Chameleon

The 300 MHz blueberry clamshell iBook G3 has a few issues but is usually usable.

Specs

Model ID

PowerBook2,1

CPU

PowerPC 750 (83.0) @ 300 MHz

L2 Cache

512 KiB

Bus Speed

67 MHz

Boot ROM Version

4.1.7f4

Optical Drive

Matshita CR-175

Storage

3.03 GB Toshiba MK3211MAT

GPU

ATI Rage Mobility L (ATY,RageMobilityL)

VRAM

4 MiB

RAM

544 MiB (32 MiB soldered + 512 MiB stick)

Battery

Physically present, but dead

Wi-Fi

802.11b AirPort card

Quirks

• When the computer is turned off, whether gracefully or not, a light horizontal line runs across the now-off display before fading away.
• Sometimes, the display will freak out for a minute or so, becoming vertically scrambled, with the lines shaking violently up and down. This effect does not get worse with time, and I can't discern a pattern of what triggers it.
• The CD-ROM drive is failing. Rotating the computer like with the bronze keyboard PowerBook G3 doesn't help. Your best bet is to burn the CD-ROM as slowly as possible and then pray to your deity of choice.
• The hinge is not as tight as it should be. When the display is open, the top of the display can rock back and forth about two inches.
• The 3.2 GiB hard disk is just barely large enough to fit a base install of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger when using XPostFacto. Try using Monolingual to purge all the unused resources to get more space. Also, trying to install the 10.4.11 update usually leads to sadness, but it might be possible.
• If the computer is turned on while a USB floppy disk drive is connected to the system (my model at least), you will be dumped into an Open Firmware prompt with a "DEFAULT CATCH!" while the hard disk spins until a reboot.

History

• 2020-01-16: The computer arrives at my parents' place from an eBay seller. The leaf of the Apple logo is missing and there are visible buffing marks on the top of the computer. However, the seller was kind enough to ship all the bundled CD-ROMs and manuals -- for the wrong iBook G3. These materials go with the Dual USB iBook G3.
  • TODO: Catalog these CD-ROMs
• 2020-03-21: 📈 A 512 MiB RAM stick is inserted (32 -> 544).
• 2020-04-03: 📈 An 802.11b AirPort card is installed.
• 2020-08-??: The computer is transported to my apartment.
• ????-??-??: 📈 The firmware is upgraded to the latest version.
• 2023-07-26: The computer is temporarily transported back to my parents' place.
• 2023-09-18: The computer is transported to the new home.