Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Maxed Out WallStreet Runs Tiger Quite Nicely

- 2008.05.05

Bookmark in del.icio.us

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

Some of the following may seem a bit far-fetched and it may sound like I'm stretching the truth, but I swear that I've been nothing but lucky with building up this WallStreet, which originally started out as an experiment.

My PowerBook happens to be an almost maxed-out WallStreet (300 MHz G3, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, running OS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.4.11 via XPostFacto). I paid $10 (plus shipping) for it using Buy It Now on eBay. When it arrived, I was shocked at the condition! The screen was nice and bright, with very little yellowing and only one dead pixel, and the case had very little by way of scuffs and scratches. The CD drive worked, and the battery was decent, if not full capacity. The 2 GB hard drive had OS 9.2.2 on it, and there was 32 MB of memory on the processor card. The PRAM battery was (and remains) dead, though. But not bad for $34!

I put another $30 into it for the 300 MHz processor (it was originally a 233 MHz Series II), and the drive and memory were from an old Dell laptop that was given to me. On top of snagging the processor for $30, I got five parts machines and a Macally USB 1.1 card and dongle from the seller, who just happened to live local to me! Luck upon luck, he also supplied me with four batteries, of which two were almost at full capacity!

I dropped another $10 into a SYBA USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, $10 for a Bluetooth dongle, and had an old Belkin 802.11G wireless card (Broadcom chipset; Siemens Gigaset 54 cards work too) laying around that the 'Book recognizes as an AirPort Card. So for about $85, some spare parts, and some minor elbow grease, I've got a rugged and solid notebook that goes with me everywhere and runs for about 4-1/2 hours on dual battery power!

WallStreet PowerBook G3 I use my machine for synching my iPod nano, pulling pictures from my camera and viewing them in iPhoto 5.0.4, email, surfing the 'net, and, get this, writing Dreamcast games as a hobby! What amazes me about this machine that, even in its original configuration as a 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM 'Book, it still ran the Fenix (scripting language similar to Java that I use to write my games) runtime at full speed! Using Pixen and Seashore (two freeware programs with very little overhead) as my graphics programs, I'm able to use my wireless mouse and do pixel art for my games. And all of this in OS X . . . on a WallStreet!!

How does it run? Well, it's no speed demon for sure, but it's very useful. With the memory maxed out, Tiger runs at a respectable clip, with very little stuttering. Dashboard and Spotlight can be turned off to speed things up even more, but I didn't find it necessary to do so and turned them back on. Safari, iPhoto, and iTunes are decent performers, with Mail being a bit laggy when checking for new messages, but not annoyingly so. iTunes plays all of my music very nicely without too much of an overhead hit, and if I keep my concurrent app count down to less than six, there's no slowdown to be seen.

Video? Forget it. Enough said there, unless you're doing all of your editing in OS 9, and even then, the programs available are quite out of date. Viewing the newer Flash videos is an exercise in stuttering frustration.

Music and sound? Well, I haven't tried any music programs out except for an old version of Garage Band, and it was way too slow to be of any use. There may be a low overhead music program out there somewhere for OS X, but I haven't investigated this yet. For music and sound editing, I have to boot into OS 9 and use Virtual PC 4 and Modplug Tracker to do my music and sound conversions.

So to sum this all up - if you're willing to max out a WallStreet and can do it on the cheap, you'll have a useful, solid PowerBook for whatever you need it for, as long as you aren't running ten apps at one time or editing DVDs with it.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Recent My Turn articles

Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
More in the My Turn index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: iMac Core Duo, Jan. 2006 - The first Intel-based iMacs ran at 1.83-2.0 GHz, came with 17" and 20" displays.
Group of the Day: Mac Pro List is for those using a Mac Pro.
November 23 in LEM history: 99: Should I buy a USB card? - 01: Can a low-end Mac be an only Mac? - Palm Desktop without a PDA - CyberDog saves the day - 05: How Consumer Reports could compare Macs fairly - Speakers for your Mac - Living with the hi-res 15" PowerBook - Birth of the PowerBook - Daystar 1.9 GHz iMac G4 upgrade - 1.92 GHz PowerBook upgrade
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
Best Mac mini Deals, 11.16. Used 1.42 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.66 GHz Core Solo, $419; 2.0 Core 2, $450; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $769; Server, $990.
Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.