The Pismo.

[Cory5412]

Not sure whether or not I posted about it, or indeed, left any other hints anywhere, other than maybe on the IRC channel and in instant message conversations, but a few months ago while on loan to my girlfriend, my (Temetka's) Pismo suffered a little bit of a fall, and never booted again.

Until tonight. [] ]'> I was harvesting it for parts to use in another mobile computer (ThinkPad A21m not that it matters too much) when I noticed that the processor daughtercard seemed rather loose. I decided that maybe this was something I should look into further, and I then pressed down on it, reseating it. Lo and behold, the pismo now boots again!

This is a lot like one of those conquests I always see where someone has some really cool piece of technology that "doesn't work." so they give it to your for free. Then, you get it home and you press the right buttons or shake it the right way, and it works perfectly for a very long time to come.

I have a feeling that says the pismo will basically never die, despite the growing number of vertical lines in the middle of its screen, and the fact that it keeps having random component failures. (such as me forgetting to check whether or not the cpu socket is loose, or the time I thought its IDE controller had fried because it wouldn't recognize the hdd, which actually just wasn't plugged in...)

So... that's that. It makes me freakishly happy to once-again have a PowerPC laptop hanging around, it's just a nice type of machine.

 

[68Kollector]

I sure wish I had a pismo..... I'd trade my 2 clamshells and 2 wallstreets for one cause they're so awesome!!!

Not interested, are you? xD

 

[Cory5412]

Not particularly, I've got more use for the one moderately powerful machine than for four not as powerful machines.

My Pismo isn't in the greatest shape ever as far as pismos go, I'd even go as far as to say it's in pretty bad shape, but I'm happy with it as a secondary mobile Mac all the same.

 

[68Kollector]

Oh really? OOC, what are da specs on your Pismo? :?:

 

[Cory5412]

It's a 500MHz, 1mb of L2 cache, 512mb/30gig, and it's got one good battery and a cdrw drive. (I used to have a second good battery, but that completely died for no reason one day.)

As another update, I got back home to the power adapter, and it appears now that either the power adapter is bad, or the power input board is bad. I don't know anyone very close by with a similar enough computer for me to test their power supply, but I am fairly certain that's what it is. The person to whom I had loaned it isn't exactly gentle with computers, and since I thought it was dead, I didn't take too much care not to set heavy things on either part. "oops," ohwell.

 

[Temetka]

Is this the Pismo I sent you?

If so, those batteries were less than a year old when you got the machine. I don't see why they would have died. I though I put a combo drive in there, bit just CD-RW.

Anyway glad it's up and running again.

 

[Cory5412]

Yeah, it is a combo drive, I haven't used optical discs in there for so long though.

I'm not sure why the battery died. One day I got five hours of runtime out of it, and the next, it wouldn't charge or anything. At first I left it in there to use because I don't really like the optical drive that much, but it was messing with the ability of the other one to actually work properly.

 

[Temetka]

Weird.

I must say though that I was not the original owner, so I am not aware of whatever it may have gone through before it got to me. I replaced / added the following parts:

New LCD / Hinges

2 batteries

CD Drive

HD

RAM

PC Card Cage

Outer plastics for upper casing

keyboard

I loved that machine, glad its still functioning for you (now the 4th owner).

 

[Cory5412]

It's on its last legs, and I've got to admit that if I ever decide to invest in keeping it running, the LCD/hinges are going to be one of the things I replace, it spent a lot of time in my backpack last year. The optical, hdd/ram, pc card cage and the "whole lower half" in general are doing great though. (well, other than the second battery and now power supply, it seems.)

 

[Temetka]

Man, those things are like Timex's. They just keep going. A few minor repairs (hinges, ps) and it'll be serviceable again.

You can always try your hand at rebuilding that dead battery pack too.

 

[aphetica]

Haha. You should just keep passing it around to forum regulars once you get sick of it.

I can see the FS/T ad now: "Coveted Communal Pismo, "moderate" wear, many new parts, 23rd owner."

 

[Quadraman]

The Pismo is a fine machine. The only place it really falls down these days is the graphics are weak, but it can handle Tiger just fine. Leopard seems to push it a little too hard.

 

[Cory5412]

Has anybody even gotten Leopard running on Pismos that still have G3s in them? I personally run 10.3.9 on mine, as all the basic software I "need" is there.

The Communal Pismo idea is rather interesting, If only it were easier to just pool our collections in some lab somewhere, we could have lan parties and everything.

Of course, the communal pismo was paired with the communal tiBook, anyone want to trade me a tiBook for the pismo?

 

[Patrickool93]

I'll trade an iBook G3 for the PBG3, an communal iBook and a PowerBook!

 

[Byrd]

My Pismo as an ex-school machine, sitting unused for some time as "dead". $50 and a quick pull of the PRAM battery sorted that problem out

It's running with 768MB RAM and 80GB HD, Combo CDRW/DVD drive, and 10.4.11, it's working a treat. It has just about the strongest wireless reception of any Mac I've used, and can take a good knock or two without any issues. Batteries are expensive though, I've two marginal ones that give about one hour each, enough for moving around the house.

JB

 

[LCGuy]

Has anybody even gotten Leopard running on Pismos that still have G3s in them? I personally run 10.3.9 on mine, as all the basic software I "need" is there.

IIRC, Leopard requires AltiVec, so sadly the only way to get it going is with a G4 upgrade.

 

[Bunsen]

the growing number of vertical lines in the middle of its screen

Do these go away when you apply pressure to the front and back of the screen bezel at certain points around the edge? ie squeeze the same point between fingers and thumb, pressure going from front to back.