TheMacGuy's Latest

[TheMacGuy]

p.s. How's your iPhone working for you? What carrier, if any?

Depends, which iPhone? The original iPhone and 3GS are both essentially glorified iPod touches. My iPhone 5 is on Verizon.

 

[CC_333]

Just to add to the iPhone discussion, after my AT&T service was over, I removed my sim card, the wife and I have been using Google Voice + Talkatone (iPhone App) to make free Wifi phone calls and TXT MMS messages as well.

That's good for metropolitan and/or urban areas where WiFi is common, but out here in rural California, WiFi hotspots are practically non existent (except for our house and a couple neighbors), so if we want a wireless phone, it has to be cellular (i.e., something that uses either CDMA or GSM signals to do its thing).
c

 

[uniserver]

where do you most often use your phone?

places like Friends|Home|Work|School|Restaurants - all have WIFI,

For all else there is TruConnect, It uses sprints data network, Is Sprint out there?

 

[CC_333]

where do you most often use your phone?

Out here in the country [] ]'>
Sometimes we do go down to San Francisco (and surrounding areas), so it would work there, but we use it for the most part in places where WiFi is hard to come by.

As for Sprint, well, I don't know if it's available here, but we have the other four (US Cellular, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile).

Our TracFone works splendidly, so we'll stick with that for now. I want to try using an iPhone 3GS on their network, so we'll see how that goes.

c

 

[TheMacGuy]

Bought a dead Plus off of Craigslist today. Guy said it would boot to a blinking floppy, I get it home and it just keeps beeping. Opened it up and found the entire lower half of the computer's chassis was rusted. Stuck with it and can't do anything with it. I hope the guy feels good about ripping me off.

 

[uniserver]

well how much did it set you in the hole?

get a wire brush , clean it up. maybe its just something stupid like , popping the roms in and out... and maybe it will work.

 

[TheMacGuy]

$30. I offered $20 but he couldn't accept less then $30. I'll try the resetting the ROMs after dinner.

 

[uniserver]

I think you did ok , did you get keyboard/mouse ? cables? books?

 

[TheMacGuy]

I wish. There was a set on CL for trade, a Plus upgrade. Couldn't tell if it was a 128/512/512kE, but it was YELLOW. Came with keyboard and mouse. The guy was creepy as hell though, and kept changing his mind on what he wanted. I just dropped it and went for the one I have now. I tried using the keyboard and mouse from the 512kE.

 

[Macdrone]

Try resetting the ram also. If the roms are suspect the ram will be also. Keyboard and mouse from the others should work. I think I have a spare plus board if you need it.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Thanks for the offer macdrone. I'll let you know if I get it working. Is the keyboard platinum or beige? I need the platinum one.

I need to double check the serial, but IIRC, the first 4 digits were F907, so Fremont and a manu date of 1987?

 

[TheMacGuy]

This is odd. The Plus' serial is not showing up in the chipmunk.nl database. It is showing a build date of 2004.

Can anyone give me more info? Compared to other Plus serial numbers, mine seems rather long. Also, thought it was worth mentioning, it is a Plus 1MB.

Serial: F90796PM0001A

 

[uniserver]

Manufactured in: F => Fremont, California, USA

Year of production: 1989

Week of production: 7

Production number: 96P => 10631

Modell ID: M0001A => Macintosh Plus

Your Macintosh Plus was the 10631th Mac manufactured during the 7th week of 1989 in Fremont, California, USA.

http://myoldmac.net/FAQ/Mac-Serialnumber-decoder-e.php

 

[TheMacGuy]

Huh. So it was made in late February of 1989. Thanks for the info uniserver!

 

[TheMacGuy]

Picked up a nice PowerBook G4 12" off of eBay! I have been wanting one for so long. Paid $75 for it since the seller mislabeled it as a "11 inch PowerBook G4". This one seems to be in great shape, although there is some scratching on the back right corner and a dented front corner on the left side. Some light scratching on the bottom and some scratches on the top. Everything seems to work great. Pics to come. Here are the specs:

1.5GHz G4

512MB of RAM (256MB soldered, 256MB SODIMM)

60GB 5400rpm HDD

10.3.9 Panther (currently upgrading to Tiger until I get some more RAM, then bump to Leopard).

 

[TheMacGuy]

Turns out that 1 USB port on the PowerBook is dead, thanks to the former user either forcing something in or out, as the 2 middle pins are pushed back and up into the plastic (what I call pallet) inside the port. It will need a logic board replacement to correct the problem, otherwise no other issues. Turns out that this is the lower-end Rev. D model, with a Combo Drive. I have already swapped some RAM sticks with the iBook G4 to max out the PowerBook, since I plan to use it a real secondary computer and not a backup. The iBook now has 768MB of RAM (good enough for Leopard) and the PowerBook has 1.25GB. Went ahead and upgraded to Leopard.

In the coming weeks I plan to swap the logic board and replace the Combo drive with a Superdrive and upgrade the original 60GB 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD (shivers recounting the problems he has had in the past with Hitachi). I'm looking into a small SSD, but PATA SSDs aren't cheap at all.

One day, one day....

 

[mcdermd]

If it is just the two middle contacts on the USB connection that are damaged, you should be able to remove the bad USB socket and solder in a new one.

 

[TheMacGuy]

After inspecting it further, the damage seems to be worse. It looks like the entire port was actually forced back, and probably damaged the connections to the logic board. I will have to inspect it, but a used logic board with a 14 day return policy on eBay is only $35. I have $10 sitting in PayPal and probably another $10 coming in from one of those online survey websites.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Ended up getting the board for next to nothing thanks to selling some screen protectors before my purchase. Install took 3 hours to do. Everything seems to work fine, but I will have to do more testing on it in the morning.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Well, the new board's optical drive connector is dead. I've contacted the seller to see what he wants to do.

Also, I will be posting about a fairly-rare conquest later this week. Any guesses on what it might be?