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one of these weekends, hopefully very soon, the trusty Pismo is going to be overhauled...
biggest item will be putting in 60GB HD to replace an older, smaller drive to allow more breathing room. there is a lot of ancient OS 9 stuff that I want to save, but I'd like to keep surfing limited to the modern era, so intend on trying to streamline a nice Tiger installation. I'm thinking of pimping out a Tiger install, then getting rid of as much stray stuff as possible, then copying/cloning the result to an external drive temporarily, while nuking & repaving the internal for the OS 9 install and data migration, followed by bringing the slimmed/pimped Tiger install back from the external. the other option is to bring the Tiger install back first, then the OS 9 install & data migration. I expect to run OS 9 natively more than classic, since it is viable, mostly to demo the evolution of various projects, more than to do any additional work in OS 9. the Tiger portion will also include demos as a hardware speed comparison w/ more modern laptops, and hopefully allow acceptable surfing/email. all suggestions appreciated, good ones especially so. thanks,
Buzz
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While you have it apart, throw in a PRAM battery. Original Airport cards are still dear but again, while it's apart. it would be the time to install one. Do you already have the 60GB HD? If not, why not really pimp it with a 120GB drive? OS 9 should only need 10GB or so. My old Pismo needs some attention. I just can't seem to get the time set aside though  .
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I have a 500mhz/768mb Pismo. The stock 12gb drive died when my daughter dropped it. So the Pismo sat idle until a very generous forum member donated a drive.
I nuked and paved it and put Tiger on it. The optical drive on my pismo has been dead for a long time, so I had to use my Macbook's DVD in target mode; that was pretty nifty.
I tried to keep the install as lean as possible because I'm using this as a file server, test MAMP server, itunes server, X11 client and dedicated bittorrent client. It's only been up for about a week, but everything has been going great. Tiger runs really well. I use vineVNC and JollyFastVNC and it's almost like being local over 100BT. The best part is that it only consumes 11W when I shut the screen down and ssh into it.
If you are going for performance over eyecandy. Make sure you install ShadowKiller and have TinkerTool disable all font smoothing. Set the background to a solid color too. Disable all services you won't need, including airport, bluetooth, windows sharing, remote apple events, etc.
I don't run OS9 on mine.
I'm really shocked how well a 10-year old computer runs with a fresh install of Tiger and an upgrade from a 4500 to 5400 rpm drive. I had 10.3.x on it before. 10.4.11 seems to run as well on my pismo as it did on my 1.2ghz g4 ibook except for video related tasks.
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Even a 400MHz G3 Pismo runs 10.4 great.
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Earlier this evening I came across an article on how beloved the Pismo is.
How are the screens holding up?
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DaviDC. wrote:
Earlier this evening I came across an article on how beloved the Pismo is.
How are the screens holding up?
Link? My screen is fine, but now I'm running headless so I'm not too concerned.
It's a beautiful 14" screen that's even bigger than that since it's 4:3 rather than the 16:10 ratio on the 13.3" macbooks.
Once can pick a used one up for under $30.
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To upgrade a Pismo: PRAM battery, HD, ram, and AirPort, only requires you to remove the keyboard.
I was amazed at the difference moving from the original 4GB Hd to a somewhat modern (from a PB G4 Al) 80GB made. My machine is a Lombard 333Mhz.
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We have 2 Pismos at home, running 10.4.something. 500MHz G3/768 RAM/30+GB 5400RPM HDs for both. They run great and I don't need a replacement for either as we have more powerful desktops for heavy lifting.
As for the screens: One is a little brighter and less yellow than the other and one has a looser hinge than the other. The hinges used to both be very good but we loaned one to a friend for less than a day and the damn thing comes back looser with more slack in it. @^%$#^%@$!!! Neither screen is nearly as bright as a new laptop (no surprise there) but IMO not as because they're way dimmer then when they were new but instead because today's new LCDs are just *way* brighter than new LCDs 9 years ago.
That said, I have 2 Wallstreets and one display is the same brightness as the Pismos and one is brighter— maybe that one was used less?? And yes, both also run 10.4.something w/wireless PC Card, 512MB RAM each and 20+GB HDs. But with 2 Pismos, the WSes don't get much use anymore.
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Catzilla wrote:
To upgrade a Pismo: PRAM battery, HD, ram, and AirPort, only requires you to remove the keyboard.
.
Uh, the HD is a bit more involved. You have to remove the daughtercard, heat sink and you need a T7 or T8 screwdriver to remove the HD from the tray. There are a few cables you can accidentally sever if you just start pulling. Putting the daughtercard back can be a bit scary since you need to use a lot of force to seat it correctly.
But compared to the ibook... it's so easy even a caveman could do it!
The white macbook is probably the easiest RAM/HD upgrade.
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Na, I have a broken Pismo in front of me, you do have to remove the heatsink, but's that's it.
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