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Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

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Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#31

Post by jonhohle »

immy wrote: post #28
Mainan_Tagonist wrote: post #19

Hummm, i still prefered my Ti-book, to be honest, and would be very happy for a modern version of it.

versus a 15” Air, what are you missing?

Ports (TiBook had Ethernet, modem, full sized DVI, FireWire, USB, optical audio, s-video, and PCMCIA), upgradable memory and storage, replaceable battery, and an illuminated Apple logo ;-)

I can’t remember if it was the 2012 or 2016 MBP, but it was about 10 years between the TiBook and the next Apple portable with as accurate color representation. It was even longer before another Mac laptop had a screen as thin with bezels as small.

Picking mine up for the first time in several years, I’m shocked at how huge and heavy it was. In its day it was 30-50% thinner and lighter than a high end Dell.

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#32

Post by amatecha »

atdrummond wrote: post #27
gumby wrote: post #22

I had a Pismo and it was great, but IMHO the greatest of that generation was the 2400c which was the smallest powerbook, great for anyone who spent a lot of time flying around. It was designed and built by IBM Japan, which was lucky for me when I spilled tea into mine...while I was in Tokyo. I was able to get a same day repair by walking it over to some random shop in the Akihabara (apple sent me there) where some gu…

I’ve spent years trying to get back to the sub-12” notebooks of that era. I’ve recently settled on using an iPad Pro 10 inch. I would prefer a proper OS but 95% of what I do I can do with iOS.

You might like the ThinkPad X230 which is a pretty nice compromise between compactness and modernity (can run latest Linux/BSD, probably Windows though not sure why someone would want to do that lol) .. has been my daily driver for a couple years. :)

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#33

Post by blacksmith_tb »

duxup wrote: post #6

It was a good read. However, other than the speedy OS upgrade, and maybe a lot of ports, I'm not sure what the "better 20 years ago" parts were, but maybe that was more of a random line / opinion type thing. Either way fun read and visually that laptop is still pretty pleasing. I love my MBA but ... wouldn't mind if it was a bit more organic looking like the G3.

Imagine a modern MBP letting you turn one screw and release a couple of latches to lift out the keyboard for upgrades...

I had a Pismo, which I got with my student discount (and it was still crazily expensive I remember, but not quite how much). It was a good machine, being able to swap batteries / drives / PC cards was slick (sure, now we have usb-c, but where's the clever engineering in that?)

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#34

Post by amatecha »

duxup wrote: post #6

It was a good read. However, other than the speedy OS upgrade, and maybe a lot of ports, I'm not sure what the "better 20 years ago" parts were, but maybe that was more of a random line / opinion type thing. Either way fun read and visually that laptop is still pretty pleasing. I love my MBA but ... wouldn't mind if it was a bit more organic looking like the G3.

better 20 years ago: doesn't spy on you, doesn't auto-update and wipe your external drive, doesn't have constant UX regressions in every new version, doesn't harass you to sign up to cloud services, doesn't hit a network service to validate every application you run, can actually be repaired yourself, can actually be upgraded yourself... etc.

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#36

Post by freeqaz »

jonhohle wrote: post #31
immy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

versus a 15” Air, what are you missing?

Ports (TiBook had Ethernet, modem, full sized DVI, FireWire, USB, optical audio, s-video, and PCMCIA), upgradable memory and storage, replaceable battery, and an illuminated Apple logo ;-) I can’t remember if it was the 2012 or 2016 MBP, but it was about 10 years between the TiBook and the next Apple portable with as accurate color representation. It was even longer before another Mac laptop had a screen as thin with…

My grandma had one of these and I loved it. Great machine!

I definitely prefer a modern machine because of speed, portability, and battery life. I'd consider picking up one of these just for nostalgia sake though to use for fun side projects.

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#37

Post by JeremyHerrman »

gumby wrote: post #22

I had a Pismo and it was great, but IMHO the greatest of that generation was the 2400c which was the smallest powerbook, great for anyone who spent a lot of time flying around. It was designed and built by IBM Japan, which was lucky for me when I spilled tea into mine...while I was in Tokyo. I was able to get a same day repair by walking it over to some random shop in the Akihabara (apple sent me there) where some gu…

Came here to also praise the 2400c. I finally restored mine to working condition just last week after finding a donor screen from a parts machine.

Excellent build quality thanks to IBM Japan who thankfully incorporated the inverted T arrow keys, a first for an Apple notebook, which still persists to today's MacBooks. The 2400c excellent build quality also doesn't suffer from poor hinges like the PowerBook 500/5300/1400c models.

The processor is on a daughterboard allowing the 2400c to be upgraded to a G3, and the modding scene out of Japan has brought a ton of interesting upgrades like translucent cases and keyboards.

The main problems the 2400c suffers from are leaky PRAM batteries and other issues causing the dreaded Green Light of Death (GLoD), where the machine won't boot without hardware replacements like a new processor card.

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#38

Post by helf »

JeremyHerrman wrote: post #37
gumby wrote: post #22

I had a Pismo and it was great, but IMHO the greatest of that generation was the 2400c which was the smallest powerbook, great for anyone who spent a lot of time flying around. It was designed and built by IBM Japan, which was lucky for me when I spilled tea into mine...while I was in Tokyo. I was able to get a same day repair by walking it over to some random shop in the Akihabara (apple sent me there) where some gu…

Came here to also praise the 2400c. I finally restored mine to working condition just last week after finding a donor screen from a parts machine. Excellent build quality thanks to IBM Japan who thankfully incorporated the inverted T arrow keys, a first for an Apple notebook, which still persists to today's MacBooks. The 2400c excellent build quality also doesn't suffer from poor hinges like the PowerBook 500/5300/14…

Do you have yours upgraded to the japanese g3 240mhz? (Or any g3?). Curious about how it performs.

Have you run BSD or anything on it or just classic macos?

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#39

Post by jwells89 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #29

My favorite Mac laptop was my first one, a 12" G4 Powerbook. Perfect in every way. I still miss that laptop, used it up until OS X Tiger went EOL, and even a little past that with TenFourFox browser.

The 12" MacBook was in a lot of ways the spiritual successor to the 12" PowerBook and was hard to beat for portability. It's a shame it was hobbled by the hot and weak Intel CPUs of its era and butterfly keyboard… if they resurrected that form factor with an M-series CPU and improved keyboards of modern MacBooks it'd be a wonderful little machine.

Re: Greatest “Classic” Mac Laptop: Powerbook G3 Pismo (2021)

#40

Post by jwells89 »

Mainan_Tagonist wrote: post #19

Hummm, i still prefered my Ti-book, to be honest, and would be very happy for a modern version of it.

Its durability issues aside, the TiBook more or less became the template modern laptop. Easily one of the most timeless apple portable designs.
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