PowerMac G4 (Dual 1GHz Mirror Door)
PowerMac G4 (450 MHz Graphite AGP)
PowerBook G4 (1 GHz 12" Aluminium)
PowerBook G4 (667 MHz Titanium)
iBook (600 MHz 16 VRAM)
Power Macintosh 9600 (300 MHz Kansas)
Apple Pro Keyboard (Extended)

PowerMac G4 (Dual 1GHz Mirror Door)

June 2006: The metal guard that separates two chunks of mututally unfriendly components slipped off -- suddenly the whiny noise (described below) stopped, and then a moment later I smelled a bad smell so I turned off the machine. I discovered that the slipped guard had exposed one of the ribbon cable bundles to direct contact with the heat sink, leading to a certain amount of melting. Secondary hard-drive connection no longer functions and, for reasons unknown and perhaps merely coincidental, the Firewire bus is fried. Yep. So, I replaced the guard and attached it with special care.

November 2005: This machine works reasonably well but has developed a whiny fan problem (very loud) and is still subject to the occasional memory-related freeze. All in all the crappiest and most troublesome Macintosh I've ever owned. I'll be sticking with it for the time being however, until I see what happens when the Intel chips hit the production-level models.

September 2003: This machine peppy performs very well, now that I've pulled out half of the RAM I bought with it. As the Apple tech told me in the spring, the mirror door machines are very choosy about what kind of RAM they'll accept. Since Apple is unwilling to release a list of compatible RAM vendors and as I'm unwilling to gamble more money guessing, this machine has hits its memory ceiling. Maybe I will sell it and get a second generation G5, when the time comes.

April 2003: This machine continues to experience serious problems related to memory. An Apple tech told me that the new machines are very finicky about RAM. Indeed. I will post more details once I have time to get to the bottom of the problem (right now I'm subsisting on stop-gap measures because I'm too busy working to devote to troubleshooting time to this pretty but fussy Mac).

March 2003: This machine began to freeze recently. The cause turned out to be a loose RAM chip. I ran the Apple Hardware Diagnostics CD-ROM that shipped with the machine, which failed the memory test and identified the fouled slot (J23). I swapped my RAM into a few different configurations and ran the diagnostics a few more times just to be sure none of my chips or slots were defective. Everything checked out. It seems like this machine may have been physically moved too many times, somehow jostling free the chip in J23. Never happened tome before. Anyway, problem solved.

January 2003: This computer is a dream so far, except for some initial turmoil when introducing it to my ViewSonic 17" LCD monitor. When the Mac became confused about which resolution the monitor wanted (for reasons related to the monitor itself which are an entirely different story) it would freeze during booting. Until I investigate this further my advice is this: if you have a similar machine that is freezing during Jaguar booting at the point when the Apple logo is supposed to clear the screen, troubleshoot your monitor.



PowerBook G4 (1.0 GHz 12" Aluminium)

February 2006: I have just acquired this machine used through eBay. So far so good.



PowerBook G4 (667 MHz Titanium)

Audio Interruptions: sometimes the sound disappears when hot plugging in a connection to an amplifier or powered speakers. Playing with the volume slider a bit will as often as not jigger the thing into making noise again. Sometimes only a reboot will do the trick. Update: This problem disappeared after installing OS 10.2 Jaguar. Update: This problem reappeared and, after jiggling the connector a lot, the end of the connector eventually broke off inside the audio port and cannot be recovered without opening up the machine.

Fritzed FireWire: My FireWire port has inexplicably died. I may have no choice but to send it away to Apple for repairs (oh, hell). Update: Apple actually replaced my firewire controller on a timely basis -- whoda thunk it?

Battery Life: I have had to reset the Power Manager Unit on this computer due to poor battery performance. The reset improved the battery performance markedly. Each model of PowerBook is reset via a different procedure, according to this Apple KnowledgeBase article. For instance, my specific PowerBook model (667 MHz G4 Gigabit Ethernet) is reset simply by shutting down, pressing the reset key on the rear of the machine located between the S-VHS output and the modem port, waiting five seconds, and then rebooting. You will know if you have successfully reset the unit if the time and date are incorrect when the Finder comes back up (you must remember to disconnect from the Internet to use this verification trick, however, or the time and date will be automatically resynchronised before it is displayed).

Hinges: the starboard-side hinge finally broke after five years of steady use. The cost of repairs from Apple is exorbitant (USD 1,050.00) so my brother, to whom I have donated the machine, will attempt to re-sleeve the unit with a new titanium housing acquired from eBay. The biggest flaw of the TiBook is their delicacy, specially in the ultra-thin display and specifically-specifically in the teeny, tiny hinges which, if misaligned, tend to grind on the critical wiring running through them.



PowerMac G4 (450 MHz Graphite AGP)

Wear & Tear: This computer is a rock of stability, and continues to perform beautifully long after ceasing to be cutting edge. Despite my having acquired newer machines, this 1999 G4 remained a pillar in my production workflow for years. It is now relegated to bridging the gap to obsolete technologies based in MacOS 9, like my Media100i NTSC Edting set-up. One quirk: if I actually happen to turn off this computer, leave it for a while, and then turn it back on again, the AGP card cries green and blue pixel tears across the screen until 2 or 3 reboots. It doesn't matter which of my monitors is attached to the card. It isn't a big problem since I rarely shut down. This system also hosts an ATI Radeon card for supporting a second display, though the presence or abasence of this second PCI video card seems to have no impact on the green and blue streaming pixel Matrixy issue. The optical drive is occasionally flaky, and discs have to be re-inserted several times to be accepted (especially DVDs).



iBook (600 MHz G3)

Battery Life: After a few months this machine's useful battery life became much shorter. This appears to have been due to corrupt Power Manager settings. Clearing the Power Manager memory varies from model to model -- consult this Apple KnowledgeBase article for details. Once the Power Manager was reset the battery began behaving virtually like new again. Each flavour of iBook or PowerBook is reset differently; this specific iBook model (600 MHz G3 16 MB VRAM) is reset by turning off the computer, pressing and then releasing the key combination Shift-Control-Option and the power (I/O) button, waiting five seconds, and then rebooting. You will know if you have successfully reset the unit if the time and date are incorrect when the Finder comes back up (you must remember to disconnect from the Internet to use this verification trick, however, or the time and date will be automatically resynchronised before it is displayed).

Wear & Tear: After our toddler kicked the unit around a bit we lost some keys from the keyboard, but everything still works fine once you get used to tapping the bare metal contacts with your fingers where the key-covers are missing (like the Apple key). The unit has also been soaked twice, but survived without injury after being rapidly air dried.



PowerMacintosh 9600 (300 MHz Kansas)

Open Firmware: Working with the Open Firmware implementation on this machine while installing Debian GNU/Linux was a hellacious chore. You can read about my steps to eventual success here. This machine can be fooled into booting "headless" (without a monitor) by attaching an Apple-to-VGA connector to the monitor card.

UPDATE: This machine was retired in Spring 2005.



Apple Pro Keyboard (Extended)

These keyboards are starting to annoy me. They're nice and all, but if you spill *even a little bit* of tea into them they go all silly. Maybe I should complain less about the keyboard and instead invest in some sort of bib.