[starman]

eMate 300. $75. Just the unit and the power cord. Not a bad price considering that I was able to look at it and try it right there vs. not knowing what I'd get from eBay. Works perfectly. Its only flaw is the previous owner's name engraved on the bottom of it. Got ethernet and wireless working with it last night after all the crap I went through getting the right cables, etc. in the other thread.

Not the most useful thing ever, but it is unique.

Then last night, after I'm thinking how great it would be to use a wireless device for blogging without paying a lot of money for a notebook to carry around, what do I find at CompUSA last night? A blueberry iBook for $99. Trackpad's busted but if I get a service manual I think I can fix it.

So here I get an eMate to sort of take the worry off of spending a lot on a portable wireless device, only to find an iBook 2 days later for almost the same amount of money. Strange how these things happen.

Mike

[Goldfinger]

eMates are weird. I never saw one in my life but I think they are kinda cool.

Originally Posted by starman

Then last night, after I'm thinking how great it would be to use a wireless device for blogging without paying a lot of money for a notebook to carry around, what do I find at CompUSA last night? A blueberry iBook for $99. Trackpad's busted but if I get a service manual I think I can fix it.

pbfixit.com offers guides on how to open up iBooks/PowerBooks. For free.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

eMates are weird. I never saw one in my life but I think they are kinda cool.

I had one at work but the battery never held a charge.

[starman]

Turns out the iBook didn't have a battery . No biggie, I'll just order one. The other problem is that it has only 64MB of RAM, which prevents me from installing OS X on it. Lastly, there's no Airport card.

So, my $100 iBook is going to turn into a $300 add-on for a battery, card, and RAM. Not a big deal considering that an iBook on eBay goes for the same price.

Mike

[ibookuser2]

The eMate is a nice little machine, and there's still pretty good software support for the Newton.

Be warned, though, that they have a problem with their hinges. If you plan on using the eMate, I strongly recommend reading this page:

http://www.inventors-emporium.co.uk/...ate-hinge.html

so that you understand the potential problem and know what to do if your hinge breaks. The hinge isn't hard to fix, but if it punctures the ribbon cable, it gets tricky. There are also some good instructions on that site for how to rebuild the battery pack with new AA cells to get you back to 24+ hours of battery life.

[Luca Rescigno]

64 MB of RAM shouldn't prevent you from installing OS X, it'll just go really slow. I've heard of people installing OS X on Macs with just 32 MB of RAM before. It's not officially supported, but it does work. It's not like OS 9 where you'll actually get errors and crashes if you run out of RAM. OS X just slows way the hell down.

[MilkmanDan]

How fast is the iBook? I mean, really, for the price, buying a 500 mhz iceBook might be better price/feature ratio.

[starman]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

64 MB of RAM shouldn't prevent you from installing OS X, it'll just go really slow. I've heard of people installing OS X on Macs with just 32 MB of RAM before. It's not officially supported, but it does work. It's not like OS 9 where you'll actually get errors and crashes if you run out of RAM. OS X just slows way the hell down.

Well, it does, and people on macosxhints.com and other Mac sites report the exact same issues with installing Jaguar on an old iBook with 64MB of RAM. It just doesn't work AT ALL.

Mike

[OwlBoy]

Try making the eMate a remote control:

http://mirrors.unna.org/www.sfu.ca/c...on/ir-faq.html

http://www.google.com/search?client=...8&oe=UTF-8

-Owl