retro

This blog post will serve as my long-term build log for the Power Mac G4 MDD I started restoring in the video Retro Computing Enthusiasts are Masochists in early 2024. See also: Build log: Macintosh PowerBook 3400c.

The G4's swan song

Apple's Blue-and-White G3 brought a bit of fun into the industrial design of Apple's pro desktop line of Macs. The four-handle polycarbonate design language progressed through a few generations of G3 and G4, culminating in the 'Mirrored Drive Door' model.

This model is also nicknamed 'Windtunnel' for the amount of noise it generates. The original G3 minitower ran a single 300 MHz G3.

The MDD came in configurations with up to two 1.42 GHz G4 (PowerPC 7455) CPUs, two full-size optical drive bays, and even more expansion.

This blog post will serve as my long-term build log for the Macintosh PowerBook 3400c I started restoring in the video Retro Computing Enthusiasts are Masochists in early 2024. See also: Build log: Power Mac G4 MDD.

The fastest laptop period

It's 1997. Apple just re-acquired Steve Jobs, but he hasn't been around long enough to materially impact the next few months of product launches.

Gil Amelio, seeing a gap in Apple's laptop offerings, decides to throw the kitchen sink at the market, in the form of the PowerBook 3400c. It works.

This laptop was the platform for the first G3 laptop, the short-lived 'Kanga', which used almost an identical design as a stopgap for Apple to later introduce the iconic Wallstreet G3.

There are about a dozen ways to get files to and from an older Mac like my PowerBook 3400c, but right now (at least until I figure out a good way to get my NAS -> an AppleTalk server -> 3400c working), my preferred method is via a CF card—I pop the CF card into a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter, then insert that into one of my PowerBook 3400's PC card slots, and bingo: removable flash storage on a 1990s laptop!

I still have a few CF cards kicking around (I used them with my old Nikon D700 camera), and you can buy a 4GB SanDisk Ultra CF card new from Amazon still—albeit for the price of $35... Sometimes the smaller/older cards work better with old Macs, and most of the files I deal with are well under a few MB anyways.