Appreciating my PowerBook G4 Titanium

[Mr. Dee]

I noticed older G4 PowerBooks such as the Titanium are becoming very rare, hard to get, expensive collectors items. Its like if someone comes across one, they will snatch it quickly or pay a bit of a premium for it. Due to the pandemic, I have become circumspect with how I spend disposable income on stuff like this, but last night, I was feeling a little bit nostalgic; especially with 9/11 anniversary. So, I decided to pull out a box I keep under my bed with older G4's I have in there. The Titanium is the one I went for. Its such an iconic design and one I remember in movies, seeing in magazines and saying to myself at the time how I would love to own one. Thanks to this thing called time and depreciation I was able to pick up a couple them in the past few years. There is one back home running 10.1, but managed to get another one where I'm living. It had a bad combo drive which I had to replace.

Last night I booted it up after many months of no use and it was just such pleasant feeling of nostalgia. Remembering the uncertainty, the bit of worry, the music, the emotions at the time. My mother and sibling traveled abroad several days after the attacks; I was at home with dad, me trying to learn how to cook. I remember taking a big old unthawed chicken off the fridge, seasoning it then and there, then trying to cook it in the oven. LOL, silly me! Instead, we settled for buying Chinese food for the rest of the week.

20 years later my Dad is not here anymore, moms still around, a little older and fragile. But this PowerBook G4 Ti still feels like it could hold its own 20 years later. Sure, Jaguar which I have running on it is beyond ancient, but IE 5 sure knew how to find Google on it. Its such a timeless, iconic design. I don't think it will last another 10 or 20 years in terms of operability, but the chassis will definitely will stand the test of time. Hopefully some enthusiasts could maybe do something with a like a raspberry pie that could be retrofitted into these so it could boot and load older OS X versions so users could experience the software.

The consistency of the macOS itself is another amazing part of the platform. Although I do miss the unique iconography, the fact that you could take someone from 2001 and put them in front of Big Sur and they could easily feel at home shows that software development over the past 20 years at Apple has been well thought out.

I plan on taking it to the Apple store in a couple months when the new revs come out to do a side by side comparison. I hope they let me in with it! 😄 Stay tuned!

 

[Amethyst1]

but IE 5 sure knew how to find Google on it.

What about using Google, i.e. searching for something and exploring the results?

20 years later my Dad is not here anymore,

I lost my Dad last year. May both your Dad and my Dad RIP.

 

[barbu]

Nice TiBook! Which one is it?
That’s the nice thing about these old machines, they help us connect to other times and memories. Thanks for sharing!

Here’s my “Antimony” 1 GHz PowerBook.

 

[eyoungren]

My experience with the TiBook has been middling. I was given a Ti400 for Christmas 2001. My mom gave me the Mac that my sister's then boyfriend had given her.

I was a PC person at the time, so until my PC bombed on me in 2003 I didn't use the Mac much. By 2004 I had a different job and it served at work for a year as a workstation for my coworker. Once the boss got me a new Mac, she got my old one and my TiBook went back home.

Around the time of the Intel Macs is when things started changing for my TiBook. Internet browsing got slower and support for Tiger (which was the last version of OS X I personally used with it) decreased. Additionally, I never had the problem other people had with hinges. My problem was that the case decided to break around the hinges.

I couldn't use the Mac at Starbucks, even after I finally added an original Airport card. Why? Because Apple's design of the antenna for the TiBooks was bad. Some company had a cool alternative for that, so I ordered it - only to have my money returned because that company had discontinued the product a few years before (and did not update the website).

I became frustrated. The keyboard was cramped, the Mac was constantly running the fans because the CPU was always being pushed. And then in November 2009 the logicboard failed. I replaced that Mac with my first A1013, a 17" Aluminum 1Ghz PowerBook G4.

Compared to the AlBook, my now dead TiBook was archaic.

Later on another TiBook came into the house and I got more respect for the TiBooks. This was a 1Ghz Titanium DVI and it had a bad screen. Guess which Mac gave up it's screen for the new Titanium DVI? Yeah, the old TiBook 400.

Now, I eventually replaced the logicboard in the Ti400 twice. That Mac limped on until it finally died and I took it's screen for the other TiBook. I learned a few things but the TiBooks really hold no special place for me like the AlBooks do.

Everyone has a Mac model that is special to them and so the TiBook is to you. That's great. My Albooks hold special memories because they were the ones I took to Starbucks with my kids to have coffee (and hot chocolate) and browse the internet. A thing we all shared for several years. My son would tether his iBook to my Albook and got internet through sharing. One of the reasons my A1013 is still special to me.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Nice TiBook! Which one is it?
That’s the nice thing about these old machines, they help us connect to other times and memories. Thanks for sharing!

Here’s my “Antimony” 1 GHz PowerBook.

View attachment 1829613

This is a 667 Mhz with 512 MBs of RAM and 20 GB hard disk.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

It's the last PowerPC Mac that I am still looking to collect. Still haven't picked one up yet but will at somepoint I am sure and I'll probably break my own rule and pay up for it. My first memory of a Titanium powerbook is different - It's around 1998-99 (so puts me around 22-23ish y/o) and Im at a Carrow's drinking coffee late night (back when they were 24hr) with my newish Pentium3 550Mhz laptop (didnt eat for 3 months trying to afford it lol) I built at my local independent computer store running win98se or win2k working on some html projects for a web class I was taking at the time.

My bud Mikey walks up and says hey dude, check out my new laptop and he pulls a wicked cool Apple Titanium powerbook out. Even though at that time I was a dyed in the wool PC/Windows guy, I'll admit now how jealous I was of its looks and titanium asthetic (that would go on to define pretty much everything in the portable world). So jealous . Cool computers for sure

 

[Doq]

So, it's fairly well-known that the reason why Titaniums are hard to come by and highly collectible is a combination of their relatively poor build quality compared to the Aluminiums along with them being the fastest and last-supported PowerBooks capable of running Mac OS 9 without hacks-- the Aluminiums are limited to OS X (and Jaguar or later at that).

I've had my Titanium for about a month and a half now. It is also the highly sought after 1000 MHz model. I picked it up for a little below the current street price for an A1025 from a friend who got a lot of old Macs and didn't have a use for it; though they knew it was on my Golden Macs list and they sold it to me during an IRL meetup.

I found out rather quickly that on later Titaniums the CPU will cripple itself without a good battery, which I don't have yet. This issue made it really difficult to give it the Companion nod over my current Companion (an A1046 Aluminium, also at 1.0 GHz) until I do get a good battery.

I've never really been someone that would never touch their collectables and keep them in pristine condition at all times, so seeing a bit of cosmetic wear wasn't the end of the world for me, and throughout that meetup I made it worse by putting stickers all over the lid like it was the mid-2000s, turning the Titanium into my personal memento of that event.

I rarely had connections with my computers-- they've been but tools for me-- but this Titanium, it'll definitely be a machine that I have a deep, personal connection with.



I'm sorry for those you've lost, but he and the rest of them are in a much better place now.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I noticed older G4 PowerBooks such as the Titanium are becoming very rare, hard to get, expensive collectors items. Its like if someone comes across one, they will snatch it quickly or pay a bit of a premium for it. Due to the pandemic, I have become circumspect with how I spend disposable income on stuff like this, but last night, I was feeling a little bit nostalgic; especially with 9/11 anniversary. So, I decided to pull out a box I keep under my bed with older G4's I have in there. The Titanium is the one I went for. Its such an iconic design and one I remember in movies, seeing in magazines and saying to myself at the time how I would love to own one. Thanks to this thing called time and depreciation I was able to pick up a couple them in the past few years. There is one back home running 10.1, but managed to get another one where I'm living. It had a bad combo drive which I had to replace.

Last night I booted it up after many months of no use and it was just such pleasant feeling of nostalgia. Remembering the uncertainty, the bit of worry, the music, the emotions at the time. My mother and sibling traveled abroad several days after the attacks; I was at home with dad, me trying to learn how to cook. I remember taking a big old unthawed chicken off the fridge, seasoning it then and there, then trying to cook it in the oven. LOL, silly me! Instead, we settled for buying Chinese food for the rest of the week.

20 years later my Dad is not here anymore, moms still around, a little older and fragile. But this PowerBook G4 Ti still feels like it could hold its own 20 years later. Sure, Jaguar which I have running on it is beyond ancient, but IE 5 sure knew how to find Google on it. Its such a timeless, iconic design. I don't think it will last another 10 or 20 years in terms of operability, but the chassis will definitely will stand the test of time. Hopefully some enthusiasts could maybe do something with a like a raspberry pie that could be retrofitted into these so it could boot and load older OS X versions so users could experience the software.

The consistency of the macOS itself is another amazing part of the platform. Although I do miss the unique iconography, the fact that you could take someone from 2001 and put them in front of Big Sur and they could easily feel at home shows that software development over the past 20 years at Apple has been well thought out.

I plan on taking it to the Apple store in a couple months when the new revs come out to do a side by side comparison. I hope they let me in with it! 😄 Stay tuned!

View attachment 1829601 View attachment 1829602

This is the other one I have running 10.1, flanked by my brothers 2017 and my early 2015:

 

[eyoungren]

It's the last PowerPC Mac that I am still looking to collect. Still haven't picked one up yet but will at somepoint I am sure and I'll probably break my own rule and pay up for it. My first memory of a Titanium powerbook is different - It's around 1998-99 (so puts me around 22-23ish y/o) and Im at a Carrow's drinking coffee late night (back when they were 24hr) with my newish Pentium3 550Mhz laptop (didnt eat for 3 months trying to afford it lol) I built at my local independent computer store running win98se or win2k working on some html projects for a web class I was taking at the time.

My bud Mikey walks up and says hey dude, check out my new laptop and he pulls a wicked cool Apple Titanium powerbook out. Even though at that time I was a dyed in the wool PC/Windows guy, I'll admit now how jealous I was of its looks and titanium asthetic (that would go on to define pretty much everything in the portable world). So jealous . Cool computers for sure

I don't mean to be nitpicky or say your memory is wrong, but are you sure about the years? According to Wikipedia and Mactracker, Apple introduced the Titanium PowerBook in January 2001 (January 9, 2001).

PS. There was a Carrows in Colton, Ca. that my wife and I used to visit after work (around 2am to 3am). Great time to eat without being disturbed by anyone.

 

[Mr. Dee]

My experience with the TiBook has been middling. I was given a Ti400 for Christmas 2001. My mom gave me the Mac that my sister's then boyfriend had given her.

I was a PC person at the time, so until my PC bombed on me in 2003 I didn't use the Mac much. By 2004 I had a different job and it served at work for a year as a workstation for my coworker. Once the boss got me a new Mac, she got my old one and my TiBook went back home.

Around the time of the Intel Macs is when things started changing for my TiBook. Internet browsing got slower and support for Tiger (which was the last version of OS X I personally used with it) decreased. Additionally, I never had the problem other people had with hinges. My problem was that the case decided to break around the hinges.

I couldn't use the Mac at Starbucks, even after I finally added an original Airport card. Why? Because Apple's design of the antenna for the TiBooks was bad. Some company had a cool alternative for that, so I ordered it - only to have my money returned because that company had discontinued the product a few years before (and did not update the website).

I became frustrated. The keyboard was cramped, the Mac was constantly running the fans because the CPU was always being pushed. And then in November 2009 the logicboard failed. I replaced that Mac with my first A1013, a 17" Aluminum 1Ghz PowerBook G4.

Compared to the AlBook, my now dead TiBook was archaic.

Later on another TiBook came into the house and I got more respect for the TiBooks. This was a 1Ghz Titanium DVI and it had a bad screen. Guess which Mac gave up it's screen for the new Titanium DVI? Yeah, the old TiBook 400.

Now, I eventually replaced the logicboard in the Ti400 twice. That Mac limped on until it finally died and I took it's screen for the other TiBook. I learned a few things but the TiBooks really hold no special place for me like the AlBooks do.

Everyone has a Mac model that is special to them and so the TiBook is to you. That's great. My Albooks hold special memories because they were the ones I took to Starbucks with my kids to have coffee (and hot chocolate) and browse the internet. A thing we all shared for several years. My son would tether his iBook to my Albook and got internet through sharing. One of the reasons my A1013 is still special to me.

Well, I never owned one back then, so, I wouldn't have known what the experience was like. The first one I got was carefully packaged and delivered, but the minute I took it out of the packaging, the the paint started stripping. So, yeah, I can only imagine how fragile they were when used in production. But as for failure rate, can't say things were great on the Windows PC side. My dad got a Dell Latitude 840c from work and within 5 years it died.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I don't mean to be nitpicky or say your memory is wrong, but are you sure about the years? According to Wikipedia and Mactracker, Apple introduced the Titanium PowerBook in January 2001 (January 9, 2001).

PS. There was a Carrows in Colton, Ca. that my wife and I used to visit after work (around 2am to 3am). Great time to eat without being disturbed by anyone.

Jesus I am getting old lol. My brain classifies this memory as pre 9-11-2001 (because I recall hosting a couple friends from my gaming clan (one from Phoenix and the other Tennessee) for a few days of LAN shogoMAD & UT goodness and 9-11 happenned on the last day of that get together) and I showed them what LAN shogo was like on that lappy. Jeez I would not dispute wikipedia obviously so I guess that Mikey Titanium memory is somewhere between January 2001 and September 2001. Heck, looking up the release date of the P3 Mobile, that was released Feb 1999, so if memory serves me correctly, I did make that purchase mid 1999 and was a good 20 pounds lighter for it. Anyways, yeah thanks for calling out my failing memory. I thought that was what wives were for lol.

Better someone with as much (or more) gray beard as myself than some hairless 14 year old know-it-all trolling my old arse because: google.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, I never owned one back then, so, I wouldn't have known what the experience was like. The first one I got was carefully packaged and delivered, but the minute I took it out of the packaging, the the paint started stripping. So, yeah, I can only imagine how fragile they were when used in production. But as for failure rate, can't say things were great on the Windows PC side. My dad got a Dell Latitude 840c from work and within 5 years it died.

Don't get me wrong. As my one and only computer from 2003 to late 2009, my TiBook served me well. It's just that towards the end I was asking things of it that it could not do very well. I would have replaced it much earlier but back in 2004-2009 the AlBooks were as expensive as late model Intel MBPs are now.

Now of course, I own multiple Macs so can afford the luxury of looking backwards.

 

[Freeangel1]

I keep a Dual 1.44GHZ G4 powermac around. I have a CPU upgrade to get it to Dual 1.8GHZ G4 chips.
In my opinion its a much better machine than any G4 laptop.
I keep it cause I have a HUGE collection of os 9 software and some high end audio software and a $500 Lynx one sound card for audio restoration of vinyl off a turntable to CD.

PS. there was a white MacBook 1GHZ G4 laptop that APPLE made that boots os9. more powerful than most G4 MacBook Pro models except for maybe the graphics card. But the fastest G4 laptop that still boots OS 9 belongs to the 1GHZ G4 White MacBook.

 

[MysticCow]

I regret selling my TiBook so long ago. I deeply regret it. It would probably still be in use today as a MorphOS laptop if I would have kept it.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I regret selling my TiBook so long ago. I deeply regret it. It would probably still be in use today as a MorphOS laptop if I would have kept it.

This is a fantastic idea and just made my future Titanium powerbook purchase even more expensive

OS9 / Morph OS.

That for whatever reason seems deeply satisfying as an end result.

 

[GMShadow]

The thin bezels look really nice in OS9, but when I’m wanting to use something from that era I gravitate toward my Pismo over my TiBook almost every time.

 

[eyoungren]

This is a fantastic idea and just made my future Titanium powerbook purchase even more expensive

OS9 / Morph OS.

That for whatever reason seems deeply satisfying as an end result.

I had Leopard on my old TiBook 400 (after the first LB replacement). If I had another TiBook (even the same mhz) I'd stick with that. When I first got it, it had OS9 and Puma 10.1.5. At the time I wiped the drive and reinstalled OS9.

My job at the time had me using a PowerMac G4 (no idea which model but this was 2000-2003) running OS9, so although I was not a Mac convert at the time I was familiar with OS9. I objected to what I saw as OS X making choices for me (home folder) and forcing me to make an actual user account. Plus, I had modded OS9 at work to use Kaleidoscope and BBX Mercury - which I then used on the TiBook.

But once Jaguar hit and Adobe started requiring it for later versions of Photoshop and Illustrator I finally ditched OS9. OS X continued to get better than OS9 (also adding some OS9 stuff back) so I kept updating.

I believe I've expressed my opinion about Leopard enough.

The 1Ghz DVI is totally capable of handling Leopard. It's just as fast as my 17" Albook.

PS. For all that modern macOS is, we still do not have OS9 popup folders or minimize windows in place (windowshade). I hate OS9, but those were two features that I did like about it.

 

[z970]

@MysticCow You deeply regret selling your TiBook. If it's any consolation, I deeply regret salvaging and then recycling my Quicksilver's original power supply, and not just handing over the $85 to that guy on eBay who repairs Mac PSUs. Although I like the smell that the replacement PSU has imparted on the rest of the machine, it's not the original "old electronic" smell, and I probably would have liked that even more. And even if it was just a blown capacitor, the original unit still would have worked fine had it undergone that simple repair.

I also deeply regret "donating" a perfectly functional Late 2005 2.3 GHz G5, 2002 700 MHz eMac, 1999 400 MHz iMac G3, 2006 Intel iMac, and 2007 MacBook Pro to the local retro Mac shop for parts whom I later learned drank the Apple kool aid and shortly thereafter recycled everything they had older than 2010.

I was an idiot, and so were you. Throughout life, we all have metric tonnes of instances of "I was an idiot". However, that doesn't give us permission to go about beating ourselves up for years afterward. We can't change the past; all we can do is consider what we've learned and move on.

That's one of the reasons I've always been so fond of the phrase "Live and learn", after all ... you take what you know and go right on to the next day, doing things differently the next time around. There's a lot of wisdom to that way of life.

 

[theMarble]

Nice. I recently got an 867MHz TiBook. I'll get some photos up when I have some more time but mine is in pretty good condition suprising. The paint is worn off slightly on the palm rest but the hinges, battery and the original hard drive are perfect!

 

[Spock]

I always wanted one but I couldn't bring myself to pay for one back in the day. I have one now that I got in a lot of computers that I got from a church a few years ago but unfortunately the backlight on the display has gone. It flashes red and then goes blank, can see the screen with a light shined on it. 800 MHz model.

 

[Argon_]

20 years later my Dad is not here anymore, moms still around, a little older and fragile. But this PowerBook G4 Ti still feels like it could hold its own 20 years later. Sure, Jaguar which I have running on it is beyond ancient, but IE 5 sure knew how to find Google on it. Its such a timeless, iconic design. I don't think it will last another 10 or 20 years in terms of operability, but the chassis will definitely will stand the test of time. Hopefully some enthusiasts could maybe do something with a like a raspberry pie that could be retrofitted into these so it could boot and load older OS X versions so users could experience the software.

I'm thinking, maybe a Raspberry Pi 0, used as a hardware translation layer so that an M1 Air board can communicate with the G4 display and trackpad. The keyboard might work with a simple adapter. I think the trackpad would be the most difficult hurdle, but the M1 board and battery sure would fit inside a G4 enclosure.

 

[California]

Jesus I am getting old lol. My brain classifies this memory as pre 9-11-2001 (because I recall hosting a couple friends from my gaming clan (one from Phoenix and the other Tennessee) for a few days of LAN shogoMAD & UT goodness and 9-11 happenned on the last day of that get together) and I showed them what LAN shogo was like on that lappy. Jeez I would not dispute wikipedia obviously so I guess that Mikey Titanium memory is somewhere between January 2001 and September 2001. Heck, looking up the release date of the P3 Mobile, that was released Feb 1999, so if memory serves me correctly, I did make that purchase mid 1999 and was a good 20 pounds lighter for it. Anyways, yeah thanks for calling out my failing memory. I thought that was what wives were for lol.

Better someone with as much (or more) gray beard as myself than some hairless 14 year old know-it-all trolling my old arse because: google.

I bought my first of several TiBooks (400mhz at a 2,500 bucks or so) in late August or early September 2001, so your memory of pre 9/11 Tibooks is correct.

 

[Amethyst1]

Wasn’t the TiBook announced in January 2001? That doesn’t necessarily imply general availability though.

 

[fooyork]

Slightly sliding off topic here...

Old computers can be extremely nostalgic. They are very much time capsules. As an example, I not long ago found a very old external HD I had used when migrating from my Power Mac G4 to an iMac G5 in 2004. I absolutely loved that Power Mac, it was by far my favourite ever Apple desktop. For reference: it was a 2002 Quicksilver. I decided to do some scouring on eBay and managed to pick up the exact same model I had back then at University, complete with a 17 inch Apple Stuid Display.

Once I got it up and running, installed 10.4 on it and managed to get it online with a PCI networking card and TenFourFox I restored the entire machine to exactly as it was that day in 2004 when I last shut down my old Power Mac. All my files, vidoes, photos, music. The conversations in iChat with long forgotten friends, now deceased relatives (and ex partners). It was like walking into a room I hadn't been in for 17 years. Parts of the experience are actually very emotional.

Anyway, sorry... that part of your post resonated with me.

 

[eyoungren]

Slightly sliding off topic here...

Old computers can be extremely nostalgic. They are very much time capsules.

It was like walking into a room I hadn't been in for 17 years. Parts of the experience are actually very emotional.

Anyway, sorry... that part of your post resonated with me.

It's not a PowerPC Mac, or even an early Intel Mac - but there are some work conversations on my MBP with an employee of the company that are now kind of special. He died of COVID last year (2020) after a couple of decades at the company. I only knew him for a year or so.