Thread
Bought a near mint Pismo
... on eBay for just under £40.
It's the 400Mhz version, came with 512mb RAM, 12GB HDD, DVD drive, Airport and a one hour battery.
Upgraded from Panther to Tiger 10.4.11, installed all my backed up old stuff + TenFourFox, then the spending started ...
1GB RAM, 2 new batteries, 60GB hard drive (from stock so was free), then it got more mad and I've just ordered a 32GB PATA SSD to play with.
I also bought another CPU daughterboard and overclocked it to 500, but it was causing KPs and I dropped it to 450Mhz. It's now working nice and stable in the Pismo.
I would dearly love to find a G4 upgrade card, but short of spending $199 new I can't seem to find a used one, anybody have an old one hanging around?
In short - I love it - the iPad isn't getting much use these days!
Cheers
Hugh
It's the 400Mhz version, came with 512mb RAM, 12GB HDD, DVD drive, Airport and a one hour battery.
Upgraded from Panther to Tiger 10.4.11, installed all my backed up old stuff + TenFourFox, then the spending started ...
1GB RAM, 2 new batteries, 60GB hard drive (from stock so was free), then it got more mad and I've just ordered a 32GB PATA SSD to play with.
I also bought another CPU daughterboard and overclocked it to 500, but it was causing KPs and I dropped it to 450Mhz. It's now working nice and stable in the Pismo.
I would dearly love to find a G4 upgrade card, but short of spending $199 new I can't seem to find a used one, anybody have an old one hanging around?
In short - I love it - the iPad isn't getting much use these days!
Cheers
Hugh
Pismos really are delightful units. :approve:
They are!
I loaned out mine this summer, and I hope I can get it back sooner or later.
It's not fast by today's standards, but it's a very decent machine nonetheless.
c
I loaned out mine this summer, and I hope I can get it back sooner or later.
It's not fast by today's standards, but it's a very decent machine nonetheless.
Me too! Then I can run Leopard on it (just for fun, I don't know if it's actually very usable).
c
Leopard could run pretty slow because of the maximum RAM, and wasn't brilliant on a G4 700 iMac a few Macs ago.
Tell you what, when you get your Pismo back, I'll swap you an emac for it!
Cheers
Hugh
Tell you what, when you get your Pismo back, I'll swap you an emac for it!
Cheers
Hugh
I would like one, but every-time i try to get one, they want a hundie or more.
I just can't throw down that much for one.
I just can't throw down that much for one.
The entire PowerBook G3 line I wanted. But for whatever reason people are wanting collectable prices for them, in decent shape! Nice nab! I'm curious, how well does it run Tiger?
OK I think, not super fast but then again I'm not impatient. I'm surprised (and I remember now) how good Tiger really is, and no extra crap bits like the Lions have.
I've enabled pipelining in TenFourFox which has made internet pages load more quickly, but I think the graphics is slowing it down somewhat.
I tried ATIccelerator II http://thomas.perrier.name/ but is hasn't made any difference that I can notice.
The best speed boost I hope to gain will be from an SSD when it arrives, plus even better battery life.
Cheers
Hugh
I've enabled pipelining in TenFourFox which has made internet pages load more quickly, but I think the graphics is slowing it down somewhat.
I tried ATIccelerator II http://thomas.perrier.name/ but is hasn't made any difference that I can notice.
The best speed boost I hope to gain will be from an SSD when it arrives, plus even better battery life.
Cheers
Hugh
Tiger was a good OS. When my dad bought his MacBook (black, 2.0GHz Core Duo) it came with Tiger, and he didn't bother to upgrade to Leopard because it was such a good OS. He did upgrade when Snow came out, then he sold the laptop just before Lion came out, and got a great deal off the sell.
Hugh - do post re how she runs with the ssd, I have long considered getting one for my pismo(s). Speed and battery runtime improvement, plus the stability, are compelling to me...
Will do, bought this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300745319081?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 as I don't think I will ever need more than 32GB in this machine.
It's coming from China, so may take a while.
I was toying with the idea of a CF card in an IDE adapter but research suggests not as good as a genuine SSD.
However I fancy putting a CF card in the PCMCIA adapter I already have and try to boot something (OS 9?) from it. Have a 1GB card somewhere, will OS 9 fit on it?
Cheers
Hugh
It's coming from China, so may take a while.
I was toying with the idea of a CF card in an IDE adapter but research suggests not as good as a genuine SSD.
However I fancy putting a CF card in the PCMCIA adapter I already have and try to boot something (OS 9?) from it. Have a 1GB card somewhere, will OS 9 fit on it?
Cheers
Hugh
I am running one of my 1400s on a CF card (and it runs just fine, and silently) but that would not work for me on a Pismo - I think I have the wrong type (slower speed?) Thought about trying that again with the right kind of CF card but had not gotten around to it. I think I was using 4gb cards...that was enough to hold 9.2 but just barely enough for 10.4.11.
Can you explain pipelining in the controls for TenFourFox? Would like to try that, but I don't see how to control in Preferences?
Can you explain pipelining in the controls for TenFourFox? Would like to try that, but I don't see how to control in Preferences?
Wow, definitely a good price on that SSD drive. And yeah, that would be plenty big for me. I am working on a novel so it would be nice to have the added drive stability. I've been saving to a flash drive in case of hard drive failure, which works, but it would certainly be great to get better battery life too.
The pipelining is controlled typing about:config in the navigation bar, it brings up a warning, then the configuration page for Firefox / TenFourFox.
I used http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=297099 as my first reference, then adjusted more settings from Google searches.
I can't be sure but I reckon pages load more quickly now.
Hope this helps,
Cheers
Hugh
I used http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=297099 as my first reference, then adjusted more settings from Google searches.
I can't be sure but I reckon pages load more quickly now.
Hope this helps,
Cheers
Hugh
According to http://www.themacintoshguy.com/mactips/archive/tip41.shtml a full install of OS 9 will take 300mb, so a 1gb card will take it all with plenty to spare.
Just need to get the card formatted and recognised before digging out my 9.2 disc ...
Cheers
High
Just need to get the card formatted and recognised before digging out my 9.2 disc ...
Cheers
High
Careful with pipelining: some servers don't like it. You can enable it in Classilla as well, but there is a warning.
So far so good, seems a little faster loading pages. I wouldn't bother doing it for my MacBook though.
Cheers
Hugh
Cheers
Hugh
I changed on one of my units, will look at some media intensive sites side by side and see if there is a difference.
Cheers
Hugh
Hugh
It seems Camino is a lot faster than TenFourFox on this machine, so I'm giving it a whirl ...
Cheers
Hugh
Cheers
Hugh
New 32gb KingSpec KSD-PA25.6-032MS SSD arrived yesterday, only 7 days from China to UK
5 hours last night to do a Carbon Copy Cloner to the new drive in a USB enclosure, and test booting from the USB drive once cloned - it boots fine using the Option key at startup, but not recognized in System Prefs -> Startup Disk
10 minutes spent installing it in the Pismo this morning, half of that time was looking for a flipping screw on the carpet.
Booted straight away, seems very snappy so far.
Before the new drive I took some timings for various actions - boot-up time to desktop, starting Dashboard, opening a large Excel document, Camino startup time and opening a .jpg with Gimp.
Boot-up seems 25% faster, and most other actions about 20% quicker, except for some reason opening Dashboard took 20% longer (but I think it may be iStat was looking for a HDD temp which of course the SSD cannot supply).
Battery life should also be even better but only time will tell.
On the whole well pleased [] ]'> [] ]'> , just need to find out if I can get trim support, although according to Kingspec this drive already has automatic bad block management, not the same but helps when it gets a little more used.
Cheers
Hugh
Edit: Dashboard opening 20% faster now temp sensors disabled in iStat.
5 hours last night to do a Carbon Copy Cloner to the new drive in a USB enclosure, and test booting from the USB drive once cloned - it boots fine using the Option key at startup, but not recognized in System Prefs -> Startup Disk
10 minutes spent installing it in the Pismo this morning, half of that time was looking for a flipping screw on the carpet.
Booted straight away, seems very snappy so far.
Before the new drive I took some timings for various actions - boot-up time to desktop, starting Dashboard, opening a large Excel document, Camino startup time and opening a .jpg with Gimp.
Boot-up seems 25% faster, and most other actions about 20% quicker, except for some reason opening Dashboard took 20% longer (but I think it may be iStat was looking for a HDD temp which of course the SSD cannot supply).
Battery life should also be even better but only time will tell.
On the whole well pleased [
] ]'> [] ]'> , just need to find out if I can get trim support, although according to Kingspec this drive already has automatic bad block management, not the same but helps when it gets a little more used.Cheers
Hugh
Edit: Dashboard opening 20% faster now temp sensors disabled in iStat.
Thanks for the report! Very interesting, I may have to invest in one of these in a couple months. Let us know about the battery life effect after you've had a chance to judge, Hugh.
Got a sad surprise yesterday - Other World Computing (NuPower) has discontinued their excellent Pismo-series LiIon batteries. I was going to pop for another of those this year. I have two of their batteries in my rotation, but both have seen many charges. I'll have to eventually take a flier on one of the Chinese-made ones when all of my current Apple OEM ones start to fail... Well, I imagine there are not many Pismo owners who were paying ~$80 for a new battery...
Got a sad surprise yesterday - Other World Computing (NuPower) has discontinued their excellent Pismo-series LiIon batteries. I was going to pop for another of those this year. I have two of their batteries in my rotation, but both have seen many charges. I'll have to eventually take a flier on one of the Chinese-made ones when all of my current Apple OEM ones start to fail... Well, I imagine there are not many Pismo owners who were paying ~$80 for a new battery...
Indeed not, I paid £38 ($60) with free shipping for each of my two eBay batteries, and of course won't know how good they are for quite some time (I hope 8-o )
Cheers
Hugh
Cheers
Hugh
Gotta love the Pismo. Beater_3/500MHz/768GB/37.26GB/clean install of 10.4.11 was a Craig's list find about three years ago. It came setup to play a DVD automagically when I pop one in and has a WiFi Card that's faster than AirPort. Lots of TLC from the previous owner, it was bundled with a Wallstreet PDQ and a Blueberry iBook. Gotta re-glue one side of the hacked DVD's door back on, thanks for the reminder.
I got a second Pismo with a PartsMo just to get the BookEndz Dock for the first one. [
] ]'>
I got a second Pismo with a PartsMo just to get the BookEndz Dock for the first one. [
] ]'>
OWC discontinued their Pismo batteries? Well, that is too bad...but, I guess it saves me some $$$.
Also, I did install and run 10.5 Leopard on my G4 Pismo a while back. It ran ok, but when you needed to do something that required the graphics card, that was where I ran into problems.
For example, I could look at iPhoto thumbnails, but when I went to open the photo up in iPhoto to look at it larger, or start to adjust it, it would just come up with a blank screen. Text and other stuff was ok, it was probably a little slower than Tiger, but not by much.
I eventually went back to 10.4 Tiger, as the Pismo was my main machine until early 2009, and I needed to get work done on it, and do my iPhoto-ing.
Also, I did install and run 10.5 Leopard on my G4 Pismo a while back. It ran ok, but when you needed to do something that required the graphics card, that was where I ran into problems.
For example, I could look at iPhoto thumbnails, but when I went to open the photo up in iPhoto to look at it larger, or start to adjust it, it would just come up with a blank screen. Text and other stuff was ok, it was probably a little slower than Tiger, but not by much.
I eventually went back to 10.4 Tiger, as the Pismo was my main machine until early 2009, and I needed to get work done on it, and do my iPhoto-ing.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Tiger on the Pismo, it's a no frills proper OS X, unlike Lion on the MacBook which is beginning to have a Windows-like feel with all the decisions the OS makes on the user's behalf, and all the fancy extras.
If I ever get some sort of G4 processor for it I'm probably not going up to Leopard if it gets stuck on graphics editing - unbelievably I tried installing PhotoShop CS3 yesterday and it seems to be working fine.
Cheers
Hugh
If I ever get some sort of G4 processor for it I'm probably not going up to Leopard if it gets stuck on graphics editing - unbelievably I tried installing PhotoShop CS3 yesterday and it seems to be working fine.
Cheers
Hugh
Just bought a 500mhz daughter board from eBay US, but before shipping to me the seller (mac-pro18005253888) will look and see if they have a G4 board.
So, pleased with the 500, even more pleased if they can supply a G4.
I currently have a 400mhz board, overclocked to 450 (overclocking to 500 gave some KPs) - does anyone with a Pismo know how high you can go with a 500mhz board? I reckon 550 is safe but will it go as high as 600?
Cheers
Hugh
So, pleased with the 500, even more pleased if they can supply a G4.
I currently have a 400mhz board, overclocked to 450 (overclocking to 500 gave some KPs) - does anyone with a Pismo know how high you can go with a 500mhz board? I reckon 550 is safe but will it go as high as 600?
Cheers
Hugh
Well, it turned out the seller had a G4 board in stock, and although he wanted an extra $90 I went for it.
It also turns out it's a 550, so I might be tempted to give Leopard a whirl, give that I have a Carbon Copy Cloner USB drive to fall back on and that I've proven to boot.
I now have a G3 400, 450 or 500 to spare if anybody needs them, although I'll probably keep the 500 just in case.
Cheers
Hugh
It also turns out it's a 550, so I might be tempted to give Leopard a whirl, give that I have a Carbon Copy Cloner USB drive to fall back on and that I've proven to boot.
I now have a G3 400, 450 or 500 to spare if anybody needs them, although I'll probably keep the 500 just in case.
Cheers
Hugh
Last thing, just in case someone needs to know - the temptation was too much and I installed Leopard, and it runs like a dog 8-o
As others have found, only the battery in the right hand bay is recognised. The dock is very jerky, Mail wouldn't open until I applied the 10.5.8 combo, the graphics have slowed down to an unacceptable crawl.
Tiger re-cloned back, and the old Pismo is back to quick and slick.
Cheers
Hugh
As others have found, only the battery in the right hand bay is recognised. The dock is very jerky, Mail wouldn't open until I applied the 10.5.8 combo, the graphics have slowed down to an unacceptable crawl.
Tiger re-cloned back, and the old Pismo is back to quick and slick.
Cheers
Hugh
As I recall, Tiger on a Pismo with 1GB RAM was always really nice.