Old Tech

I suppose the name says it all.  And any old MacHead will immediately recognize the model, the Powerbook G3 "FireWire", AKA the "Pismo."  One of the great old warhorses of the powerbook line.
It was reading about the Pismo that actually pushed me over the edge into "accumulating" these old machines.

My Pismo, running OS X Tiger, with iTunes up to play a CD this evening.

I'd originally intended to pull out my G3 Wallstreet and fiddle with it, but for one reason or another, the Pismo ended up out and charging up.  I haven't used it in ages, and that's a shame.

This was my second Mac, and the first I ever really opened up and did work on.  That's why this model is so well loved.  Just flip the keyboard clips, and you're into the guts of the machine.  No playing with screws or such.  Amazingly, I didn't dry the poor thing while just installing memory.  This was the first system I installed Classic on, where I learned to "bless" system folders...  Funny thing:  I spend more time with the Classic emulator running on this system. than anything else.  I should've just set it up to dual-boot, but I've never had a problem.

Writer Tamara Keel, in an article on the website Low End Mac described the G3 Wallstreet (ancestor of the Pismo) as looking "...businesslike, still modern in appearance, maybe even faintly menacing. The person using a computer that looks like this is obviously writing another New York Times bestseller, leveraging a corporate buyout, or hacking into a Russian aerospace company's mainframes in a Hollywood thriller."  The Pismo shares that same aura.  The jet-black, curvy case (leaner and sleeker than the Wallstreet) does make it seem like you should be breaking into that Russian aerospace company real soon now... 

I've got U2 playing right.  "Last Night on Earth."  Kind of fitting for this "faintly menacing" old friend of mine.

Now, time to go write that New York Times bestseller.........