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| Pismo Powerup Part One |
| Written by Jacob Head | |||||
| Tuesday, 06 February 2007 | |||||
My trek to Pismo paradise
 When the third and final line of the PowerBook G3s, codenamed “Pismo”, was debuted in early 2000, it was widely claimed to be the most innovative portable ever designed. Taking the advantageous dual-bay concept of the Wallstreet/Lombard and adding in modern technologies such as Firewire 400 and AGP graphics, it was seen as a true product of the early Steve Job’s Era. Now, 7 years later and three processor generations behind, the Pismo is still in demand with an active third party market. What is it about the Pismo that is so fascinating, so intriguing, that sane, reasonable people go far out of their way in their time and cash get their hands on one? After a week of thought, I decided that, whatever my option would be, I was certainly going to build it. A quick Google search informed me that I’m not alone on this trek, and I quickly immersed myself in schematics, long forum posts and long forgotten websites. I had reached a new level of nerdiness: I wasn’t just going to build a Mac; I was going to build a laptop. A laptop from scratch. And, because it was obvious that this was the aim of several of my fellow Mac modders, I decided I was going to write about the entire process. Hence, this and subsequent articles. So, I needed something easy. It didn’t take me very long to realize that the series would be on the Pismo. 
The Pismo is an amazingly simple notebook to piece together. While this was certainly attractive, the upgrade options were the final selling point. A fully equipped Pismo is very versatile and well equipped for my needs; I could have a 550MHz G4 (or, if I could find it, a 1GHz G3), a full gig of RAM, a 120GB HDD, a SuperDrive, a bright, brand new screen, AirPort and even Bluetooth. If all that weren’t good enough, I was quick to determine that two high capacity batteries would actually last me around 12 hours! Of course, this brought in the price point objection, yet again. However, with the Pismo, even an originally equipped one, found very cheap on eBay, would suffice on a limited basis. I could slowly upgrade as my money trickled in. It was a compromise that I could make. 
So where do I start hunting for my Pismo pieces? Before I even began I had to come up with a list of parts. After some research, I was able to put together a complete list (see below left)—and of course, my Apple Service Manual also helped.  Searching eBay yielded promising results. While it was certainly possible to buy a used, fully working Pismo for a few hundred bucks, I was attempting to go as cheap as possible. After all, if God didn't want us to mooch off people, He wouldn't have given us friends! A quick few IMs and some e-mails were able to fetch me a nice cache of Pismo materials, hitherto good for only collecting dust. After a few dollars for shipping, I had everything save the keyboard, daughter card, RAM, Airport card, hard drive, battery, screen (the one pictured below didn't work) and optical drive. I was even able to get a power adapter; essentially all the things that cost the least amount of money. Of course, I had no idea whether any of this stuff worked, but it was a start. I scrubbed everything down with alcohol and meticulously cleaned each part, using a few cans of air and LOTS of Q-Tips. Not only did I drive my wife crazy, but as I was cleaning I became intimately familiar with each component. This is definitely recommended if you're following in my steps--we'll talk more about this later. 
Since I only spent a few dollars in shipping thus far, I decided that I would go ahead and upgrade some things immediately. But what do I boost first? And what company? This is where the real fun began. As El Guapo would say, I had a plethora of choices. FastMac, Sonnet, Other World Computing and Daystar all provided upgrades for the Pismo. FastMac was the ideal choice, as their lineup was the most extensive. I always like to keep with one provider as to keep everything to a single point of accountability. Luckily, FastMac was kind enough to provide their lineup for review. Absent, AirPort, Bluetooth and screen, it was everything I needed.
Because the average Joe Modder may not want to spend the money to get all of these upgrades, I'll be providing review information on each of these respectively, with my final thoughts at the end. Next article I'll talk more extensively on putting your Pismo together, and we'll take a crack at FastMac's 550MHz G4 processor. There's a lot ahead, so stay tuned. Until then, keep Moddin!
*Apparently no longer available. A 40GB is available here.
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