The Productive Mac

New Homes for 3 WallStreet PowerBooks

- 2006.04.07

A few days ago I had an opportunity to get some WallStreet PowerBooks. They were from one of my local suppliers, and he was offering me a whole box of them and a bunch of parts for one price.

I thought about it for a while, then decided, sure, why not. I'd never owned a WallStreet before, and I thought it would be really cool to have one. With all that expandability, the cool looking case, and a large screen, what's not to like?

So I called him back up and said, "Bring them on over." A few hours later they were at my house, and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found in the box. There were three WallStreets: one 250 MHz model and two 233 MHz models.

There was also a ton of extra parts: a bunch of CD-ROM drives, a DVD-ROM drive, some floppy drives, extra power adapters, batteries, extra screens, sticks of RAM, and a whole lot of extra case parts.

PowerBook G3 SeriesThe first 'Book I pulled out was the 250 MHz model. When I opened the screen, it immediately fell back down. Darn, the hinges must be worn out. I was glad I had all those extra parts - I found a new pair of hinges in the box. So I removed the display, took it apart, and replaced them. It was good as new.

Then I powered it up for the first time. It was running OS 8.6 and it had 64 MB of RAM. Thinking I would probably keep this machine, I went ahead and did some upgrading. I first upgraded the RAM to 128 MB, then did a clean reformat and install of OS 9.2.2. I'd like to upgrade the RAM eventually and possibly install OS X to see how it runs, but for right now it's a nice speedy little machine running OS 9 that's great for Internet usage and word processing. In fact, I'm typing this on it right now.

After messing around with the first unit for a few hours, I decided I'd move on to the next WallStreet. When I opened this one up, the hinges were still nice and tight. I'm glad, because it saved me some work. This unit was a 233 MHz model with 32 MB of RAM. I went ahead and put in another 32 MB stick, bumping it up to 64 MB. I also installed OS 9.2.2. While I can't run as many applications at the same time as I can the other one, it's still plenty fast and works fine running the Classic OS.

There's a lady from our Mac user's group, MacCORE, who's been asking me about a portable computer for a long time. She was running on a Beige G3 minitower for a while, until I upgraded her to a Rev B iMac. She still wants a laptop computer, and this would be the perfect machine for her. I'll offer it to her at the next meeting.

While a haven't installed many applications on the one I want to keep yet, I have found myself using it more than my TiBook. It's quite a great machine for basic tasks, and I think it will get a lot of use in the future and will probably be a machine I'll hold on to.

If you ever get an opportunity to get a WallStreet cheaply, I urge you to do so. The WallStreet is a remarkably good laptop (with the Classic Mac OS) that I'm sure you won't be disappointed with. LEM

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The Productive Mac articles copyright ©2005-06 by Thomas Ahart. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
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