Im currently looking into purchase a Apple Laptop so I can retire my Powerbook 180c. Im thinking of getting one of the original 'clamshell' models. I live in Australia so I would require a locally made and sold one so it would have the necessary modem connectors and power cables.

What I ask is there a store in Australia were I could by one of these iBooks (peferably Tangerine) cheaply. I have looked at eBay but there is limited amounts, and none of them the original model.

I will also require an Airport card preinstalled into the iBook and one of the older Airports so I can use that as a modem and surf the interent wirelessly.

I am not prepared as of yet to purchase the iBook, Im am just looking around and evaluating my options.

Edited by - Fedorenko on 26 Jan 2003 03:36:15

If you can afford to wait until one comes up an eBay, then I recommend that course of action to you.
Otherwise, the classifieds in the Trading Post/Quokka/whatever are probably the next best place to find one, especially if you're lucky, or you manage to bargain someone down.

Personally I would seriously consider the Wallst II which is upgradeable cheaper and has a bigger screen, I would not buy any extra memory cards of accessories from him though as they can all be had for a lot less elsewhere.

The Wall St Ii G3 233 14.1" is 1090 AUD, don't bother with the 266 it's not worth the extra cost the money would be better spend on a firewire card and case or put towards a CPU upgrade.

An iBook 300 which he seems to have in tangerine is 1290

I wouldn't go lower than an iBook SE though which has firewire and runs at 366. Especially when you have no interneal expansion options the firewire will make a big difference for CD burners etc.

One thing I would be extremely wary of is that original iBook batteries are starting to fail and is very very very hard to find replacements, especially for a reasonable price, and they don't come from Apple. Search the www.xlr8yourmac.com forums for more info on this. Apparently the battery situation is not so bad with Wallstreets and newer iBooks.

Last time I asked he was selling Airport card for 120'ish

Its would be ridiculas to purchase the iBook where something with a bigger screen adn slightly slower is there for 200 less. Its a shame though about the iBook....

Once I get the money, I will probbly get the base Wallstreet, then slowly upgrade the ram to its max (512MB?) and mabye even upgrade to a G4 500mhz from http://www.powerbookguy.com/wallstreet.html#serviceparts. I will probably get the USB and Firewire cards and a bigger hardrive too.

What I ask is how hard is it do do such upgrades? I know my way around computers, just never opened a laptop before. Also what OS would you sugest? MacOS 9? Im not very found of OSX, and I have haerd the upgrade cards sometimes dont work with OSX in Wallstreet's.

Once again thanks.

cheers
Flash!

I am planning on keeping my next laptop alive as long as possible, so I dont mind spending a bit of money on the thing and getting the 64 500mhz upgrade will be a while of yet.

I have no intention of running OSX, Its fugly. I also dont like the look of the iBooks and Powerbook G4's. OS9 and Powerbook G3 Wallstreet in my opinion is much nicer.

Im looking at AppleBits now and I ask what is the difference between the Wallstreet, and the original Powerbook G3?

You should note though that I have never owned or used one of these 'Books for any period of time, so I may not know what I am talking about I'd probably go for one of the WallStreets if it was my money - just coz it's a little bit newer, and a little bit faster.

cheers
Flash!

And, I think the case looks much, much cooler.

Did you check out microseconds? They have 400MHz Pismo's for $1550 (DVD, USB, Rage 128 video, firewire...etc), and 333MHz Lombards for $1350

The only thing the 233MHz Mac you're talking about has, that the above Macs don't have, is 256MB RAM. But you can upgrade that....

cheers
Flash!

http://www.microseconds.com.au/price.html

They're all nice extras for a relatively small increase in price. If you want to use OS X I would deffinetly spring for that. However the Wallstree 233 will make a nice little OS 9 Machine and if it's not your main computer it's what I would go for.

This is my question, how 'bronze' are they keyboards of the Lombards and Pismo's?

ZIP drives are easy enough to get a hold of (i presume that you are talking external SCSI) If you get really stuck for one, then I can sell you my spare - but I'm sure you'll find one for $50-80. In fact I am fairly certain that if you were to say to microseconds "give me a $1550 Pismo with 256MB RAM (at additional cost) and throw in a ZIP drive too" they would go for it. Oh, and ask for a floppy drive to be thrown in as well. Good retail economics says that it's better to throw in a few freebies to make a sale than have stock sitting on the shelf - especially if it's second hand stock!

note: I do not work for microseconds - in fact I have not purchased anything from them since my original PB140 that I bought ten years ago. It's just that cruisin' around the second hand market they seem the most reaonably priced (for a shop that is), and when I have talked with them they have been very helpful (I was looking for PRAM batteries for PB5xx series), and I believe all prices are negotiable.

I agree with you ~Coxy in that $1550 for old technology is a little bit rich (what with minimal RAM and a small HD), on the other hand the better deals you are talking about on eBay means that you have to spend another $1000 (like <$2500-3000 for a later model iBook) And sure iMacs are cheap if you want an original 233MHZ with 64MB RAM but the decent G3 iMacs with a good anmount of RAM are still around the $1000-1200 mark and G4's are even more. Bottom line is that if your budget is aroud $1500 then the Pismo deal ain't that bad.

Airport compatible? I'm not sure what that means - it could be as simple as buying an Airport PCMCIA card (do they exist? I'm sure they do) If you have to remove the keyboard then I'm pretty sure all you have to do is flip the Mac over, and remove the screws along the horizontal centre line, which will loosen the front edge of the keyboard so that you can lift it out (being mindful of the ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard)

cheers
Flash!

I have to admit though that Im starting to swing back towards the Wallstreet 2. Im a student, and since my current mac experience is only a Powerbook 180c, im prety sure that 233mhz would still be nice.

Also wiht the Wallstreet, I have hard it has 2 media bays, does that mean that it can have let say, a CD-ROM and a Floppy in the 2 bays, plus a battery? Also i jsut notieced on Apple Bits they sell and PCMIA card that is compatable with Airpot, always handy.

How Bronze is the Keyboard in the Lombard and Pismo?

Sorry if I have repeated some questions, I am having some trouble with IE.

quote:

---

I agree with you ~Coxy in that $1550 for old technology is a little bit rich...

---

~Coxy - Leader, Tactical Operations Unit
Mayor of NuBus City v3.0

If cash is a concern (and I'll probably be doing the same thing come the summer) go for the wallstreet 2. Applebits have genuine Airport cards for 120 but you will need a PCMCIA airport compatible card, I would be very surprised if you couldn't buy one from a PC shop or swap meet for less than the price at Applebits.

Going from your old 68k to a Wallstreet 2 with it's 14.1 inch screen is going to be like night and day. You can get an internal ZIP (I sold one on eBay about a year ago) but unless you use it a lot I wouldn't pay the premium for it. I'm sure you'll be getting a USB PC card and the USB ZIP is pretty small. OS 9 will be pretty zippy on that machine and I doubt you are going to be using it for a lot of gaming from the sounds of things in which case you should have zero problems with performance.

About the Zip drives, if it comes to it, I might even just find one of the original standard disk drives. Just somethign that I can store some simple word files on.

About games. While I wont be filling the thing to the gills with games, I will want a couple of commercial games. What kind of cut of age can I expect for it? I might get AoE1, Diabalo, and a shooter game. (Marathon?).

Any game sugestions would be nice.

How hard will the daylight be on my eyes once I get this thing.... :).

quote:

---

How hard will the daylight be on my eyes once I get this thing.... :).

---

68k ParaMedic

You aren't going to be playing UT Q3 etc etc, mind you none of those would run much better on the iBooks you were looking at.

68k Macintosh Liberation Army Forums

© 2001-2003 68kMLA