[jimzim66]

Hey everyone, Im new here, and cant wait to learn more about mac's from everyone.

I recently purchased a used pismo (500MHz/DVD/512 MB RAM) and am looking for future upgrades. I plan to get an airport card, and then i am told to upgrade the hard drive. Any idea how far up i should go and where i can find a HD for the pismo?

Any comments are appreciated.

[kmarketing]

Hi,

I have agb memory and an 80gb 5400speed hard drive in my pismo. They make a great difference in performance! I think you can find them on sites like newegg or if you prefer stores sometimes compusa has the 80gb 5400 for $100.

Good luck, and have fun with your "new" pismo!

[jimzim66]

What brand is the hard drive you mention?

I bought OS X Tiger and installed it, and for such an advanced OS, it works flawlessly with my Pismo. And i got the book cheap too!

[kmarketing]

Hi,

Congrats!! Tiger runs great on my pismo also. And just like you I got my current pismo for cheap a couple of months ago - $200 then, $350 total with upgrades. This was a wise investment, as I am certain yours will be for you.

The memory and hard drive definitely helps. I think mine is by Hitachi, with 8mb cache. I don't know what that is, but I hear it makes a big difference in hard drives.

Have fun!

[jimzim66]

I also bought my pismo for $200 (i dont think the seller was aware of its real worth ) and then spent $75 on OS X Tiger (with the education discount) and so far its amazing. I usually like to lay in bed but the performance of this machine has not only glued me to my desk (so i can attach the ethernet cable), but may also sway me to make mac my next desktop computer.

Any good places to find airport cards?

[SEkker]

RAM is always good for OS X. The Pismo can take up to 1 GB in 2 512 MB sticks.

Whatever you buy, replace the HD with a 5400 rpm or higher model -- makes a big difference on the Pismo.

It's no speed demon, but an updated Pismo can keep up with current iBooks in terms of speed in every day usage. You only notice a slowdown when you run G4-specific apps (like ripping a CD in iTunes, or making a movie in iMovie). The former is ok -- how many CDs will you rip at once anyway, and it runs well in the background. The latter is really something that a mac mini will do better -- 10-20x better -- than a Pismo.

[SSharon]

thanks jimzim66 and kmarketing for your advice on the pismo. (I didn't want to bother you guys with another PM so I posted here)