Alright... one more and I promise to stop flooding the Conquests forum. This is a rather nice one though.
I'm no stranger to Titanium PowerBooks. I'm also no stranger to what happens when TiBooks fail either. My 867MHz TiBook never truly recovered from the neglect of its previous owner, or myself for that matter, and it met a rather terrible fate when its display sheared clean off its hinges. I now know how rather fragile these machines can be. As fate would have it though, I've been given the chance for a "do over" with the Titanium PowerBook.
While I was away over the last 9 months, I was involved in some rather extensive Mac repair circles, which I detail a little in one of my other recent posts. One of those repairs was for a customer that required a hard drive for their Power Mac. He mentioned that he had an old PowerBook that no longer worked, and we made a deal - a 250GB HDD in exchange for this PowerBook.
It was better than I thought.
A boxed PowerBook G4 Titanium.
It's a first generation PowerBook G4 Titanium 400MHz, with a manufacture date of January 2001. The documentation seems to suggest this was a pre-order when TiBooks were first introduced, so it's about as early as they come for a production unit. It cost an impressive $5,499 AUD when it was released.
Alright, so it's not shrink-wrapped, but it's about as close as they come. This machine includes everything that it would have come with when the box was sealed. All the sale receipts are there. The sales brochure is included. All of the manuals and software install discs are there. The Apple Product Guide for January 2001 is included. The memory was upgraded in 2008, and the service receipts and the original memory modules are included. The battery is an aftermarket replacement, but the original factory battery is included. All the foam inserts are included, all the bags and wrappings are included, and the box itself is in excellent condition too.
The machine itself is in very good shape. It has some minor imperfections in the paint like almost every early TiBook, but it's undoubtedly one of the better examples. Most of the machine is flawless.
Best of all, it works! The reason it wouldn't turn on was simply a flat PRAM battery. |)
I have only made one change to the machine from how it was received, and that was to give the machine a full hinge service. The hinges were extremely stiff, and I'd rather they didn't break this time. I mixed up a solution of 20w50 engine oil and a small amount of WD40 (to thin the oil) and brushed it into the hinge pins, making sure to reapply it every 2 hours for 24 hours in total, and gently flexing the hinges to help work the oil in there. After 12 hours, the hinges were as silky smooth as they were the day the machine was manufactured.
I think this is an excellent machine, especially with Titanium PowerBooks being a lot less common than they were in 2001. This machine is treated like it's made of glass. It remains boxed almost constantly, and the few times it's out of its box, it's handled extremely carefully. It really is a beautiful machine, and I'd like to preserve it.
Who knows, it may actually be worth something!
Cheers,
~ Mic.
I'm no stranger to Titanium PowerBooks. I'm also no stranger to what happens when TiBooks fail either. My 867MHz TiBook never truly recovered from the neglect of its previous owner, or myself for that matter, and it met a rather terrible fate when its display sheared clean off its hinges. I now know how rather fragile these machines can be. As fate would have it though, I've been given the chance for a "do over" with the Titanium PowerBook.
While I was away over the last 9 months, I was involved in some rather extensive Mac repair circles, which I detail a little in one of my other recent posts. One of those repairs was for a customer that required a hard drive for their Power Mac. He mentioned that he had an old PowerBook that no longer worked, and we made a deal - a 250GB HDD in exchange for this PowerBook.
It was better than I thought.
A boxed PowerBook G4 Titanium.
It's a first generation PowerBook G4 Titanium 400MHz, with a manufacture date of January 2001. The documentation seems to suggest this was a pre-order when TiBooks were first introduced, so it's about as early as they come for a production unit. It cost an impressive $5,499 AUD when it was released.
Alright, so it's not shrink-wrapped, but it's about as close as they come. This machine includes everything that it would have come with when the box was sealed. All the sale receipts are there. The sales brochure is included. All of the manuals and software install discs are there. The Apple Product Guide for January 2001 is included. The memory was upgraded in 2008, and the service receipts and the original memory modules are included. The battery is an aftermarket replacement, but the original factory battery is included. All the foam inserts are included, all the bags and wrappings are included, and the box itself is in excellent condition too.
The machine itself is in very good shape. It has some minor imperfections in the paint like almost every early TiBook, but it's undoubtedly one of the better examples. Most of the machine is flawless.
Best of all, it works! The reason it wouldn't turn on was simply a flat PRAM battery. |)
I have only made one change to the machine from how it was received, and that was to give the machine a full hinge service. The hinges were extremely stiff, and I'd rather they didn't break this time. I mixed up a solution of 20w50 engine oil and a small amount of WD40 (to thin the oil) and brushed it into the hinge pins, making sure to reapply it every 2 hours for 24 hours in total, and gently flexing the hinges to help work the oil in there. After 12 hours, the hinges were as silky smooth as they were the day the machine was manufactured.
I think this is an excellent machine, especially with Titanium PowerBooks being a lot less common than they were in 2001. This machine is treated like it's made of glass. It remains boxed almost constantly, and the few times it's out of its box, it's handled extremely carefully. It really is a beautiful machine, and I'd like to preserve it.
Who knows, it may actually be worth something!
Cheers,
~ Mic.
