• I have a VERY OLD Mac - Where's a website to overclock, RAM out, serve up, etc?
• Want a Mac laptop but still need your PCI Cards?
• How to Open the CD/DVD Tray on G4 Quicksilver
• Where can I find instructions about replacing/upgrading components in my Mac?
• Should I install the software that came with my new Apple LCD Monitor?
• Where can I find User/Service manuals?
• The Airport reception on my Tibook (Powerbook G4) really stinks. What can I do?
• Ok, So I Scratched my TiBook/AlBook. What Can I do To Cover it?
• How do I enable Monitor Spanning on the iBook?
• Which Macs will only start up in OS X?
• I keep hearing about 'AltiVec' and 'Velocity Engine,' what are they?
• My trackpad is jumpy. How do I fix it?
• Where can I find detailed technical information on Apple Macintosh hardware?
• Where can I find documentation on disassembling my PowerBook/iBook?
• Where can I find general information on the PPC 970 (AKA G5)?

The Pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ

Also, prwood suggests Low End Mac

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by Livebeat56 edited by JJ
last modified: 2003-12-20 16:39:05

No problemo.....
magma
They have the answer and most if not all have OS9/X drivers.
Some are rack-mountable too.......

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by leXicon5 edited by tmpchaos
last modified: 2002-05-21 08:33:36

Listed in this AppleCare Knowledge Base Document is every safe way to eject a disk or get the tray to open.
Most of these will work on the new iMac as well.

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by leXicon5 edited by tmpchaos
last modified: 2002-06-19 10:10:01

Apple has posted instructions for dealing with what it calls "customer installable parts." The instructions are available for the following systems:
iPod
iPod shuffle

iBook G4 (Early 2004)
iBook G4 (14-inch Early 2004)
iBook G4, iBook G4 (14")
iBook (Opaque 16 VRAM), iBook (14.1 LCD 32 VRAM), iBook (32 VRAM)
iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM), iBook (16 VRAM)
iBook (Dual USB), iBook (Late 2001), iBook (14.1 LCD)
iBook, iBook (Firewire), iBook SE (Firewire)
Powerbook G4 (12-inch)
Powerbook G4 (15" FW 800)
Powerbook G4 (17-inch, 17-inch 1.33Ghz)
Powerbook G4 (867Mhz, 1Ghz)
Powerbook G4 (DVI)
Powerbook G4 (Gigabit Ethernet)
Powerbook G4
Powerbook (Firewire) aka 'Pismo'
Powerbook G3 Series (Bronze Keyboard) aka 'Lombard'
Powerbook G3 Series aka Wallstreet I and II

eMac (ATI graphics)
eMac
iMac G5
iMac (17" 1Ghz) and iMac (USB 2.0)
iMac (Flat Panel/17" Flat Panel)
iMac (Slot-Loading)
iMac (Original)
PowerMac G5 (June 2004)
PowerMac G5
PowerMac G4 (FW 800)
PowerMac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors)
PowerMac G4 (Quicksilver/Quicksilver 2002)
PowerMac G4 (Digital Audio)
PowerMac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet)
PowerMac G4 Cube
Xserve
Xserve (Cluster Node)
Xserve RAID
Xserve (Slot Load)

Cinema Display (20, 23, 30-inch DVI)
Studio Display 17 (ADC)

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by JJ
last modified: 2005-05-23 16:13:34

If your computer is running Jaguar 10.2.x, it is not needed. If your computer has 10.1.5 installed, please read the manual. Major problems will occur if the LCD monitor software is installed but not needed...we speak from experience!

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by hyperjoe edited by JJ
last modified: 2002-09-23 08:36:46

This site has the service and owner's manuals of many Macs.

Manuals

Ed note: This is a good site too.

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by mkcompu edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-02-09 14:11:04

First, try this procedure:

"[To improve my Airport reception] I was next instructed to eject the battery and look at the right side wall of the battery compartment where I was supposed to find an approximately 5 cm long plastic strip. (My particular powerbook doesn't have this visible -- instead, there is a plate with the serial number, etc...) Still, he told me to firmly press the side wall of the powerbook against the frame, just slowly and firmly pressing along its length several times for about 10 seconds. Next, he told me to replace the battery and start her back up.

I can't believe it, but my Airport's range is now like my iBook's!! I never could have done this from out here by the pool before, but here I am.

The reason for this as he explained it is, where I was told to press is where the antenna runs alongside the framework of the Powerbook. Sometimes it isn't situated just right, or gets out of whack from having been shipped or something. Pressing it puts it back into proper contact with whatever needs to be touching."

If your reception is still unsatisfactory you can purchase a wireless card for your PCMCIA card slot.

• For OS X:
  Make sure to buy one of the cards supported by WirelessDriver, listed in the FAQ of the site (be advised that this driver is not guaranteed to work with future X releases.) There is also a commercial driver.
  
  
• For OS 9:
  The card manufacturer will provide these drivers, so check with them to see if it will work before you buy.

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by mkcompu edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-01-20 11:15:32

Buy some TiPaint and apply according to the directions.

In some cases, you may even be able to get the metal on the TiBook replaced by Apple since it was an industrial design problem: the paint used was not designed for titanium. This is only if you are under AppleCare.

If you've scratched your aluminum Powerbook, then you need this.

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by mkcompu edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-05-20 16:34:29

The iBook comes standard with video "mirroring". Using a simple, pretty much harmless Firmware hack, monitor "spanning" can be turned on. First I'll tell you the difference between the two:

• Mirroring- When an external monitor is hooked up, the same image is displayed on both the iBook and the external monitor.
  
  
• Spanning- When an external monitor is hooked up, the iBook will have one desktop and the external monitor will have another one, separate from that of the iBooks. This will allow you to drag windows between the two monitors. For example, while doing a research paper, you can have a web browser open in one monitor and AppleWorks in the other.
  

The Warning: This is for educational purposes only!! If you wish to try this on your iBook, ATM, DSLR, me, and the author of the hack are not responsible for any data loss or damage to your computer. Please only try this if your computer meets the requirements (listed below). THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY

Requirements-
iBook 700-800MHz
w/ RADEON Mobility chipset with at least 16 MB of VRAM. DO NOT TRY THIS ON A RAGE-based iBook.

What to do: (thank you to macparts.de for posting this. Original hack at: Rutemoeller)

This hack works for OS X as well as OS 9.

1st - Disconnect all external Monitors (may not be needed)

2. restart your iBook. Hold down the Command(apple)-Option-O-F keys immediately after the start-up chime to enter Open Firmware.

3. Enter the following text, please note 00000000 are eight zeros not o's. Also note all spaces, they will be shown as *, Do not type them as *'s but as spaces. any space not shown as * should not be typed, and (r) means press the return key. { Press Control-C } means to press the "ctrl" and C buttons.

nvedit(r)
"*/"*select-dev(r)
00000000*"*graphic-options"*get-my-property*2drop*!(r)
{ Press Control-C }
nvstore(r)
setenv*use-nvramrc?*true(r)
reset-all(r)

The last command will restart your iBook

4. When the iBook has started up, plug in a external monitor (I usually put the iBook to sleep before doing this, you can probably just plug one in on the fly)

5. The screens should mirror. Go to Displays in System Prefs. Then to the "Arrange" tab. Then deselect "mirror displays". (If using OS 9, open the monitors control panel and do the same thing as in OS X)

6. Congrats, you now have a monitor spanning iBook!

If it doesn't work the first time, try again. Some people had to do it a few times to get it to work.

UPDATE

Recently, a German Website published an AppleScript that performs the same function as the OpenFirmware hack. I have converted this AppleScript from German to English; You can download it here. All the same warnings apply; however you are least likely to mess up using this script because there is no chance of any typos.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to IM me on DSLR or on AIM.
DSLR- ThinkDiff
AIM- ThinkDiff84

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by Thinkdiff edited by JJ
last modified: 2003-08-05 08:15:11

From Apple Article ID: 86209



In September 2002, Apple announced that starting in January 2003, new Macintosh computers would only start up into Mac OS X, while retaining the ability to use most Mac OS 9 applications in Mac OS X's "Classic" environment.

These Macintosh computers only start up in Mac OS X:

PowerBook G4 (12-inch) and later models of 12-inch PowerBook G4
PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW 800) and later models of 15-inch PowerBook G4
PowerBook G4 (17-inch) and later models of 17-inch PowerBook G4
Power Mac G4 (FW 800)
Power Mac G5
iBook G4 and iBook G4 (14-inch) and later models of iBook
iMac G5
iMac (Flat Panel) with serial numbers of xx303xxxxxx or later
iMac (17-inch 1 GHz) and later models of iMac
eMac (ATI Graphics) most models (see Note)
eMac (USB 2.0)

Note: For eMac (ATI Graphics) computers, startup in Mac OS 9 is available only with CD-ROM and some Combo drive configurations.


Source here

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by Tex Longhorn edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-01-16 13:50:14

'AltiVec' (as Motorola calls it), 'VMX' (as IBM calls it), and 'Velocity Engine' (Apple's term for it) are the same thing: one or more (depending on the processor) 128-bit-wide vector processing units which are featured by the Motorola G4 and IBM PPC 970 processors.

Code written specifically for these vector processing units can speed up certain operations (e.g. manipulation of multimedia data) by a tremendous degree. Those who want a full explanation of how it operates should have a look at this article.

Update: the cat found this interesting article in IBM's technical library. And here is part two.

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by JJ
last modified: 2005-04-20 17:26:08

Here are some suggestions for a jumpy or misbehaving trackpad:
•
•Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water, then dry them.
•Put the PowerBook or iBook into sleep, then wake it up.
•Hold your finger in one corner of the pad, and tap your other finger in the opposite corner.
•Clean the trackpad with a little bit of soap and water, drying thoroughly.
•Do a PRAM reset. (Hold down Command-Option-P-R while restarting, do it until you've heard the chimes 3 times.)
•Try resetting the PMU.

Here are a couple of links to some Apple Knowledge Base articles about jumpy trackpads:
•
•PowerBook: Jumpy or Erratic Trackpad Operation
•PowerBook and iBook: Trackpad Does Not Respond

Thanks to Mauricio9 , rjackson , and mgilliland for their suggestions.

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by Bradley edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-01-16 17:08:39

For detailed technical notes on Apple's current hardware, visit the ADC Hardware Documentation page. For technical notes on everything but the newest models, visit this page (note - the G5 and newer PowerBooks/iMacs will eventually be added to the second page)

These documents are mainly of interest to hardware developers, but can also be interesting to read if you are a technical-minded, curious individual.

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by prwood edited by tmpchaos
last modified: 2003-09-22 10:36:59

PowerBook Tech has a knowledge base of fully-illustrated documentation for completely disassembling your Wallstreet, Lombard, Pismo, Titanium, or All-White iBook.

Now there is another site for Powerbooks: PBFixIt.com

And jupiter10 notes that Powerbook Medic has take apart manuals too.

Note: Only attempt to use these instructions if you are very comfortable with the risk of voiding your warranty or causing permanent damage to your system!

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by prwood edited by JJ
last modified: 2005-02-25 21:56:09

A brief overview of the PPC 970 processor can be found at here. This page also offers an explanation of the basic architecture differances between x86 and PPC processors as well as reasons for benchmark discrepancies.

For a more thorough write up of the features of the PPC 970 processor go to parts one and two of the Ars Technica in-depth evaluations. These links are for those wishing to go into more detail.

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by junco927 edited by JJ
last modified: 2004-11-15 11:29:18