Powerbook G3 Wallstreet...what to do?

[hayduke]

I have a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet that I am debating using as a "media" center. I upgraded the drive a while back so it is at 30Gb and the ram is maxed at 192Mb. I also installed 10.3 and it seems to run okay. The problems are manifold however.

1) Need a new clock/pram battery. ~$40
2) No DVD player. ~$240 (internal one)
3) No firewire or USB ~$30 I(PCMCIA Card Adapter)

Does it make sense to buy these parts? Perhaps I could buy an external DVD player and use it through a Firewire port (via PCMCIA). Does that make sense? Should I sell it and try to get a 1st generation powerbook g4? Should I just set it up as a music server and not bother with DVD etc.? Regardless I still need to get the wireless card working...

Lastly, anyone have any experience with the Logitech Harmony remotes? Do they play well with OS X and Macs? (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/detailsharmony/US/EN,CRID=2084,CONTENTID=9933)

 

[CanadaRAM]

I have a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet that I am debating using as a "media" center. I upgraded the drive a while back so it is at 30Gb and the ram is maxed at 192Mb. I also installed 10.3 and it seems to run okay. The problems are manifold however.

1) Need a new clock/pram battery. ~$40
2) No DVD player. ~$240 (internal one)
3) No firewire or USB ~$30 I(PCMCIA Card Adapter)

Does it make sense to buy these parts? Perhaps I could buy an external DVD player and use it through a Firewire port (via PCMCIA). Does that make sense? Should I sell it and try to get a 1st generation powerbook g4? Should I just set it up as a music server and not bother with DVD etc.? Regardless I still need to get the wireless card working...

Naw, sounds too much like work. Plus, a Powerbook was never meant to be on 24/7 or even close. You'd do much better for your money selling off the Powerbook and getting a Mini.

 

[Xeem]

If it was a Pismo or Lombard, I'd say go for it. Because it's a Wallstreet G3, I fully agree with CanadaRAM: sell it and put the proceeds towards a Mini; it would be a great, relatively cheap media center that will happily run Tiger.

 

[RacerX]

I have a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet ... the ram is maxed at 192Mb.

Just to let you know, the Wallstreets max out at 512 MB, not 192 MB. The 192 MB limitation was due to the period in which the Wallstreets were released, and is not physical limitation of the system (there was no SO-DIMMs that could take a Wallstreet over 192 back then).

My Wallstreet has 512 MB of RAM, two internal hard drives, an internal CD-RW drive and a G4 at 500 MHz. It has been my primary system for the last three years.

Putting a DVD-ROM drive in a Wallstreet is possible, but unless you have the G3/300 version you are going to have issues. The Wallstreets originally came with a DVD decoder card which is not supported by Mac OS X. This means that the MPEG2 decoding has to be done via the main processor. So faster is better. You can get either a G3/500 or G4/500 for your system and it should handle DVDs just fine.

In the end all these things add up. I made my modifications over an extended period of time. It was a pay as I go type of thing, If I was starting with a stock Wallstreet today and wanted something like I have right now, I would put that money into a PowerBook or iBook G4.

 

[RacerX]

Plus, a Powerbook was never meant to be on 24/7 or even close.

My Wallstreet has been running 24/7 for three years straight. It has had uptimes as high as 260 days. My system is as close to flawless as any Mac system I've ever seen (and I take care of over 90 systems for my clients).

I wouldn't under estimate what a PowerBook (specially the G3 series systems) can do.