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My PowerBook is an Apple PowerBook G3 (FireWire), or "Pismo" and was purchased in July of 2000. The PowerBook also serves as a personal server for me at school. Thanks to the built-in Apache web server, FTP server, SSH, AFP, and SMB server in Mac OS X, all configurable with ONE button, my PowerBook is a powerful multipurpose internet server as well as my main personal computer, churing out mp3s in iTunes through my Harman/Kardon sound sticks (very cool). To see what I am currently hosting publicly on my web server, take a look here (it may be down, especially when I am away from school). Specs: The specs are boring, but the computer itself is not. In the fall of 2000 I turned my Pismo into a "Silver Pismo" similar to the silver Wallstreet PowerBook first done by Kouhei Mimura in Japan. I contacted Kouhei personally and purchased some "Tuffical" from him. He probably charged me too much for it ($50 for what he claimed would cover 2 PowerBooks) however it was enough to do 2 'Books and I was able to sell one third of it for $25 to some guy in NYC and I still have another third leftover which I will use to redo my Pismo once I permanently retire the machine. |
| In the summer of 2001, when my warrantee was about to expire I opened the back of the PowerBook and added the classic striped Apple logo. Contrary to popular belief, the "RetroBook" was NOT the first Pismo like this. Mine was, but I was too lazy to take pictures of it to post on AppleFritter. The idea wasn't all that original anyway, since it had been done before to an iBook. I made my Apple logo by printing out the colored stripes on regular paper using a regular old Epson Stylus 740i. Not too flashy or anything. |
| Also, in the spring of 2002 I was getting very tired of the poor keyboard navigation control in OS X and decided to purchase a real mouse to make my computer usage easier. At my local Costco I found a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer Wireless and a Microsoft Office Keyboard bundled together in one box for $80. It seemed like a good buy since the mouse sold for about $70 at that time alone. The keyboard also came in a cool black color with silver accents that matched my Pismo perfectly. So I bought it, and soon discovered that I didn't have the desk space for both the computer and the giant Microsoft keyboard. So therefore I devised this scheme: |
| I created a mounting platform of sorts, out of a stack of jewel CD cases and I taped a AA batter to the bottom to tilt the cases forward. Typing on the built-in keyboard or using the track pad didn't work well, but it gave me the desk space I needed. However I soon grew very tired of the crummy Microsoft mouse, which was very jerkey, ate through batteries, and was impossible to control accurately. The keyboard soon became very noisy as well. So the mouse and keyboard are back in the box and I have gone back to using the built-in keyboard and trackpad again (even for Photoshop work). |
| Around the same time I came across a dead bondi iMac. From it I kept the CD-ROM drive. I had a dead DVD drive lying around from my Pismo because the drive died in the summer of 2001. Luckily I was able to come across a dead Lombard and I pulled the DVD drive from it. So since I had a dead drive chassis lying around I worked on it a bit and fit the iMac's CD drive into the chassis. This is the result: |
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The drive actually works, although it has problems ejecting and closing. I'm glad that I did this because at the time I had lent my DVD drive out and had no way of playing CDs ormore importantly RIPPING CDs in iTunes. I also have an iBook (dual USB). For it I plan the following: 1. Remove all white paint inside the plastic
frame by dissolving it in rubbing alcohol.
© 2002 Dan Semaya |