Thread
Seek Pismo opinion.
I can pick up a Pismo configured as:
Powerbook G3 400MHz Pismo
768 MB RAM
New 40GB 5400 RPM HDD
DVD Rom
Apple Power Adapter
Powerbook G3 (Original Apple) battery (holds a great charge)
Mac OSX 10.3.9
Microsoft Office 2004
for $250.
It's for my wife to do email and web. Whattaya think?
MacNoob
Powerbook G3 400MHz Pismo
768 MB RAM
New 40GB 5400 RPM HDD
DVD Rom
Apple Power Adapter
Powerbook G3 (Original Apple) battery (holds a great charge)
Mac OSX 10.3.9
Microsoft Office 2004
for $250.
It's for my wife to do email and web. Whattaya think?
MacNoob
not a bad price really. i sold my pismo for $350 a few months back it was a 500mhz/1gig ram/60gig hd/dvd-crdw combo drive/3 batteries/1 expansion bay 12gig hd/floppy drive/ac adapter
dude, go for it!!! i managed to get my pismo for $150 back in '06 base config. i cant wait to resurrect it!
For $250, try to get a newer computer with wifi and combo drive!
agreed. Pismo's do have wifi but for that much money i'm sure you can find something better.
its not worth $250.
offer $200 ish and see what they say
Offer $175, then 200...
10 months ago I picked up a Pismo that was perfect... I mean it was PERFECT! NO marks, no nothing - mint screen, mint keyboard. 384MB RAM, wifi card (NOT airport) , DVD drive and a great battery
Sold it on ebay for $400
10 months ago I picked up a Pismo that was perfect... I mean it was PERFECT! NO marks, no nothing - mint screen, mint keyboard. 384MB RAM, wifi card (NOT airport) , DVD drive and a great battery
Sold it on ebay for $400
I say $175 as well, $250 is really high. A year ago I got a pismo/500 for my dad with 512mb RAM and no HDD off the LEM swap for $125. If you wait, you find good deals.
true just depends on what u are willing to pay for it
I don't agree. Look at the amount of RAM and the HD, and the DVD drive. $250 seems fair to me.
IMO $250 is fair for the machine config listed. That being said I would offer $225 and see if they bite. The only other thing I would do to that Pismo would be to pick up a second battery.
I used to have 2 batteries in my old Pismo. Man that laptop could run for 8+ hours on battery alone. Sadly I sold it to help pay for the Ti that this post is being made on.
Pismo's are great machine, I'd be all over that deal if I didn't have my Ti.
I used to have 2 batteries in my old Pismo. Man that laptop could run for 8+ hours on battery alone. Sadly I sold it to help pay for the Ti that this post is being made on.
Pismo's are great machine, I'd be all over that deal if I didn't have my Ti.
When all is said and done, a Pismo is just a G3, and I don't know if DVD movie playback works under OS X. Last time we needed batteries for a older machine (Lombard) it still cost around $100 and it turned out to not hold a charge very well because it had been sitting around Micro Center for years.
On the other hand, fresh batteries for white iBooks are definitely available, and because of the recall a few months ago, it's even possible yours will have a fairly fresh one.
On the other hand, fresh batteries for white iBooks are definitely available, and because of the recall a few months ago, it's even possible yours will have a fairly fresh one.
huh? the DVD playback works perfectly. at least on my pismo it does.
On my G3 tower it does work but is not really smooth enough. In OS9 it locked the whole machine up when I tried to play a DVD, possibly because of the hacked Apple DVD Player that I had to use (on OS X I didn't need a hacked one for it to work).
why did you have to use a hacked version of Apple DVD Player?
Because I have a non-Apple-logoed drive and the non-hacked one gave an error about supported DVD hardware not being found when I tried to run it. The OS X one works fine with no hacking though, and the drive is pretty Mac-compatible as it can boot from it and everything.
weird...i have a lite-on dvd-rw drive in my digital audio g4, i'm curious to see if it will play a dvd in os9. i've not used os9 as a daily os since 10.2 was released 
a DVD drive in a pismo is nothing special, it came standard.
I love my pismo. I have 640mb of ram, an airport card, and 10.4 everything runs fine except flash video(like youtube). i get about 8 hours of battery life just websurfing
i got my replacement pismo battery from the seller "wholesalelaptopbatteries"
Here's one for sale on their website
The batteries are fairly freshly made too, less than a month old.
i got my replacement pismo battery from the seller "wholesalelaptopbatteries"
Here's one for sale on their website
The batteries are fairly freshly made too, less than a month old.
I took that pismo I had to class and I liked it a lot. Very solid machines - even by today's standards. Got a lot of attention from profs and at work. Would've kept it but I needed some cash...
The Pismo is just an awesome machine in any configuration. Lots of upgradability, but also still very relevant in standard form. I know a lot of people who didn't buy a new Mac laptop in between the Pismo and the Macbook because the Pismo is just that good.
no...it really isn't. i own a 500MHz Pismo and i can safely assure you that anybody who would buy that over a G4 or newer intel machine as an everyday laptop is a fool.
I still haven't bought it. I've been busy every weekend and evening and haven't been able to go see the guy. Maybe tomorrow night unless wifey has something planned for me.
a while back i put a pioneer tray load dvd burner in my pismo, and i had to make no hacks, in dont think anyways, in os 9
I have used the G4 and intel laptops, and I would still take the Pismo over them. Maybe drop in a CPU upgrade and max the ram, along with a fast hard drive. My Pismo is so nice and comfortable to use, but the new ones feel like cheap crap in comparison. I even like my Wallstreet II laptop better than the Pismo for that reason.
I didn't say I knew anyone who bought one over a G4. I said I knew people who bypassed the G4 entirely and kept their existing Pismo until the Macbook was released. With all the reports of G4 machines that stop powering up or that stop recognizing half their RAM, I feel better with a rock solid G3 Powerbook with upgrades.
This thread makes me want to go even older than the Pismo and pick up a working 3400c or something. Something purely for Classic without the distractions of OS X.
Like my PB 3400c/240 with the ram maxed out? [
] ]'> [] ]'>The 3400 was really nice in it's day. The fastest laptop ever until the G3 came along and knocked it off.
and agod awful gui
minute usb compatability
zero current day comptability
extension conflict corrupted drives
wonky memory managment
and its as stable as a teabag
yeah i so want to go back to clssic
Hmm, none of those seem to apply to my OS9 G3 lappy. Not sure if it's a Pismo or something else, but it has the Bronze keyboard, a 400mhz G3, and 320mb of RAM, as well as a quite nice DVD drive.
GUI is good,
USB seems to work with most of the stuff I try(floppy drive, camera, about 5 USB sticks, a different camera, webcam, etc etc.,
Current day compatibility (whatever that is) is probably getting less, I can't use WPA so I don't, or I use the handy Debian partition,
No extension conflicts so far,
Memory management seems to work fine,
and it's rock solid.
Quite honestly I don't see the problem with Classic, besides the WPA thing. Did a Classic computer bite you in the ass or something? Suck your tie into the DVD drive of an iMac g3?
GUI is good,
USB seems to work with most of the stuff I try(floppy drive, camera, about 5 USB sticks, a different camera, webcam, etc etc.,
Current day compatibility (whatever that is) is probably getting less, I can't use WPA so I don't, or I use the handy Debian partition,
No extension conflicts so far,
Memory management seems to work fine,
and it's rock solid.
Quite honestly I don't see the problem with Classic, besides the WPA thing. Did a Classic computer bite you in the ass or something? Suck your tie into the DVD drive of an iMac g3?
Hi. Found this discussion while googling for info re. the expansion bay hard drive for Pismos. Am always interested in Pismo info.
Just wanted to ask MacG4 about that 12GB expansion bay hard drive he was using. Was it working under OS 10.4.x?
I just bought a bunch o Pismo parts and accessories for the 4l Pismos I am currently fixing up. The stuff included a MCE Xcaret Pro expansion bay hard drive that the seller said was working - though didn't say with which OS - and contains a 60GB Fujitsu HD.
Problem: can't get the HD to show up at all on 2 different Pismos, 500Mhz with 10.4.9. The MCE expansion bay Combo CDRW/DVD works fine in the expansion bay, so it appears it's the Xcaret itself. Or some incompatibility with OS 10.4.9.
Opened up the case of the Xcaret HD and everything inside seemed connected okay. No internal HD noise, even to indicate the HD was failing.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
That's what I have a 540c with 7.6.1 on, and soon I'm getting a Duo 2300c to haul back and forth to school with me
Does the HD appear in Disk Utility? Have you tried installing the HD in the PowerBook internally?
I've got one of these things, and I recently used it to upgrade from my 40 GB drive to a 120 GB drive without a problem. I was running OS X 10.4, so I don't think there are any problems with the Mac OS not recognizing expansion bay hard drives...
If I had to guess, I would guess that either the drive isn't set to master/slave/CS correctly or that the drive has already failed.
First, though, see if Disk Utility recognizes the drive. If it doesn't, try putting the drive in the PowerBook internally and booting from a CD/DVD - then, if Disk Utility still doesn't see the drive, you can be sure that the problem isn't the Xcaret expansion bay module but the drive itself. If the reverse is true, the problem is with the expansion bay module's interface card somewhere.
Peace,
Drew
Hi.
It doesn't appear in Disk Utility.
I am going to open up the case today, as I found out from the seller that it was originally the Xcaret Kit, i.e. just the empty expansion bay case.
He emailed me last night to say he had used a 40GB drive in the case without problems, up to 10.4.10 on the Pismo 500. But just before selling me the Pismo and parts, he'd swapped the 40GB for a 60GB from one of his other powerbooks. He said the 60GB HD mounted okay and he reformatted it before sending it to me. So it did work. And all this was just a few days ago.
I'm going to open the case and check the internal connections. If the guy's telling the truth, the drive should work in 10.4.9, so maybe it's just something that came loose.
I have an external FW drive I can boot from if I have to reformat the Xcaret HD.
Thanks.
for $250 you can find a faster windows laptop on ebay. i seen a P4 go for a little over $200 shipped. but i can see if you want to stay with a Mac