We often see people funneling their passion into keeping beloved devices in operation long past their manufacturer’s intent. These replacement Thinkpad motherboards [Chinese] bring old (yet beloved) Thinkpads a much desired processor upgrade. This is the work of the user [HOPE] on the enthusiast forum 51nb. The hack exemplifies what happens when that passion for legendary gear hits deep electrical expertise and available manufacturing. This isn’t your regular laptop refurbishment, [HOPE] is building something new.
This is incredible. I wish someone could do this with an iBook G4 or a 12.1″ PowerBook.
As a person who resurrected his old ibookG4 with a new logicboard only to see it up and running, I could really kill for an ibook12″ fitted with modern hardware
Some people have been replacing ibook G3 (the clamshell one) internals with Macbook Air internals…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KlfTkBKbk
Yeah, I second that! I loved my iBook, though I’m unsure now if an iBook with modern hardware would really be valuable other than that. True, it got 13 hours of battery back in the days when a PC laptop could barely manage 4, and beat out all but the high-end PC laptops in day to day speed, but that really wouldn’t be the case now. Still, I’d want one. I just loved how the keyboard felt, and the construction in general had an appeal that I can’t really explain.
Not in day to day speed, mostly in few cherry-picked by Apple to show PPC G4 in the best possible light, hand-optimised for Altivec, Photoshop filters…
(and as for the news, I linked to those “modernised” Thinkpads here a few months back: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?649645 / Thom should read comments ;P …or I should have made it into a blogpost, I suppose)
Nope, but the tone of your reply tells me you won’t listen to what I experienced even if I were to tell you, in detail, so I won’t waste my typing too much. Suffice it to say that it did, indeed, win against an equivalently-priced PC laptop for office work back then. It would never pass a raw speed test under stress, but it was smoother and more stable with multiple apps open than the mobile X86-based solutions at the time, at least with Windows which would have been my only other choice given the software I was required to use.
Hey, I was under RDF back then too (remember the ridiculous PowerPC “supercomputer on a chip” G4 campaign?), heck I bought an iPod in a place where they are very rare (probably fingers of one hand would be enough to count the number of times I’ve seen one (not counting mine of course)), I wanted an iBook badly after experiencing one of a ~rich exchange student from Germany (though I couldn’t afford it); seems you’re still under RDF… (also considering that particularly earlier releases of OSX weren’t very performant / ran like a dog) / you were under ~placebo (especially since http://www.osnews.com/permalink?651222 or http://www.osnews.com/thread?651144 )
I spent too much on a used one when I did, but I loved that little machine. So flexible, compact. I wish it had better battery life, but I gave it to my sister who used it as an education machine. I tried to get it back from her, and she complained it still worked fine for what it was for.
Someday, I will get it back from her though.
I wish they would produce a modular ThinkPad where you can replace components like you used to do with ‘IBM compatible’ computers in the old days.
But of course that is just a phantasy from a consumer perspective.
In all this new (X62, T70 and newer) it’s all less modular than on old Thinkpads. The main reason are non-socketed mobile CPUs(Intel only makes soldered/BGA mobile CPUs now[including GPU] )-;
They cannot do much about that.
I’m still waiting for this gorgeous machines to arrive….