- 2006.04.26
A few days ago, I was talking with a friend of mine at work. We were
talking about computers, and I was told him about how I acquired my
Apple Lisa (You can
read more about that in my article Retro
Computing: First Impressions of a Newly Acquired Apple Lisa).
Anyway, when I told him how I acquired my Lisa, he piped up and
said, "Hey, Ted, I have an old G3 Mac laptop that I bought from a
friend of mine for $20, but I have no use for it. Do you want it?"
The first question that I asked myself was, "I wonder how he got it
for so cheap?" So I asked him, and he said that his friend got it from
his Dad, who had used it at his office. His friend didn't want it, so
he sold it.
I figured it was either a Kanga or a WallStreet. Wondering which
one it was, I asked him if it had a solid white Apple Logo on the top.
He said it did, so I was sure it had to be a Wall Street.
Then I asked him how much he wanted for it. I'd given him $5 earlier
so he could get some lunch, since he forget his wallet at home, so he
said, "Give me another $5, and we'll call it even."
I said, "Cool, sounds great."
So the next day I went over to his house and picked it up - little
did I know what I was getting.
I got a laptop bag,
power adapter, and a Lombard
PowerBook G3. I was really surprised that it was a Lombard, so I
knew I got a good deal from a really good friend - it's the 400 MHz
model with 320 MB RAM, 6 GB hard drive, and DVD.
Mike, if you're reading this, thank you again. It means a lot. Now I
can be working (or playing) while I'm on the road. For instance, I'm
writing this at the dentist's office while my sister is getting her
teeth cleaned.
It only has a few problems:
- There is a dent on the screen near the bottom. It looks like
someone might have dropped something on the screen. It's not bad
though.
- Graphics performance in OS X isn't great due to no 3D acceleration
(see Rage at Being Left Behind for
more on that topic),
- The battery is dead. That's not a really big problem, but it's so
dead that the computer doesn't even stay asleep on battery power - the
battery has so little power that the 'Book shuts off. I'm sure I can
find an inexpensive used battery that works on
eBay.
Even with those problems, you can't beat it for $10.
Anyway, I can't wait to watch DVDs, surf the Web, play games, and
write articles while I'm on the road. All I have to do is get a working
battery. 
