Another Powerbook G4 1.67ghz

[Quadraman]

Found a pawn shop on ebay selling a Powerbook G4 1.67ghz low res with bad screen for $100. Supposedly works apart from the screen. I have a Bookendz docking station on the way for the other Powerbook G4 but I think I will remove the LCD from this one instead and run it in the dock as a desktop and keep the hi res G4 as a mobile. (Unless another cheap parts or repair Powerbook comes my way that I can pull the LCD from).

 

[zerotypeq]

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/16/powerbook-to-desktop-mac-casemod/

 

[Quadraman]

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/16/powerbook-to-desktop-mac-casemod/

I could never pull off something like that although I have toyed with the idea of building a wood case like the original Apple prototype came in and putting a laptop board in it.

 

[Hrududu]

You could mount it in a closet on on the underside of your desk as a server. I always thought a headless Powerbook would make a good ultra-thin "XServe."

 

[Bunsen]

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/16/powerbook-to-desktop-mac-casemod/

I could never pull off something like that

Well, it doesn't have to be that fancy. Just give the PB some Feets

 

[Gorgonops]

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/16/powerbook-to-desktop-mac-casemod/

I could never pull off something like that

Well, it doesn't have to be that fancy. Just give the PB some Feets

The other thing to do could is jumper a couple wires from the back of the power switch to a pushbutton you can hit when the lid is closed. (I was experimenting with doing this on trashed 1.5Ghz Powerbook and it seemed to work fine to power it up in "clamshell" mode.) Do that, tape the lid shut with aluminum tape, and secure the thing vertically to the back of an LCD monitor with the same tape and viola: skanktastic iMac clone.

 

[Quadraman]

Well it arrived today. The LCD has several large cracks and the only part of the screen that is readable is about a 5" by 1" strip in the upper left corner. Unfortunately, OS X doesn't default to mirror mode for external monitors. Aaaaarrrrggghhh! So, not being able to see what I was doing, I had to try to open up System Preferences and then once open try to blindly grab it and drag it over to the extended part of the screen on the external monitor and change it to mirror mode. What a pain that was. Move mouse over a couple pixels, click, nothing, move mouse again, click, nothing, ad infinitum until I managed to grab the window along the top edge and drag it over then once that was done I accidentally changed the screen resolution TWICE! Changing the resolution snaps the window back over to the other side of the screen so I had to find it and drag it two more times before I was able to change to mirror mode. The 1280 x 854 resolution of the Powerbook is kind of oddball and my external LCD doesn't support it perfectly. I have the LCD set to 1280 x 960 so it displays like a letterboxed DVD with a border on the top and bottom but it's not a huge border so it's OK. When I tried setting the LCD to 1650 x 1080 it displayed the desktop in the center with an enormous border all the way around and that was annoying. Various other settings the LCD is capable of weren't any more satisfactory. So now I have a ghetto G4 iMac only with a little faster CPU and a 22" screen.

 

[geeko]

if you are using an external keyboard and mouse, try to go into clamshell mode, boot it w/ the screen open, and once it has booted,close it, then wake it up w/ an external keyboard and mouse. it will display ONLY on the external screen. then open the powerbook so you don't melt the keyboard, and use it that way. this works fine on my macbook (even though it has a good screen, i tried it once) but this will render the internal keyboard/trackpad useless while it is in this mode.

anyway, good luck!

P.S. the powerbook should work just fine w/ the inverter and screen cables disconnected from the lobo, it did on my pile-of-parts PB 16 inch

 

[Gorgonops]

If for some reason you don't want to close the lid (or if the lid is missing) you can force clamshell mode by setting a small magnet in the area of the trackpad. (That's how the system knows the lid is closed. There's one stuck to the back of the LCD panel.) It doesn't have the be a particularly strong magnet... as the hard drive is right under that area don't be using one of those finger-crushing rare earth ones. ;^b

As I mentioned, in my experimentation it seemed like you could even power on the system in clamshell mode, as long as you have a keyboard and mouse attached.