire a few bits and pieces over time, but I've wanted to become more active for a while.
I recently put up a Craigslist wanted ad, just to see what would happen, and I had a gentleman message me about a slightly-problematic iBook G4 he had collecting dust. I went out to meet him at a local Starbucks, and he handed me a 12" iBook, a power adapter, and anti-static bags containing a RAM SO-DIMM and an ATA hard drive. (Free! He wouldn't even let me buy him a coffee!) He told me that the hard drive currently in the unit had been problematic and the power adapter was acting up as well.
When I got it home, I replaced the plug on the power adapter (which was clearly messed-up) with one from my drawer, and it worked perfectly after that. I booted it off a 10.4 DVD, but neither Disk Utility nor System Profiler could see a hard drive. So I opened up the unit to see what was going on... lo and behold, the ATA ribbon cable had come disconnected from the motherboard. When I reconnected it, the drive was recognized right away, SMART status checked out, and it even had a clean bootable OS install!
It turns out I got an iBook G4/1.2GHz, with 1.25 GB RAM, a 160 GB HD, a working optical drive, and a working AirPort card (which came standard with this model). The display hinges are slightly wonky, but it works great. I've been celebrating the last few days by digging through my software library for games that I haven't been able to run since the Intel switch-over. (Now where is my Burning Monkey Solitaire installer, anyway?)
