a bit of creative thinking

[andygodwin]

hi all

i'm by no means a high end user, a G4 digi audio with 2 mon setup does fine for me.

my wife however wants a new imac, intel etc, "my old one is too slow for all my photos".

she has a point, it is a G3 "blueberry" but is a 600meg proc and 60 Gig HD and i loathed to get rid of it. i also have an old pismo that also struggles with running tiger.

any ideas as to what i can do with these 2?? any parts i can salvage or combine? can i get the ram out of the imac and put it in the pismo to speed that up?

reegards andy

[MisterMe]

The Pismo is one of the best PowerBooks ever. It can do things that no subsequent PowerBook, iBook, or MacBook/MacBook Pro can do. Mine shipped with 128 MB RAM and 6 GB hard drive capacity. Several years ago, I upgraded the RAM with an additional 256 GB. It worked great with MacOS X 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. However, it was a struggle to run MacOS X 10.3.9 and do anything useful. That was until my hard drive failed. I replaced the 6 GB drive with a 120 GB hard drive. The difference is remarkable. I have now upgraded its OS to MacOS X 10.4.10 and all is well--almost. I will add replace one of the RAM sticks with a 512 MB stick.

Your wife's iMac probably has enough free hard drive space, but needs a RAM upgrade. If she has at least 6 GB hard drive space free, then she is fine on that account. She may need at least 512 MB RAM.

I will never recommend against buying a new Mac. However, these minor upgrades to your current computers combined will cost substantially less than buying a single new computer.

[Qion]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

The Pismo is one of the best PowerBooks ever.

I second that! Throw in a C2D and I'm set for life!

You could probably get around 300 dollars by selling both computers on eBay. Their parts are scrap, not worth anything; the only value they have is when they're all put together. I suggest getting your wife an inexpensive Mac Mini hooked up to a decent LCD display. If she likes working with pictures, that sub-$1,000 setup would be great.

[Natobasso]

U can't switch RAM, but you can max it out and buy a 7200rpm external firewire drive and watch the speed increase!

You might also want to consider Portfolio software from Extensis to organize and catalog all those photos so they are easy to find and annotate.

[fryke]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Mine shipped with 128 MHz RAM and 6 GB hard drive capacity. Several years ago, I upgraded the RAM with an additional 256 GB. (...) I will add replace one of the RAM sticks with a 512 MB stick.

Wow. I haven't seen such a mish-mash of information in a long, long while.

128 MHz is rather slow for a Pismo, I guess you meant 128 MB RAM. But if you added 256 GB to that, I hope you replace the _other_ stick with 512 MB, although if you already have over 200 GB of RAM, I don't think you'd notice a speed difference. :P (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[MisterMe]

Originally Posted by fryke

Wow. I haven't seen such a mish-mash of information in a long, long while.

128 MHz is rather slow for a Pismo, I guess you meant 128 MB RAM.

My original post has been corrected.

Originally Posted by fryke

But if you added 256 GB to that, I hope you replace the _other_ stick with 512 MB, although if you already have over 200 GB of RAM, I don't think you'd notice a speed difference. :P (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I upgraded my RAM because I had MacOS 9 apps that I needed to run better. They ran great after I upgraded to 384 MB RAM. This was the machine that transitioned me from MacOS 9 to MacOS X 10.0. Memory-intensive apps like QuickTime Pro and the Microsoft Office suite (Office v.X compared to Office 98) were noticably better behaved under MacOS X 10.0 compared to their MacOS 9 siblings with the same RAM. The 384 MB RAM continues to give great service even under MacOS X 10.4.10. Speed is not really the issue. The issue is that I have an app that finds my PowerBook G3 (Pismo)'s RAM insufficient to launch with other apps running. Lest there be any doubt about my knowledge of speed, my home computer is a dual 2.0 GHz PM G5 with 1 GB RAM, my desktop at work is a dual 2.5 GHz PM GHz PM G5 with 1 GB RAM, and I am also responsible for an eMac G4, an Intel iMac, three beige PM G3 towers, and three POS Dell towers.

[icemanjc]

I would deffinetely sell the Pismo on ebay, they go for a lot for there age. But not so much the iMac.