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Got two Pismos 400 for my granddaughters when they started college 6 and 7 years ago. They have been very rough on them. One dropped it and had to replace HD, well it was only 6GB so an upgrade was in order. The other somehow ruins the power suply low voltage cord and bends the connector.  Since they got new MBP after graduation I inherited them; the wife now uses one, almost 24/7(!), with no problems. Have upgraded HD to 40GB, memory to 500MB and installed AirPort card.
Running OSX 10.4.6

My luck with macs says that they last around 15 to 20 years hardware wise but become almost completely obsolete after about 10.

The part with an absolute life expectancy is the screen.  The backlight for the LCD will eventually lose luminance, the screen will take on a pinkish tinge and then the backlight will fail altogether.  Mine is just starting to show this change.  I don't think you can get 15-20 years with any mac that has a built in LCD.  I run my PISMO at work by plugging it into a second screen.
As far as becoming obsolete - if they can not run the next version of MS Office they may be doomed.  There is a change in file format so if all documents need to be converted that would be bad.  On the other hand they can run System 9 so people who need that capability will keep them going.

Thanks everyone!  I will really miss this computer when I does go. So far the LCD is fine and it runs all the software I want.  I wish Apple would revive the Powerbook. The bays were among the best features. But then again, replacing the CD drive with a burner isn't necessary, huh?   I just hope the newer (hotter-temp-wise) laptops have the same longivity as the Pismo.

Mine is still going even though the PRAM battery is dead and battery doesnt hold a charge.. i basically keep it plugged in at work for a DVD player..

That's the problem I had with mine. They just kept getting dimmer and yellower. It looks OK on it's own, but put it next to another laptop and it's obviously not the same as it once was. That and it's just soooo damn slow. Different strokes, I guess, but I find Safari and Firefox barely tolerable and if it can't do that... I turned mine into a digital photo frame

So glad to see that interest in the Pismo is still alive.  I bought mine (lightly) used when it was less than a year old.  (The original owner just had to have the then-new Ti-Book.) It was loaded (for its day) with 500meg RAM and an Airport card.  I am currently running 10.3 and though it runs slower than my 12" aluminum Powerbook, the performance is quite acceptable.  Have never had any problems of any kind and it still looks nearly new. 

I still have the original battery plus a second one that I bought on ebay.  With both on-board I still can get 3+ hours of unplugged use.  My only other upgrade was to buy a CD-R drive for it (also from an ebayer).  It spends all its time on a desk tethered to a printer while i use the 12" PB for roaming the house.

I sometimes toy with the idea of replacing it with a new machine but just can't find a compelling reason to do so.

Long live the Pismo.

Last edited by mdensch (2007-10-13 4:50 am)

Antonio wrote:

adamjg wrote:

It is what it is - a portable B&W G3 in a fold-up box - an aging 2000 Cadillac - sweet but kinda showing it's age by now.

Aside from bus speed and the fact that it uses a G3, it is nothing like a B&W, and much more like an AGP G4, from which it borrows its logic board architecture. It even uses the same daughtercard socket.

I'll agree that it's showing it's age. I used one up until about two years ago. I couldn't do all that I'm doing now on one, but it would be fine for DVD watching, even on a television, as well as serving jukebox duties and checking email. It would also be a good workhorse for an older productivity suite, maybe Office 2001 or Office X.

I can see where a modern web browser might bog down the 400mhz version... especially Firefox, with lots of tabs open. However, I'm thinking maxing out the RAM would alleviate such an issue.

It would be a good portable for those who need to do lots of office stuff while on the road who might also want something to fulfill light entertainment/multimedia duties.

The analogy I was making was to the fact that it uses a G3 CPU at approximately the same same MHZ and bus speeds. I have a both a B&W G3 and a Pismo (as well as a couple of G4s) and I think that the speed comparison is apt between the two. I didn't mean that the Pismo was literally a portable B&W MOBO. Excuse me if I wasn't precise enough about the MOBO architecture but that wasn't really the point I was getting at.

Check out the video for this rare hot-rodded 900 MHZ Pismo with bright screen. I'm not trying to promote the seller -- just thought you Pismo enthusiasts might be interested.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Powerbook-G3-900-Po … dZViewItem

Last edited by adamjg (2007-10-18 6:15 pm)

The glossy isn't the issue. The backlight is the problem.

adamjg wrote:

Check out the video for this rare hot-rodded 900 MHZ Pismo with bright screen. I'm not trying to promote the seller -- just thought you Pismo enthusiasts might be interested.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Powerbook-G3-900-Po … dZViewItem

Thats one nice pismo. I was quite amazed because photoshop and word opened faster than on my G5 .

I had my Pismo upgraded to a G4 processor a couple of years ago so it would serve the kids for a long time to come. It was my first Mac, so I wasn't going to part with it. But, I wanted it to live a while longer.  I also upgraded the DVD-ROM drive to a DVD-R burner so the kids could make easy backups when homework age comes around. In all, I believe I spent less than a new iMac or Macbook, and I get to keep my Pismo around. Win-win.