Ridiculous PowerBook G4 Hacks
Yes, I've modded my PowerBook G4 beyond all recognition...
(Some of these hacks aren't so ridiculous, actually... scroll through!)
Install an iBook keyboard in your PowerBook G4:
The dang keyboard was falling apart from so many openings of the case. For one thing, you have to squeeze a tiny screwdriver between two keys and hope you don't lose the screws in the keyboard. Those keys have long-since popped off and broken.
I had a (donated) iBook G3 previously, but its GPU had the infamous failure, and months of having it literally clamped to my desk eventually ended with the expected disaster. But one thing I liked about the iBook was its keyboard... When you gotta open that case, just pop two tabs (heh, that wasn't meant to be a Macklemore reference) on the keyboard.
So, I *finally* decided to pop out that old falling-apart PBG4's keyboard and replace it with an old iBook's I had laying around.
Lest you be confused and think this is an easy venture... do not be mistaken. These things are *not* made to work together. First of all, there're several models, some have the cable coming out the top, some out the bottom... And none are long enough, or properly-shaped, to reach the connector.
I did have one that *almost* reached the connector, but it turns out the pinout was reversed. Which, actually, is a bit of a blessing, because it could've been *completely different*.
Further, the iBook's keyboard is about 3mm longer than the PBG4's, which meant I had to trim some of the plastic on the PBG4's housing, as well as trimming a bit of the metal on the "new" keyboard.
Further, of course, none of the little clips align with slots, so I bent one as best I could.
In the end, the keyboard is almost floating in the space, but the springy clips provide a bit of tension. It's a little gummy, but it sure beats a bunch of missing keys. Oh, one other thing, the eject button doesn't eject, it acts as F12. YAY! Favorite "new" key: "Fn." It only took me a year to discover that Fn-Delete was the equivalent of forward-delete, and my Fn key promptly popped-off and broke the clips.
So, Ridiculous Hack #1:
Actually, several ridiculous PBG4 hacks can be seen here...
Floating iBook Keyboard
Screen-Protector (for pen-input)
White Hard-Drive activity LED in the lid-latch slot (look closely, it's lit!)
And, frankly, this is the first hack I've done on every mac I've encountered... How can anyone survive without an activity LED?!
(You might also notice that the apple and spinner are significantly smaller, due to high resolution screen upgrade)
Custom Tab, was originally flat, and significantly wider, cut and bent to align with an available slot. You can also see that there is no plastic in the background... The original case had a few-millimeter-wide plastic piece where the three metal spot-welds can be seen. This had to be removed, on both sides, to get the wider keyboard to fit.
Yes, that's a ton of tiny wires. And I wish I took pictures of how I actually created this... let's just say it's two identical connectors that have been *heavily* modified for the ability to solder wires, and in order to get the two of them to fit between the motherboard's connector and the DVD drive. It fits dang-near perfectly... it musta been luck, 'cause I wouldn't have been able to remove any more plastic if I'd needed to, nor squeeze another 1/4in out of the keyboard's cable to go on the other side. Also, the top layer of metal in the PBG4's case had to be cut, a bit.
Further, the wires themselves *almost* occupy the maximum volume available... I had to rearrange them several times to get them to fit.
And more pictures, just to accentuate the ridiculousness of this venture:
Yes, I actually did this. No, it does not make sense from any stretch of the imagination, even if you consider I did it when I still had a week left in the month and only $1 to my name.
I WILL SAY I am proud of the accomplishment, as I am most of the things I've done, despite its ridiculous nature.
And, now that it's done, it was totally worth it, despite the gummy-feeling, etc.
If I coulda afforded a new PBG4 keyboard, I'd probably have preferred that, but at least I don't have to worry about popping the keys whenever I open the case from now on (not that I hope to have to any time soon). Further, I don't really like the look of the PBG4's keyboard; it's too swooshy and faux-metallic, like it's trying to look like an old tin toy, or a bad B-Grade sci-fi movie or something. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bad B-Grade sci-fi movies, but the original keyboard looked like it was *trying* to look like that, rather than *actually* looking like it. And, besides, a used keyboard would cost like... at least two six-packs... That's almost enough beer to make me feel good about doing something so ridiculous with my time :)
Install a Hard Disk Activity LED in your PBG4:
As described, briefly, above... I can't stand not having an activity-LED, even during boot. Every mac I've had (except my very first in middleschool) has gotten this mod. It involves locating the /ACT pin on either the motherboard, or the connector to the hard-disk, soldering in a long-enough wire and a resistor, locating a suitable +3.3 or +5V tap-point (just because it reads 3.3 or 5V, doesn't mean it has the drive-strength necessary!)... and putting it all together. There just happens to be a space that's *just* big enough to squeeze an LED into the lid-latch's opening without interfering with the release-button. The LED is bright enough it lights up the entire cavity under there and can be seen in most lighting conditions, or cup your hands around to shade it during the day.
Again, a bit ridiculous, but easy enough that it happens *every time* I open a "virgin" iBook/PowerBook for any reason.
Ridiculous AirPort antenna hack:
(Apparently not so ridiculous after all!)
I've been "borrowing" internet from neighbors for years now... it's painful at times. And the PBG4's built-in antennae have been a bit of a trouble-point. For one thing, the lid has been removed for years due to other projects... The lid being where the antennae are located (I left it hanging for quite some time, but ultimately cut the wires so I could remove it completely). Additionally, since the signal-strength is somewhat weak, it means I either have to sit in a very specific position or do this hack...
So this hack involves disconnecting the built-in antennae and connecting an external one...
What do you do with that internal connector? It's so bulky! Well, modify the battery and insert it there, cut the little door for the wire... be extraordinarily careful when putting the battery back in. And how on earth do you get the new wire outside the powerbook's case? Again, modify the battery! Wee! Yeah, the green wire hangs out the cutout in the battery's housing. Yes, it gets damaged over time (thus the heatshrink). Yes, I went through *several* iterations due to that recurring damage (and other). These cables weren't meant to be exposed to the elements, especially those in my work-area. Ultimately, I used it with the new antenna hanging on the floor for well over a year.
Believe it or not, this cheap-ass "antenna" etched into a flex-PCB (stolen from another dead laptop) got significantly better reception than the built-in antennae with their fancy circuitry. Maybe it was just because it was easy to position independent of the laptop.
"Why didn't you just set up a Wifi router running OpenWRT as a repeater?" Yeahp. $40 is 4-5 six-packs... And there's a bit of pride in finding ways to do things with parts I have laying around. And these sorts of projects bring us closer together... (me and my laptop).
"Your hard drive will fail in the next 24 hours"
That was well-over a year ago, now... And the message is downright ridiculous, as the drive was only a year or two old by that time. I dunno what caused all those bad sectors; this is my main-tool, "my baby" as some might say. I certainly wouldn't drop it, or anything else for that matter. Nevermind this same time-period is when I had some particularly sensitive hardware hanging out the back of the LCD. Surely if I'd dropped it, that would have been the first to be damaged. Whatever. There was *plenty* of free space outside the effected partition. Repartitioned the other space, created one that was identical to the failing partition, (including a time-machine restore)... marked that partition as invisible... And I've been up-and-running for well over a year with nary a complaint about a single DiskIO error since. The only related troubles since then is that Disk Utility always tells me the drive is failing and won't touch it.
Install a higher-resolution Display in your PBG4:
I include this here because, at this point, using a PowerPC Mac at all is downright ridiculous from most standpoints... Nothing new supports 'em anymore. And even MacPorts is starting to get pretty-durn-flakey about its PowerPC support (would be nice if there was a way to self-update to a version that was known to have PowerPC support!)
Anyways, I still use this thing for dang-near *everything* (except stuff which can *only* run on a PC, and maybe a video-conversion from time-to-time), so having a high-res display is somewhat important. Further, in 10.5.8 with the latest Safari (at the time I last tried it), browsing your bookmark list or other menus on 1024x768 is dang-near impossible, as the menu jumps around the screen trying to find space... WTF?!
Anyways... LVDS Single-to-dual converter Background.
Revive the audio line-in port:
(Similarly, only ridiculous in that it's maybe ridiculous to even try to keep using this machine)
10.5.8 included apparently a "bug-fix" that disables the built-in line-in port. Yay!
As I recall (I can look into this)... The easy solution is to copy over the Sound System Preference Pane from an older version. Something about a program called Pacifist... and I'm pretty sure it's the Preference Pane that needs to be copied-over, but this is from memory.
Make that touchpad useful!
Seriously, this is worth every penny, and donations on top of that...
Someone actually figured out how to get pseudo-multi-touch out of the trackpad... The awesome things include: use two fingers to scroll up/down and left/right, use two-fingers + click to "right-click." Seriously, it's turned a toy into a tool.
This one's worth digging through my folders to post here...