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kmarketing · Jul 11, 2005, 06:25 PM

Hi,

Just did it last night, and i am so pleased with the result. I don't know why I was so timid about the install, but it seems that everything works so much faster with tiger. Even my web browsing seems just as fast as my 17" powerbook and g5.

I do have 1gb of memory and an 80gb hard drive, but if this speed keeps up I will seriously be thinking of selling my 17".

If you have a pismo, don't think twice about it. Tiger will work great with it!!

OogaBooga · Jul 11, 2005, 06:51 PM

...only if you never do anything BUT browse the web and check email. For anything serious, forget about it.

Jacob · Jul 12, 2005, 12:26 AM

Pismos rock the party dude. I agree. And for basic tasks like Safari, itunes and such, it will work awsome. In terms of speed nowadays, the G3 is fine for tasks like that. In all honesty, the G3 is faster than most ibook G4's, better motherboard, cache and such. Really are power units. The throughput on those will be better than an ibook G4 anyday. Keep rockin dude.

iREZ · Jul 12, 2005, 12:04 PM

wait...you're tellin me that a 1.2ghz G4 iBook is slower than a 400mhz G3 Pismo? i love the pismo too, but i can't agree with this type of a statement...even if it is only web browsing and itunes that you're talking about. can this possibly be true?

jasonlustig · Jul 12, 2005, 12:15 PM

Sorry if i'm being dumb... What's a Pismo?

pete · Jul 12, 2005, 12:23 PM

Yet another pismo owner thrilled with the longevity and performance of this machine! It really is such a work horse, quite amazing really. My girlfriend's five year old pismo is working perfectly and is still very snappy and useable with tiger for browsing, email, music, light photo, word processing, watching dvds etc. Never misses a beat. She'll put in a larger, snappier hard drive soon and sooner or later replace the sometimes flaky lg dvd drive and it will be a new machine. I think it will last at least another 3-4 years, even the next os revision might not support it! So so cool. And, quite frankly, it's nicer to work on because of the soft, rounded edges that don;t cut in to your wrists the way the alu pbs do....

Long live the pismo! hurrah!

Voch · Jul 12, 2005, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by jasonlustig

Sorry if i'm being dumb... What's a Pismo?

Link.

kmarketing · Jul 12, 2005, 05:20 PM

Hi,

The way I look at it, the pismo is in a class of its own. 2 batteries, getting close to 7 hours of battery life; completely durable and serviceable by its owner, and the darn thing stays coold compared to my 17" when doing basic tasks (and my 17" doesn't really get that warm). I have no idea what L2 cache is, but it has more than the current line of powerbooks.

Any fan of the pismo is just saying that this basic machine has lasted and will continue to last. Up that memory to 1gb and upgrade the hard drive in minutes, plus now installing the latest OS Tiger, means another year for this wonderful machine. Sure the new line can do much more and faster, but the new line seems to be going towards being obsolete much faster than this pismo.

iPetie · 08:19 PM

Bought my Wife a Pismo about a year ago and that machine is a tank. She and my 5 year old use and abuse it and it just keeps rockin'. I told her I wanted to upgrade and move her to my ALbook 12" she gave me a defiant No!

Now, she is no geek, but it works flawlessly and has caused us zero issues. Truly a remarkable peice of equipment! The best "used" purchase I have ever made.

Jacob · Jul 12, 2005, 08:06 PM

I agree, thing with those, is that they're made of some sort of UNBREAKABLE material. Not polycarbonate, but still, pretty awsome. And by far, one of the (if not THE most upgraedable) Powerbooks to date. You can simply rip it apart, part for part, and replace everything in that machine. (Including the processor)...which is part of the reason people hold on to these machines, they're extremely upgradable.

And this is to repsond to iRez, the Powerbook line is meant for intensive tasks, whereas the ibook was not. The ibook can surely handle hefty tasks, why? The processor speed makes up for it. But in terms of the system bus, the system is going to to perform no faster then the motherboard allows it to. Check out http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...g3_500_fw.html
and
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...g4_1.2_12.html

(presuming you have the new ibook)
Compare the specs, the ibook does have a 33mhz difference in actual bus speed, but in terms of raw power, the powerbook G3, in many tasks, will outperform the ibook G4. Why? The backside bus, which provided a direct link from hardware to processor, is absent in the ibook line. It is simply not needed, and is more costly. WIthout it, there is a lack of speed when intensive tasks are needed. (Especially Final Cut). The cache on the Powerbook G3 is a 1MB cache, this helps performance by a long shot. Instead of the G3 constantly having to retrieve data from the hard drive, the cache serves as a 'saving' or buffer area of common data (tasks). This helps in two ways, faster respose time, and better for apps that work with large chunks of data. EDO SD memory is also clocked down in the ibook G4. This provides better battery life. Plain SD memory is used in the PB G3, although SD is ancient for todays standards, it does make a difference in speed, no matter what machine.
Although you may argue that the G4 makes a difference in speed, it does. But very little. Imagine a large city, and then imagine the traffic. Imagine the city as the CPU, and the traffic as the data. Now, if we only provide this city with a 2 lane road, there is no way the city is optimized to handle the amount of traffic it sends out. Same goes with all motherboards and CPU's. If the board isnt ready to handle the speed and amount of data the CPU is outputting, the performance is going to be in no way optimized. If we upgraded that to a 4 lane highway, with overpasses (backside bus) instead of lights(no backside bus), the difference in speed is obvious.

This is in NO way to say that ibooks (or your ibook) is not a good machine. I'm just comparing facts, and stating that the ibook simply isnt designed to handle the intensive tasks that the Powerbook were meant to handle. I have owned a powerbook G3 and have worked with an ibook G4.

Sorry if this sounds like I am bashing your ibook. I'm not in any way trying to.

Hope this helps a bit.

Kyros · Jul 12, 2005, 08:39 PM

I really want a pismo. Unfortunately, everyone seems to realize how good they are, so getting them used is still around 500 dollars, something I can't justify when I just got a powerbook as a grad present (high school). I had an opportunity a while ago to get one for under 300 dollars, but at that point I didn't realize how good a deal it was and that would have been all my money right there. I tend to be conservative in buying stuff, but in that case I still feel I should have been impulsive, oh well I guess I saved some money

.

Wayland · Jul 15, 2005, 12:27 AM

I am thinking about finally upgrading from OS 9 on my pismo. So do I go to Panther or Tiger. Panther seems to run slower but cooler and is only $40. Tiger is supposed to be a bit faster, but kicks in the fan more, and is more expensive. Decisions, decisions.

BTW, it seems Daystar is working on a video upgrade for the pismo (and lombard). Here is the link:
http://www.macopinion.com/columns/ro.../11/index.html

It is at the bottom.

kmarketing · Jul 15, 2005, 05:13 PM

Hi,

I've pretty much only been using the pismo with 1gb and tiger for web browsing since I installed it. It's been on the bed with no stand or anything, and it hasn't gotten warm or hot at all.

Go for it! tiger is great! I just upgraded my 17" powerbook as well. Even better!

I won't upgrade our g5 just yet, since some of the programs we use aren't supported by tiger as of yet.

Good Luck!

SEkker · Jul 16, 2005, 01:01 AM

I agree -- Tiger is terrific on our G3 400 MHz Pismo.

I don't understand what they were noting in their machines, Tiger has been rock solid.

Geo669 · Aug 10, 2005, 08:07 AM

Ive been thinking about getting a pismo, I own a dual 1.8Ghz G5, for all my proper school work and film editing, but it would be nice to get internet access in the confinds of my bed.

And the G3 powerbook is by far the best looking laptop apple has ever made..
Does anyone know where i can get one in Australia. or shipped here, for a reasonable price?

iBorg · Aug 31, 2005, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by SEkker

I agree -- Tiger is terrific on our G3 400 MHz Pismo.

I don't understand what they were noting in their machines, Tiger has been rock solid.

My daughter is still using her 400 MHz Pismo from college, using Panther 10.3, and is happy with the speed. She mainly does web-surfing, word processor and e-mail, but also edits home movies in iMovie, and burns to DVD.

My question is: how do you think the latter task, movie editing, would work in Tiger with this unit? I've heard that you take a speed-hit going from 10.3 to 10.4, in part, perhaps, because of a meager 8MB video chip. She has 1 GB RAM, with a 5400rpm hard drive, so other than upgrading to a G4 processor (which she doesn't want to spend the money on, right now), there's not much more she can improve in her Pismo.

I realize that movie editing will be slow - I'm just wondering if it will be even slower in 10.4 than 10.3.

Thanks for any help you can give!

iBorg

pete · Aug 31, 2005, 05:31 PM

I don't think there is any speed hit going to Tiger with the Pismo. On my girlfriend's pismo, tiger only made things snappier. Do it!

SEkker · Aug 31, 2005, 07:21 PM

Hmm, speed hit in movie editing with a Pismo in Tiger?

That may be true -- but movie editing in Panther is really quite painful. I guess the answer is that operations that you let run 4-6 hours in Panther will still take 4-6+ hours, in other words, overnight.

We did a comparison the last time we made a movie -- a mac mini with 512 MB RAM was 20x FASTER running iMovie calculations than a Pismo 400 MHz. Our verdict -- a Pismo, in Panther OR Tiger, is simply outclassed by the cheapest G4 machine one can buy.

I have to say that everything else in tiger felt snappier than panther with the pismo.

JoshuaZ · Aug 31, 2005, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by SEkker

Hmm, speed hit in movie editing with a Pismo in Tiger?

That may be true -- but movie editing in Panther is really quite painful. I guess the answer is that operations that you let run 4-6 hours in Panther will still take 4-6+ hours, in other words, overnight.

We did a comparison the last time we made a movie -- a mac mini with 512 MB RAM was 20x FASTER running iMovie calculations than a Pismo 400 MHz. Our verdict -- a Pismo, in Panther OR Tiger, is simply outclassed by the cheapest G4 machine one can buy.

I have to say that everything else in tiger felt snappier than panther with the pismo.

Duh. Its an old computer vs a new one. Anyone who thinks a Pismo will meet all their needs these days only surfs (lightly) and does e-mail.

PowerTower Fan · Aug 31, 2005, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

Duh. Its an old computer vs a new one. Anyone who thinks a Pismo will meet all their needs these days only surfs (lightly) and does e-mail.

Obviously it won't be fast but to say a Pismo is only good for light web browinsing (whatever that means) and email is ridiculous. It'd be a great machine for word processing, email, web browing, using itunes, and maybe even some work with iPhoto or iMovie. If you needed a computer for heavy duty Photoshop or Dreamweaver use, then yeah you'd definately want a much faster machine. But you don't always need the latest and greatest equipment just to do basic things, unless you just wanted them for bragging rights.

kmarketing · Sep 1, 2005, 09:14 AM

An in terms of practicality, I look at it that with the new machines coming out, you save a ton by having a pismo as a basic laptop and having a g5 desktop. I think knowing the g4 chip has been obsolete for some time now is painful for having spent thousands of dollars. I sold my 17" 1.33 just so I can feel comfortable with saving as much money as possible for the future machines. My pismo does my laptop work and my g5 desktop does the big boy work.

Sorry to say but even when I was doing some serious work, the g4 was too slow. I guess the comparison is similar between the g4 and g5 chips and the g4 and g3 chips. And from what I hear, pc desktops can beat g5's. It's just difficult to take in how we spend so much money on machines that are not as fast as cheaper pc ones.

Felix · Sep 1, 2005, 10:15 AM

The Pismo made me switch from Windows to Mac OS 9 in October 2000. I still use it today, as I do a lot of word processing with Adobe Framemaker and Acrobat. FrameMaker is not available on OS X. Further, I work on my digital images with GraphicConverter, use iTunes intensively besides e-mail, web, etc.

In meantime my Pismo 500 has 640 MByte RAM, DVD/CD-R/RW-burner, big Newertech-battery, 40 GByte HD, WLAN, new PRAM-battery and there is no reason for me to upgrade the hardware. Maybe I will buy a 80 GByte HD later.

I bought the Pismo spontaneously because of the almost fanatic review of a highly acclaimed newspaper in Germany. Today there do not exist such reviews about the current powerbooks.

I anxiously await the MacTel-Powerbooks. Before I always waited for a G5, hoping this would be a significant enough step from the Pismo.

I am not going to spend any cent on the current G4-line-up. The present G4s cannot run modern videos (MPEG4-H.264) and games, the battery does not last long enough for one DVD-movie, the optical drives are not up-to-date as are not the video-cards, the 12inch format is outdated and should be replaced by a 13inch widescreen (which I would favor).

Best regards,

Felix