Pismo 'a High Point in Apple's Product Line'
From Tom:
Hi Charles,
I couldn't help but love your recent articles (Handing Off My 17" PowerBook
G4 and Further
Upgrading My Pismo PowerBooks) about your Pismo PowerBooks, especially
since my only computer is a 500 MHz Pismo with a 40 GB 5400 RPM hard
drive and 768 MB of RAM running Tiger (OS X 10.4.11) like a champ. I'd
like to add my two cents' worth on what upgrades I would add in your
position, and which I would not.
First, a small note: I run the Pismo on broadband with an original
AirPort Card at home, and it's great. At work I have to use an HP
desktop, 2.4 GHz with 4 GB of memory, on a wired broadband
connection.
Using any of my four browsers (Safari and Camino are the fastest of them), my
Pismo is several times faster than the HP, which runs Windows Vista and
IE 8. I am neither kidding nor making this up. At both places, I
do a lot of stuff on
eBay, one of the slowest major sites around, and the Pismo is the
speed winner over the HP by a big margin. Can you believe it? I swear
it's true!
If I were
upgrading, I would first and quickly install 1 GB of RAM. My
present Pismo with 768 MB runs significantly faster than the one I had
with 512 MB. What it would do with a solid gig of RAM, which I will do
eventually, I can only imagine, but I know it will be a significant
boost.
As for Leopard, I don't think I would do it with the Pismos, even
with a gig of RAM. Leopard, even with that much RAM, seems not to be
all that quick or smooth, especially considering the Pismo's limited
VRAM. All indications are that it does best in the Intel Macs with 4
gigs of RAM. I'd max out the RAM in the Pismos and stick with Tiger for
the best performance.
In closing, I'd just like to say that the Pismo for me has been and
remains a high point in Apple's product line from the beginning. Name
one Windows-based laptop that is nine years old and can still get
around like a young laptop as the Pismo does, especially in comparing
its performance with modern Windows-based machines of more recent
vintage, with more power and RAM.
Much like Apple's overall quality and excellence, it's nearly
unbelievable but true!
God Bless,
Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your observations and advice.
I've ordered the RAM upgrade form Other World
Computing to take one of the Pismos up to 1 GB of memory, and it's
on its way. I hope to get hold of a Pismo internal wireless card
somewhere too, but am happy to report that since I switched to a
Linksys wireless router from the Belkin I had been using, the Buffalo
G54 WiFi CardBus card is working flawlessly.
I had an IBM ThinkPad of roughly 2000 vintage running
Windows XP here for a while a couple of years back, and the Pismo
running Tiger blew it into the weeds speed-wise. Actually, for Web
surfing, where not a lot of graphics support is required, there's not
much difference in page load speed between the Pismo and my Unibody MacBook.
After some sober second though, I've decided that
Leopard is a version too far for the Pismo, regardless of the amount of
RAM available, and the final deal-breaker was when it dawned on me that
I'd have to give up Classic Mode.
For browsers, I'm using Opera 10, Safari 4, and old Navigator 9 on
the Pismo. Perhaps I'll substitute Camino 2.0.1 for Navigator once I
get the RAM installed.
The Pismo is a remarkable computer, definitely one of
the best - if not the best - that Apple ever produced.
Charles
Please Try Leopard on Your Pismo
From Jesse:
Hi Charles,
I really liked your story on going back to your Pismo from a
17" PowerBook G4. Pretty
amazing that the little laptop can be enough power to not miss the
monster PowerBook too much.
I have a 400 MHz Pismo I bought off eBay. I have been running
OS X 10.4 with only 256 MB of RAM and the included 4200 rpm,
2 MB buffer Fujitsu hard drive that was already installed! I only
use it for light surfing/emails/chat, usually between commercials or on
the patio, but it works great.
I think I will save up some money and grab a new hard drive and RAM,
and it should really fly! Since I don't use it for traveling, I can
live with the shorter battery life from the faster hard drive. Is 576
MB RAM enough for a good boost?
I noticed you said that you used a Buffalo WiFi PC card. Wouldn't be
better to use an AirPort Card? This would give you back your PC Card
slot for the USB 2.0 you mentioned. Since you have two Pismos, the
Buffalo card would not go to waste.
If you decide to max out the memory on your Pismo, it would be a
great article if you loaded Leopard. This way, you could let us know
how well it works with the limited video the Pismo has installed -
especially since you use your Pismo for daily work. You could give a
better estimate of the pros & cons.
I have already decided that when Apple drops Tiger support, I will
install Ubuntu and just keep on going on my Pismo!
Hope you and Dan keep up the great work on the site.
Jesse
San Diego, Calif.
P.S. Here is my Mac family:
- PowerMac G5 DP 1.8 - OS X 10.5.8 / Ubuntu 9.04 (main)
- PowerMac G4 533 DA - OS X 10.4.11 (work)
- PowerBook G3 400 - OS X 10.4.11 (portable)
- iMac G3 400 - Xubuntu 6.06 (old work / backup)
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for the comments. I currently have 576 MB of
RAM in one of my Pismos, and I don't notice a whole lot of difference
in performance between it and the other one with 640 MB. One of my
Pismos had 256 MB installed when I got it, but that was back in
pre-Jaguar days, so not really a good comparison. It was mighty
sluggish running OS X 10.1.
A report from another reader who is currently running
Leopard on a Pismo (below) will probably interest
you.
I'm hoping to get an AirPort module for the Pismo,
although the Buffalo CardBus card is working flawlessly since I
switched to the Linksys wireless router.
I would be interested in hearing more about your
adventures with Ubuntu on your Macs. I installed SuSE Linux, and later
Yellow Dog Linux, on my old WallStreet back in the early
'00s, but I never really used it much.
Charles
Going the Full 1 GB in a Pismo
Greetings, Charles:
Just read your last few articles. I never realized that people would
be sensitive to the materials used in building computers, and that your
PowerBook G4 never really had the offending substances wear off. I
suppose that makes me really lucky as a technology enthusiast to not
have to worry about such allergies (or whatever would be the
appropriate term for that), because I'd probably be very sick, very
often!
On to the 1 GB Pismo thoughts. When I found that I could get two 512
MB (1 GB total) low-profile PC100/133 SDRAM SODIMMS for as little
as US$45 shipped, I began to consider it just a bit more seriously.
OS X Tiger really needs it, and OS 9 is just way too
constraining for me in my largely Windows-centric environment.
However, another reason why I'm looking into the old Pismo so much -
a machine I thought my TC1100 would
totally replace except for Mac-only apps - is the keyboard. Turns out
that the TC1100's detachable keyboard port had some pins snap during
normal use, so it's now stuck as a pure slate until I can source a
replacement connector (preferably without having to buy a whole
motherboard). Fine for OneNote
(where I only use the pen), but it really bogs me down whenever I just
need to punch in a lot of plain text, which is rather common given all
the papers I have to write as a college student.
I also think for a bit the real reason why I don't use that Pismo so
much - the nine-minute battery I can't afford to replace. It kind of
defeats the purpose of having a portable computer. Of course, 8 to 16
hours of potential battery life would be something only dreamed of
outside of certain netbooks, but I still can't justify blowing US$300
on new batteries for a nine-year-old laptop (soon to be a full decade).
There have to be better sources....
The dual-device usage, while making my mobile loadout significantly
bulkier, could have some advantages, however. I could bring up a Web
page and various documents on the TC1100 while leaving the Pismo screen
completely to Word, just one example of more productivity through more
screens. I'm sure to find out the interesting quirks of this approach
soon.
Anyway, good luck with those two Pismos. I'm looking forward to
hearing just what 1 GB can do from an OS X Tiger standpoint,
though you'll probably experience much better performance on those 550
MHz G4s compared to my rather pedestrian 400 MHz G3.
-Chris
P.S.: I know you got
broadband a while back, but does that make the Pismos feel
inadequate in any way? It did for me, to a degree, since a G3 400
struggles to do something as simple as play a low-quality YouTube
video, even with the help of VLC.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the observations.
MCS certainly does
turn one's life upside-down in a constellation of ways that I could
spend a long time describing, but I will spare you. Computers are just
one element of the challenge.
I can get 10+ hours battery runtime using two extended
life after-market batteries (I have two FastMac TruePower and one
NewerTech shared between the two machines). Whether it's worth the cost
of re-equipping with a replacement battery really depends on how much
you like the Pismo and how much longer you anticipate keeping it in
service. I'm guessing I'll still be using mine for at least another two
years - and quite probably longer than that - so I don't mind spending
a bit on upgrading. I also still have a third Pismo chassis-case, mobo,
and screen unit as a parts mule, although so far I have not needed to
utilize it.
Video is pretty hopeless on the Pismos, and there is
no real remedy with the poky old RAGE Mobility GPUs and non-upgradable
8 MB of VRAM. I just don't bother and do my video viewing on the
MacBook. Other than that, however, my Pismos are surprisingly good
performers on broadband.
Charles
Reviving Dead $50 Pismos Found on eBay
Charles,
Just wanted to tell you how much I've appreciated your columns over
the years about the Pismo. Though for a short time at the turn of the
century I was certain the Lombard was superior, the FireWire
on the Pismo soon won me over, and since then I've been waiting vainly
for Apple to produce anything that I'd prefer.
I've tried most of the later models over the years, my daughter has
moved from iBooks through MacBooks, my wife has a late model MacBook
Pro, but they break, they can't be easily fixed or worked on, and most
of all their battery life is generally appalling - they actually have
to use these things plugged in, which to me obviates the entire point
of a laptop.
I do go back every few years for a fresh battery, as I like to keep
at least 6 hours charge on it (I use two). I have maxed out to
1 GB RAM, which made a considerable difference, along with a good
fast hard drive (5400). I have the 550 Daystar G4 also. I have to admit
that not much is left of my original Pismo - I've been picking up
defunct Pismos on eBay for under $50 each, and surprisingly even though
they are supposedly dead, you can usually get them working simply by
swapping in a system battery from a currently working Pismo. I keep one
of these here and there, with appropriate software, for special
purposes. I use one with a USB mike setup to make ambient sound
recordings outdoors using Audio Hijack. I keep others as loaners, for
guests to use the Internet, or for my wife and daughter when their
latest and greatest fails.
It's surprising how similar it is in size and weight to recent
models; I don't think most people notice the difference. Everyone likes
the fine black finish and look - I can't believe Apple has actually
dropped black from its line in favor of that cheesy white or tin. I'm
still using (Mac OS X 10.3)
Panther, because I much prefer Sherlock to Spotlight, since it
simply finds everything by name with no fuss, while Spotlight is
mystifyingly unreliable. I use EasyFind
with Leopard on my Mac Pro,
but it is awfully slow. However, I am planning to upgrade soon to Tiger
in order to gain access to current version web browsers - there's not
much left for Panther. I'm using SeaMonkey, but support just
ended for their Panther version.
The killer app for me remains HyperCard. I spend half my day on it still,
mostly in Classic now (I rarely boot into OS 9 except when I need
rock solid performance and simplicity for HyperCard and printing). But
OS 9 browsers are just not there anymore. I've got a copy of
HyperCard going on my Mac Pro with SheepShaver, but I
haven't yet spent the time to get it fully functional.
Boy, would I love to see a video upgrade for Pismo. Or a much faster
G4 processor, though the 550 is certainly very useable. But on the
whole, I can't believe how this computer, now in it's 10th year, keeps
up so well with just about anything that gets thrown at it. (Note: I do
not attempt to edit HD video on this machine.) And it is nice to see
your column now and then to remind me that there are fellow travelers
out there too, holed up in the Canadian winter (I'm squirreled away in
rainy Wales).
Best wishes,
Bruce
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for the interesting report. You are an even
more consummate Pismo enthusiast than I am. Good on you for keeping all
those old Pismos alive. As with yours, mine are somewhat
breathed-on.
Unfortunately, G4 chips faster than 550 MHz are not
pin compatible with the Pismo processor daughtercard, so not much hope
of faster upgrades. Daystar was pondering development of a video
upgrade for the Pismo a few years back, but determined that the market
potential just didn't justify it. They have now discontinued all of
their Mac laptop processor upgrades, although FastMac and Wegener Media still have
them available.
Re: Spotlight - when you upgrade to Tiger, download
Spotinside. It's
free, and it works more like the way Spotlight ought to. I miss easy
filename searches with Sherlock, but you can still get that
functionality with Find
Any File, happily also free.
Actually, we haven't had much sign of winter here in
Nova Scotia yet, and November was nicer and warmer than October this
year. There is a middling big storm underway tonight. Starting as rain,
but forecast to turn to snow - about 10-15 cm, which will be our first
snowfall of the year in this part of the province.
Charles
PS: The snowstorm fizzled (no complaint from me) - not
enough buildup to more than just cover the ground, and it melted off
the driveway.
Pros and Cons of Using Leopard on a Pismo
From Charles B:
Hi Charles,
I'm currently running Leopard on my Pismo (installed via Leopard Assist).
I'm mostly satisfied, but my big beef is that Leopard doesn't seem to
recognize the battery being in the left bay; this led to recharging
problems. It recognizes the battery in the right hand bay and charges
it properly, but this means I have to go without the DVD player.
Another beef is that the video card is not fully supported. My
iPhoto Thumbnails show up okay, but when I double click on the photo,
it won't open it for editing.
I am thinking of ways to utilize both OSes. I am thinking of running
Tiger on my internal laptop drive and running Leopard on an external
hard drive. That way, when I am at home (most of the time), I can have
the benefit of running Leopard; when I am on the road, I can run Tiger
and make sure I have my battery running properly.
I have also thought about using Intech's ATA Hi-Capacity
driver to get around the 128 GB
limit to the ATA drive in the Pismo, but this seems too much like
voodoo, and you still have to have the first partition at 128 GB, so
the gains would not be all that great. The idea would be to run Tiger
on the first 128 GB partition and Leopard on the second partition of
about 180 GB (on a 320 GB ATA drive).
It is too bad that the Pismo doesn't officially support Leopard -
using Leopard I have started enjoying many features. As well as Apple
not supporting Tiger, developers are leaving Tiger behind. I have a
feeling I'll be running Tiger on my desktop and laptop(s) for a while,
even after I make the leap to the Intel Macs. After all, I still have
two Umax S900s and about three
Lombards that run OS 9!
As usual, I enjoy your column immensely. Keep us all posted as to
what happens!
Regards,
Charles B.
Hi Charles,
Thanks for the experiential observations. This is
useful information. I'm still mulling it over, and one thing that
occurred to me after I posted the column is that with Leopard I would
lose Classic Mode support, which is probably the deal breaker for me. I
would lose more productivity by not being able to run certain key
Classic apps. on the Pismo than I would gain from such productivity
enhancers as Spaces and QuickLook in Leopard.
Your booting Leopard from an external hard drive is
intriguing, though. I always partition my hard drives, and living with
128 GB partitions would be no hardship. My current largest capacity
hard drive in one of the Pismos is 100 GB.
I still have an S900, although it hasn't been booted
in quite a while, and my daughter also has one - hers upgraded to a 500
MHz G3.
Thanks for the kind words.
Charles
Hi again,
My further observations are: Apple sure doesn't make this easy on us
users. I just tried to buy an iPhoto album with my G4 Sawtooth running iPhoto 5.
Well, when I went to purchase it, I was told that Apple no longer
supports iPhoto 5 for purchases, please upgrade! I have been holding
off upgrading my Sawtooth, because I don't want to run different
operating systems on my Sawtooth and my Pismo (for simplicity's sake, I
like to have as much the same as possible).
I bought the Leopard/iLife/iWork
multipack, so I can upgrade both (my Sawtooth has an upgraded
processor and video card). But, then I lose being officially supported
on my Pismo, and I lose the ability to run Classic, and some other
nice-to-have apps I own (like Photoshop 7, and even Virtual PC 5, among
others).
My solution was to just buy a new Intel Mac (just what Apple wants,
I suppose). But why upgrade when I am perfectly happy with my hardware?
In all eventuality, I will buy a new Mac - someday.
I think the schoolbook solution for me right now is to buy (off
eBay) a copy of iLife that will run on Tiger so I can buy that album.
As well, since there are no more security updates for Tiger coming from
Apple, I guess my time is limited - I will have to upgrade to Leopard
anyway, or even Snow
Leopard via an Intel Mac.
So where does this leave me? Well, right now, I'm typing this on my
Pismo in Leopard. As long as I am just doing basic email/surfing and
other basic tasks, it works great! I have my battery in the right bay,
and the left bay is empty. The Battery Monitor is reading the charge
correctly, and it charges properly, which it wasn't doing in the
left-hand bay. I lose the ability to have a DVD drive, but I rarely use
it. If I need to install something, or import a CD, I can just hook up
my external drive via FireWire.
The lack of video card support is going to be a show-stopper for
some apps, but I can get by without those apps if I just concentrate on
doing email/surfing/light word processing and light iPhoto tasks.
Here's a joke: I was playing around with an old Lombard I have, and I
was doing email/surfing and old photo organizing with it, and I was
running it under OS 8.6!
Oh well, I guess that is a lesson in planned obsolescence for me! Of
course, the Lombard was running OS 8.6 (and Classilla! Thank you very much, everybody
at the Classilla project!), and it was not as fast and seamless as the
G4 Pismo running OS X Leopard, but it still got the job done. And
I was able to use old software that won't run in OS X, not even on
a PowerPC.
So where does this leave me? I guess it has me continuing to run a
menagerie of old Mac's and PowerBooks, something I will continue to do
even when I eventually do purchase an Intel Mac.
My other project for my Pismo will be to install that Hi-Cap ATA
driver so I can run Tiger on one partition and Leopard on another with
as much drive space as possible. I reread the manual - and the
limitations of the driver are several (can only have 2 partitions on
the drive, the partitions can only be HFS Journaled, not
case-sensitive, etc.), but I think it will work for my situation
Good luck!
- Charles B.
Hi again Charles,
Thanks for the further musings.
Of course, the really amazing thing is that we can run
modern, fast operating systems on these nearly 10-year-old laptops at
all, let alone with reasonably liveliness and support for most
features!
Not sure if Vista (let alone Windows 7) would install
on a year 2000 vintage PC laptop, but I don't imagine performance would
be tolerable.
Charles
Still Love My PowerBook 1400s
From Joe:
Charles:
Read your recent post with much interest. After years of enjoying
and using PowerBook 1400s, which
I plan to continue on doing, a couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade
and get a refurbished Pismo. Got a lovely 400 MHz one with 512 KB RAM
and a 40 GB hard drive and working DVD drive from seller sfpratt on
eBay for about $147 shipped. Wish I had taken the Pismo plunge earlier!
Great keyboard, nice screen, perfectly adequate speed for most web
tasks. The size is perfect for me to use compared to most current
netbooks, which are really not lap-friendly. I got an extra used
battery and a set of four rubber feet; also had to get a set of screws
from ifixit.com for $10 to get all
of the screws back in the lower case. Great machine - I hope for many
years of writing enjoyment with it. I have higher-power machines if I
need to see any web videos, which is the only performance issue with
the Pismo.
Still love my PB 1400s - I am up to six units that all work, though
some will no doubt be parts mules in the future. I keep buying them on
the cheap to get RAM cards - cheaper to buy the used machines than pay
Wegener for RAM.
Just got some of the Lucent cards, and it has been fun to text-surf
using the 1400s. I have become a fan of the text-only BBC news website.
I'd still love to find one of the Sonnet
Crescendo [466 MHz G3] cards at a decent price one of these days,
but $300 seems like a bit of overkill - heck, I can apparently get two
other Pismos for that price! But there's something about the look and
feel of the 1400s that keeps me hooked. It's sturdy, elegant, and keeps
me focused on writing rather than doing other "less productive"
things.
Recent Apple hardware seems to have some build issues, but I have
certainly been impressed by the lifespan of my PB 5300s, 1400s and, I'm
hoping, the "new" Pismo.
Thanks for all of your ongoing writing about these lovely older Macs
- they definitely set a bar for excellence in computing that's hard to
beat.
Joe
Hi Joe,
I still have a PowerBook 5300 and a 117 MHz 1400cs that
work, but they don't get much use. I'm pretty addicted to my Pismos,
both of which are now past their ninth birthday and still in fine
fettle. One or the other typically gets 3 to 4 hours use daily. Both of
mine have 550 MHz G4 processor upgrades, 8x SuperDrive modules, and I
finally have a RAM upgrade on the way from Other World Computing to
bring one of them up to full 1 GB capacity.
I'm pretty smitten with my aluminum Unibody MacBook,
however, even with the "no FireWire" aggravation, and it's the second
Mac laptop since the Pismo that I think is a worthy candidate for best
Mac notebook model ever (the other being the 12" aluminum PowerBook).
Charles
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