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Some Powerbook G3 Lombard questions

pcamen

Well-known member
I've got a G3 Lombard PB I am setting up for floppy and CD archiving.  Not a bad system, in good shape, with a 32GB CF card instead of an HD.  It's got a VST Superdrive floppy instead of a stock floppy, which seem to be rarer than unicorns.  It's got 10.4.x and 9.2.2 dual boot on the drive.  This one has a Belkin WiFi card in addition to the built-in Ethernet.

I'm loving this thing because it lets me do so much:

- Can boot to 10.4 and os 9.

- 10.4 can AFP to my High Sierra machine (but apparently don't format it APFS or that ability will be gone).

- It's got SCSI so I can read / write SCSI disks

- It's got USB so I can read / write USB disks

- It can read and write both HFS and HFS+ disks

- At 1024x768 screen size at millions of colors, it is enough to work with comfortably, and I can add on a second external screen if need be.

Unless I'm missing something, this seems like the perfect bridge Mac.

But, there are some things I can't figure out.

For starters, how the heck do you power off the thing, or restart, without removing the power and the battery?  On modern Macs, I can simply press and hold the power button for a while to power off.  With this Lombard, that doesn't work.  I also found some information that shift-fn-ctrl-power is supposed to restart.  That doesn't work either. 

Second, when I hard power off and restart, it will go from the 9.2.2 startup disk being selected back to the 10.4 one.  Is this a "feature"?  Is there a way to keep it booting to the same startup disk always unless I tell it otherwise?

Along those lines, what key sequence allows selecting the startup disk at startup time?  I found information that it is supposed to be option, but that doesn't work. 

Help appreciated.

BTW, some other interesting factoids about Lombards.

I have 10 of them I lowball bid on over the years and collected.  Of the 10, 6 or fully functional, 1 has disk issues, and 3 are dead in some way or another.  These things seem pretty resilient. 

Of the 12 batteries I have for these, only one will retain any charge.  I have some Dell Latitude D600 / 600m systems from just 4 years later and about half my batteries still hold _some_ charge.  But you can still buy new batteries for these and they aren't that expensive. 

 

pcamen

Well-known member
Ah, some cracks in my perfect plan. 

1. DiskCopy 4.2 will not run on the G3. 

2. The VST SuperDrive won't read 800k disks. 

I guess I'll have to go to the 540c for floppy archiving. 

 

AlpineRaven

Well-known member
I am using PowerBook G3 PDQ 300mhz with MacOS 8.6, MacOS 9.2.2 & OSX10.2.8 with internal 44pin to SD. (much faster than CF)

It has (interchangeable);

PCMICA Firewire/USB Card.

Internal Floppy which can write 800k/1.4mb

VST ZIP250

SCSI port for external HDD ie. SCSI2SD etc

I think that is my best "middle mac" gateway from new to old.

I rarely use OSX on it and I am able to network to my MacBook Pro via AFP.

I have another one - its TiBook 1ghz G4 has 9.2.2 and OSX10.4.11 (I'm comfortable with) with internal m.2 SSD 540gb, and also has over 300gb of software (for legacy mac or OSX) stored on it, I network to it via Apple Share in OS9 or Network in OSX, I usually use FTP to download/upload from modern Mac which is lot easier that way.

Before TiBook came along, I was using Pismo for file server but moved to TiBook due performance reasons.

Regarding the power on switch - I would look at that might be at fault, you should be able to force restart by pressing command option power on.

Re; selecting the OS to boot into - have you got working battery/PRAM battery? that would be the problem - if you turn it off and unplug it - it'll loose the selection of HDD to go into.

As soon you power on, hold down option key to choose the start up system.

Cheers

AP

 

pcamen

Well-known member
I have an IDE / ATA to SD, I will have to try it. 

I've never heard of the PDQ.  Is the the same family as the Wallstreet / Lombard / Pismo? 

I do have a Wallstreet with a floppy drive, but alas, it is a different drive slot than the Lombard.  I read somewhere today that the G3 Lombard was the first Powerbook that didn't ship with a floppy option.  Dang. 

 

AlpineRaven

Well-known member
PDQ is next model after Wallstreet - Before Lombard, they came in as 233, 266 and 300mhz.

Correct that Lombard is first model without floppy.

Cheers

AP

 

Innes

Well-known member
Ctrl+Apple+Power forces a reboot.

If your pressing and holding the power button without any response then I'd suggest that something is wrong. One other option is the reset switch between the VGA port and modem, the icon is a triangle in a circle.

The inability for it to remember the startup disk that has been selected isn't standard behavior either. Perhaps it's a quirk of using compact flash as the main drive.

 

pcamen

Well-known member
I think forgetting the startup disk is in fact the PRAM battery.  I haven't replaced any of them as of yet. 

 

Innes

Well-known member
I thought about that, but my Pismos which don't really differ from Lombards all that much, both boot to the last selected drive without a PRAM inserted. I removed them when they started preventing them from starting up at all

 

J English Smith

Well-known member
But you can still buy new batteries for these and they aren't that expensive. 
I'm curious - what's your source where they are a) available and b) not that expensive? I have about 4-5 Pismo batteries that I am nursing along, but they are all declining in charge, despite my best efforts. There used to be batteries on eBay for the older G3s, but those dried up about a year or two ago. Now I only see dead or untested ones. Sadly, even the cheap batteries for the icebooks seem to be gone now, but I am in better shape there, with many good Apple batteries and a few aftermarket ones.

 

pcamen

Well-known member
Ditto on that question.  I've got a whole army of dead batteries.    Just bought a blank off eBay so I have _something_ to put in there.

 

dankcomputing

Active member
I have a Lombard and I just rebuilt my PRAM battery. Kind of a pain in the ass (the old holder won't hold it anymore, I basically just ripped it out and redid the mounting using velcro). Main battery isn't completely dead; it'll hold a few minutes worth of charge.

It's keeping time but it's still refusing to cold boot to OS9. I have to wait for it to finish booting OSX and change the startup disk (which is painfully painfully slow on this machine).
 

dankcomputing

Active member
UPDATE: I ran the main battery down and that's what caused the boot amnesia. Very strange. It shouldn't be possible to make it forget the boot disk at all. Is there any way to make it permanent, make OS9 the default? If I changed the order of the partitions would that break OSX?
 
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