Recycled Computing

Death of a PowerBook: Time to Go Intel?

- 2011.11.29

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Short link: http://bit.ly/tvZC0j

It's Thanksgiving, and I am thankful for family, friends, and Macs.

The power plug from the PowerBook G4.

However, my 12" PowerBook G4 may be down for the count. I have a power adapter issue. My old power adapter plug broke off inside the DC in socket inside of the G4.

Apple's yo-yo power adapter.

I bought a new power adapter and took apart the PowerBook. I manage to fish out the broken piece of the power adapter tip, but when I buttoned the old gal up and tried to power up, nothing happened.

Now I should give it one more try, but taking the old PowerBook apart is not for the faint of heart. As the accompanying pictures demonstrate, it is a major hassle. It's even a three ice cube tray job. (I sort the parts out in ice cube trays as I disassemble the computer.)

Disassembled 12-inch PowerBook G4
Disassembled 12" PowerBook G4.

I'm going to see if anything else in the power department is not kosher, but it has me making plans to pick up an Intel Mac.

Ice cube trays are great for holding small parts.

About time, right? Yes, it is. I have to buy at least a Intel Core 2 Duo, since Apple requires at least that to run OS X 10.7 Lion. I'm not to sure about upgrading from OS X 10.5 Leopard to Lion, but I'm more than willing to give OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard a shot.

I have some misgivings about Lion, and it is a stubborn unwillingness to give up AppleWorks. I guess I'm not all that excited about the touch interface on a Macintosh. I don't use Dashboard, which has been around since OS X 10.0, on Leopard, and I don't use Spaces so I can have multiple desktops. I just am a real pedestrian computer user and don't like change.

I might like some of the iCloud features, but I don't think that Apple is making a full effort for adoption of iCloud, which requires iOS 5 on your iDevices and Lion on your Macs. I've been thinking all sorts of positive thoughts, but I really feel that Apple should make an effort to bring iCloud to Snow Leopard. Right now, I can only conclude that Apple is somewhat halfhearted about the iCloud services. If you are going to do something, go all the way.

So on to the future, although with reservations.

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Recent Recycled Computing Columns

Mountain Lion Obsoletes the MacBook I Just Bought, 2012.02.24. John Hatchett just got his first Intel Mac, a preowned MacBook, in December, and now it looks like it won't be able to run OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
Improving Tablets: Why Not a Slider Keyboard?, 2012.02.20. Perhaps the biggest drawback of the iPad and other tablets is lack of a buil-in physical keyboard. Many phones have slider keyboards....
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More in the Recycled Computing index.

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