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finboy · Mar 9, 2005, 04:24 PM

I just ordered (or re-ordered) a Superdrive for my Pismo. Has anyone had any experience with them? WegenerMedia had them on sale, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Edit: Sorry, wrong forum.

tooki · Mar 10, 2005, 09:39 PM

(I moved this to the right forum.)

I'm pretty sure their Pismo drive is tray-loading.

tooki

bgotori · Mar 11, 2005, 04:52 PM

Hey finboy

Would help if you wrote what SuperDrive you got... I've got 3 Different SuperDrives for my Pismo, one Slot-Loading 2x, 8x Tray-Loading, and a Dual-Layer 8x Tray-Loader.

Great Days!!!

Brad

finboy · Mar 11, 2005, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by bgotori:
Hey finboy

Would help if you wrote what SuperDrive you got... I've got 3 Different SuperDrives for my Pismo, one Slot-Loading 2x, 8x Tray-Loading, and a Dual-Layer 8x Tray-Loader.

Great Days!!!

Brad

It's the 8X dual layer, slot-load. I got the kit to save a few bucks. Called Wednesday afternoon and it shipped, delivered (at work) today. I may get it to play with over the weekend.

galarneau · Mar 12, 2005, 01:56 PM

Hey take some pictures if you can.

That would be a really cool project to see.

finboy · Mar 13, 2005, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by galarneau:
Hey take some pictures if you can.

That would be a really cool project to see.

http://www.wegenermedia.com/pismoslotdrives.htm

The ad has been up a while. I figured someone else had tried it out.

tooki · Mar 13, 2005, 05:16 PM

That actually looks really nice.

tooki

finboy · Mar 16, 2005, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
That actually looks really nice.

tooki

The slot is a little undersized, and it has some problems ejecting occasionally. I hope that it will get better over time, because it seems to work well in every other respect. Externally, it doesn't fit quite as well as the one in the photo, but it's pretty close.

It certainly works better than the POS LG drive that came with the machine -- I'm on the third one of those, via Applecare. Since Applecare is over with, I figured I'd get something more useful.

God, I love this Pismo. Next, I gotta get a new backlight. After that, it should run forever. New hard drive? No problem, just drop it in. It's an amazing machine.

[APi]TheMan · Mar 16, 2005, 05:04 PM

Originally posted by finboy:
God, I love this Pismo. Next, I gotta get a new backlight. After that, it should run forever. New hard drive? No problem, just drop it in. It's an amazing machine.

Wow, a dual layer burner for Pismos? I've been out of the loop lately with the Pismo upgrades, what other mods are in your Pismo? About two years ago I put a 900 MHz G3 upgrade, a 30 gig hard drive, and nearly a gig of RAM in my Pismo and it gave it a new lease on OS X. I've since upgraded to an Aluminum 15" (also a very nice machine).

finboy · Mar 16, 2005, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by [APi]TheMan:
Wow, a dual layer burner for Pismos? I've been out of the loop lately with the Pismo upgrades, what other mods are in your Pismo? About two years ago I put a 900 MHz G3 upgrade, a 30 gig hard drive, and nearly a gig of RAM in my Pismo and it gave it a new lease on OS X. I've since upgraded to an Aluminum 15" (also a very nice machine).

I haven't upgraded the processor -- yet. But I'll probably wait until there's a drop-in available, I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Send the machine? No thanks. Send the daughtercard? Maybe, one day.

I just got 1G RAM, which makes things much snappier. And an extra battery (6+ hours, usually). And a big, fast 40G HDD. Wegener has the slot load drives and pop-outs, plus they've got fixit kits for the crappy LG drives we got stuck with. Runs Win98 in VPC 3.0 and screams.

Most of what I do now is still in OS 9, so this machine is perfect. I like it much better than my 900Mhz G3 iBook, although the speed is noticeably different.

By the time I'm done, I'll probably put in a bigger drive (so I can carry everything with me).

finboy · Mar 17, 2005, 01:07 PM

Update:

Can't get it to wake up from sleep in OS 9.1, but that's probably a 9.1 problem. Lots of things like that in 9.1, I've found. Wakes/sleeps fine in 10.2.8 -- and burns magnificently.

bgotori · Mar 17, 2005, 07:55 PM

Hey finboy

Nice Drive!!! I like the Tray loading Drives, because I can load my Mini-DVD-RW/Ram disk from my DVD Camcorder in them and download and erase the disk to use again.

Price isn't to bad either, just $50(wih shipping)more than I paid for my Tray loading Drive(Bare drive).

There a people out there at have a complete Processor that you buy Whole, that just plugs into your Pismo, last I checked the G4 550 was $479.99 plus shipping. It's the the DayStar type.

Great Times!!!

Brad

finboy · Mar 18, 2005, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by bgotori:
It's the the DayStar type.

Cool! I'll look into it. I figured it would happen sooner or later, but $479 is a little steep. Maybe I could buy a daughtercard and send it in?

As for the tray loaders, I agree that they're better for many reasons. For one, they won't scratch your disks, which slot loaders can. This one, though, is so freaking cool -- a slot loader at 8x on OS 9. The cool factor, and the introductory price (lower than now) were big draws.