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I mean, the whole premise of making peace-loving Jedi knights who have no experience in war, let alone have ever ignited a light saber in anger, generals in a grand army is just eye-brow raising. So, I pick my silly moments. :D

That was always the backstory of Kenobi, however - dating back to the first film in which Leia Organa refers to him during the recorded message as "General Kenobi" who served her father during the Clone Wars.

The Jedi kept the peace throughout the Old Republic "for over a thousand generations" through a preparedness to exercise physical force when all other options failed or were unavailable. Anger is not necessary to command a grand army - as real world examples demonstrate. On the contrary, it can be a hindrance to rational strategising. ;)

Excellent warriors are not violent.
Excellent soldiers are not furious.

– Lao Tzu
 
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That was always the backstory of Kenobi, however - dating back to the first film in which Leia Organa refers to him during the recorded message as "General Kenobi" who served her father during the Clone Wars.

The Jedi kept the peace throughout the Old Republic "for over a thousand generations" through a preparedness to exercise physical force when all other options failed or were unavailable. Anger is not necessary to command a grand army - as real world examples demonstrate. On the contrary, it can be a hindrance to rational strategising. ;)
You are hitting on one of my major issues with the prequel trilogy. Lucas had an opportunity to expand upon a more adult type history and chose to deliver three films 'for kids'.

Based on how we met Kenobi in New Hope I'd always expected some type of war background akin to what you'd find in Platoon, Hamburger Hill or Saving Private Ryan. The battle we see between Obi Wan and Vader in the Obi Wan series and between Ahsoka and Anakin in Ahsoka is much more akin to what I was expecting as a teen and young adult.

Not silly scenarios like what actually happened in the prequels. I can grant you your rebuttal, but the imagery of the prequels and the Clone wars does that assessment no justice. IMO.
 
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What have I done with an early Intel? Why, bought another one, what else?
Got a late-2008 MacBook Pro 15" that I'm collecting tomorrow lunchtime. The first 15" unibody, if I'm not mistaken, or one of the first.
Excellent condition, still in its original box, with charger. I expect the battery to be toast, but I'll be happy with that. It already has max RAM, just needs the 500GB SSD I have spare to kick-start a new life.
 
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It may come down to how dedicated people are. I love Star Wars, but I'm not that dedicated. :D
hmmmnn,
also myself,
tired, fatigued
while One of Rogue streaming "hmmmnn" the night of last....
sooo much clutter and mind elsewhere
not focused on movie was myself, I!
break i needed!
 
What have I done with an early Intel? Why, bought another one, what else?
Got a late-2008 MacBook Pro 15" that I'm collecting tomorrow lunchtime. The first 15" unibody, if I'm not mistaken, or one of the first.
Excellent condition, still in its original box, with charger. I expect the battery to be toast, but I'll be happy with that. It already has max RAM, just needs the 500GB SSD I have spare to kick-start a new life.
WOW! what a great find!
i would love to score one Macbook 2008 just to run Snow Leopard CS4 and create!
The original box is a blessing!
batteries are easy to find for that even OWC has the model for a fair price that works
Good for you, DCBassman

today since 1PM on a overcast and rainy so-flo day
im using my EARLY INTEL Macbook pro 2012 after using my Macbook air 2010 with Numbers and PS
this was updating cycling stats, improving my website and some graphics which were saved on a ssd blade,
then placed on 4 macs.
while baseball game is on the macbook M1 2020 Monterey which i had to shut off screen saver
setting to never since the screen when black several times, hopefully that worked?

im typing this because using these 4 macs everyday is getting played, non-minimalismic,
but i need to over-look that fact that a non-computer person has 4.
 
I can grant you your rebuttal, but the imagery of the prequels and the Clone wars does that assessment no justice. IMO.

I've never gotten over the vandalism that Lucas visited upon the original films, from Greedo shooting first in the Mos Eisley cantina to the removal of the model-work that won the Academy awards to substituting Jason Wingreen's brilliantly menacing voice dialogue due to the illogic of altering the OT to fit the PT instead of producing writing that achieved vice-versa.

There can be only one version of "Put Captain Solo in the Cargo Hold."

 
I've never gotten over the vandalism that Lucas visited upon the original films, from Greedo shooting first in the Mos Eisley cantina to the removal of the model-work that won the Academy awards to substituting Jason Wingreen's brilliantly menacing voice dialogue due to the illogic of altering the OT to fit the PT instead of producing writing that achieved vice-versa.
Im glad Kurosawa never followed what Lucas did!
 
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Im glad Kurosawa never followed what Lucas did!

Me too but unfortunately many other film-makers have followed suit - including some of Lucas' other friends, Coppola and Spielberg - but not to the same extremes.

To put it politely, the fame and fortune sent him somewhat insane - drunk with the power of indulgence. Lucas remains one of my fave film-makers but he declined in my estimation somewhat with the special editions travesty.

20060607-tVZjfQZ1.jpg
 
To put it politely, the fame and fortune sent him somewhat insane - drunk with the power of indulgence. Lucas remains one of my fave film-makers but he declined in my estimation somewhat with the special editions travesty.
Just my opinion, but I think the money allowed him to just do whatever thought was in his head in regards to SW. Whether that vision was commercially viable, believeable or just consistent with established SW lore wasn't really the point to him. He had the cashflow to make it the way he envisioned it. When money is of no concern, that's literal 'power' to make what's in your head de facto truth and reality. And since he was Lucas, collaboration was one way - him telling others what he thought or what was SW. See Dave Filoni.

Filoni's cool, the recognized successor to Lucas, but all his plans and thoughts were run through Lucas first. And he still tries to abide by that filter. We all think SW should be this or that, one thing or the other. 'X' is Star Wars we say!

But it's Lucas that ultimately determined that. Of course, as a creator of something you can argue that it's your thing to do with as you wish. But not every thought is going to work. Money means you can just ignore that.
 
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Omnibus reply!

B S Magnet

($20 in maple money)

last century I had a Molson Money jar of cash I found for Molson™ Goldens which was alway full!

now I will read the "rest of the story"!

I have no idea what this means. Golden was what got exported to the U.S. Although it’s possible it was just Molson Canadian re-branded (much as some American stuff sold here does), I don’t know for sure, and I have no memory of their American promotions (I was probably too young, and I also didn’t really drink things like beer until I was well into my twenties.)


And then there is this, not free but the soldering requirements are only middle level. If their advertising is accurate it seems quite a nice solution.


Interesting fix!

Owing to the retail cost for buying that board, it would have been a reasonable deal back in the mid/late 2010s when many more of the 2011s were in use and not yet replaced by newer models — at a time when buying them used still had them going for north of €200–300.

These days, however, when 15-inch 2011s are practically being given away locally, €49, plus HST/VAT and shipping, not so much. The Tiresias could come in handy for anyone who intended to continue to use their MBP before selling it to someone else who would also be using it.

For those who never intended to sell theirs, this is probably more effort than what’s needed.

Wow….I happen to have a 2011 15” MacBook Pro that only needs a battery sitting in my garage but after reading this horror story of a post, I’ll probably turn it in to the recycler and save myself this future pointless nightmare…

The “Cursed Daughter of Update” was a play on the flood of comically bad horror B-movies from the 1950s, given some of the most absurd sequel monikers (i.e., “Swamp Monster”, followed by “Groom of Swamp Monster,” and “Son of Swamp Monster”, then “I Was a Teenage Swamp Monster”, and so on).

What I shared wasn’t presented as a nightmare. It was documentation of my experiences on a weekend project. Maybe one day that documentation could help someone else finding themselves along the same path.

That’s why I write!


I have 2 of 2011 15" MBPs. The early one is already a goner and beyond salvation, so basically scrap. The late one still works perfectly and is occasionally used by my wife for some music stuff. I've been pondering that should I be smart and do a pre-emptive strike and kill the problem GPU before it shows any signs of trouble and thus avoid bigger problems in the future? Or do I take the risk and see if I have the one and only perfect, non troubled, MBP 2011 in the universe? ;)

After all the documentation and threads and fixes I’ve read through (and I’m still not done), the Radeon 6xxx dGPU failure on the 8,2 and 8,3 tends to creep in, rather than to be a rude, abrupt surprise without signs or foreshadowing its failure.

For now, if the late one still works as it was designed originally, just keep going with it. If you’ve no plans to sell it, the RealMacMods fix (which is a big part of The Tiresias steps anyhow) alone might be enough. I’ll continue to test this laptop with the now-removed R8911 (pencil graphite may be just enough to supplant the removed resistor as an “undo”, if need be).


Ps. I am sure somebody in our forum will gladly try to resurrect and keep alive your MBP if you don't want to do it yourself. No point in giving it to the recycler.

I am adamant about this:

For folks on here who know better, working to make sure disused Macs find homes with other Mac maintainers and collectors, unless they’ve been absolutely torn asunder (like being dropped from a high-rise building onto pavement or compromised by zealous airport security) is an absolute must. It keeps a dwindling parts supply from vanishing as precipitously and suddenly.

In cradle-to-cradle life cycle analysis of consumer electronics, it is less costly and resource-intensive (i.e., carbon-positive) to upcycle and to re-purpose internal components for other machines than it is to blunt-force recycle the entire component at once — or, worse, to “toss it out”.

[I mean, people still leave functional computer hardware by curbsides (both @TheShortTimer, creator of The Freebies Thread, and I can attest this, as I’ve built a Pentium tower server, all from curbside parts, back in 2006 — the same year I found and brought home an SGI Indigo [!!!] being binned at my university). So the notion that “tossing out” of computers doesn’t happen the way it used to is, unfortunately for the waste stream and the environment, a woebegone myth.]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more interest in this post - the amount of work that's involved in compiling and maintaining this directory (with new additions to the SW franchise) in such meticulous detail has to be exhaustive.

With respect to information science and knowledge curation (music, books, academic articles, developing web sites, and so on), I’m highly organized. (If I could afford to, I’d study a masters in library information science, and I would have begun, like, yesterday).

I’ve probably always been this way. But this doesn’t carry over to an obsessive fastidiousness over my everyday shared life with those around me. That’s to say a museum-like, obtusely austere aesthetic (around which I was raised, due to a specific, long-estranged, and controlling parent who insisted everything be visually perfect, dust-free, and untouched, 100 per cent of the time) makes me anxious. I like a home in which guests who come over can feel like they’re at home, as well.

(Then again, the aesthetics of museum austerity — not necessarily self-same as minimalism — are generally indended to do just that and to serve only the person engendering that aesthetic.)

That preface leads to how I ended up with the Star Wars directory:

I set it up in early 2022, after all the Star Wars stuff had multiplied under Disney’s steering, when one of the kids I look after spoke with interest to watch “all of the Star Wars” (the kid was entranced by Grogu, of course, because Grogu — “baby Yoda” to those who don’t watch Star Wars — had appeared in either Fortnite or Roblox).

So I asked, “Do you want to watch the movies and shows in the order they were made, or would you like to watch everything in order of when it all happpened in the faraway galaxy?” They chose the latter.

That’s when I found someone (or several someones) on Wikipedia had done the canon timeline work in a visual chart. So it wasn’t terribly difficult to collect together all the digitzed Star Wars stuff I had in one place and coming up with a directory-friendly-but-human-readable way to order and sitinguish where all the flood of new stuff belonged in chonological context.

Unfortunately, the kid lost interest in Star Wars shortly after the Grogu cameo/promotion vanished from the game(s), as is usually the case. Oh well.

The Force is with you. :)

Oh, I’d love to believe that, but I’d reckon the real-world antithesis, The Curse, never leaves me. :p
 
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Just my opinion, but I think the money allowed him to just do whatever thought was in his head in regards to SW. Whether that vision was commercially viable, believeable or just consistent with established SW lore wasn't really the point to him. He had the cashflow to make it the way he envisioned it.

As with power, absolute wealth corrupts absolutely.

Over and over, decade after decade, the impresario, the tycoon, superstar, and/or baron (typically men, but there’ve been women as well) confer their atypical wealth, due to a series of fortuitous timing and fortune arising therefrom, as a proxy for what they believe their imagination or their character signify. In practice, it’s when the brain worms can set in, and the folks one believe to be brilliant were probably not all that to begin with.

After all, Lucas cribbed The Seven Samurai hard in making Episode IV, and vestiges of THX 1138 (literally his film school thesis, expanded into a full-bore motion picture), carry over in fairly obvious ways to Episode IV, as well.

This isn’t to say he isn’t talented or creative. He brought Star Wars and Indiana Jones and elevated them to widespread reverence. But in the end, he was more an industrialist in the traditional sense: he built a meta-business for cinema in developing the Industrial Light and Magic studio.

I like to think of George Lucas much as I do Thomas Dolby (who later went to create the contours, with his company, Beatnik, which made midi ringtones on phones, as well as creating the Rich Music Format, what they became by around 2000): their artistic creativity put them on the map; what kept them in the entertainment industry’s imagination were their contributions to the business side of those creative means.

Then there are folks like Akira Kurosawa, Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Prince, Kathy Acker, Paul Kelly, and Pedro Almodovar, who were and are prolific creators out of a necessity to keep creating, not as a means to a wealthy or titanic ends.


When money is of no concern, that's literal 'power' to make what's in your head de facto truth and reality. And since he was Lucas, collaboration was one way - him telling others what he thought or what was SW. See Dave Filoni.

Two words which Lucas never took seriously:

Roland Barthes.


But it's Lucas that ultimately determined that. Of course, as a creator of something you can argue that it's your thing to do with as you wish. But not every thought is going to work. Money means you can just ignore that.

Absolute [money/wealth/fame] corrupts absolutely! </hot_take>
 
Interesting fix!

Owing to the retail cost for buying that board, it would have been a reasonable deal back in the mid/late 2010s when many more of the 2011s were in use and not yet replaced by newer models — at a time when buying them used still had them going for north of €200–300.

These days, however, when 15-inch 2011s are practically being given away locally, €49, plus HST/VAT and shipping, not so much. The Tiresias could come in handy for anyone who intended to continue to use their MBP before selling it to someone else who would also be using it.

For those who never intended to sell theirs, this is probably more effort than what’s needed.
Yes, 49€ feels expensive if you have skills to do the mod free. Like you say the machines are quite worthless moneywise now anyway. But if the option is to buy a replacement machine one can spend that money easily with shipping costs, possible RAM upgrades etc.

For those who run a repair service of some kind, or have several machines that are effected, the 5-pack is only 30€/each and they might provide an easy way to get the machines back running.

Note, that the price includes worldwide shipping and within EU the VAT is also included. If located outside EU one might have to pay something when it's imported, dunno.
 
Yes, 49€ feels expensive if you have skills to do the mod free. Like you say the machines are quite worthless moneywise now anyway. But if the option is to buy a replacement machine one can spend that money easily with shipping costs, possible RAM upgrades etc.

That’s a good point.


Note, that the price includes worldwide shipping and within EU the VAT is also included. If located outside EU one might have to pay something when it's imported, dunno.

Typically, at least for Canada, duty (in lieu of domestic goods/services/harmonized tax, but typically as the same rate) is what one pays when having something shipped here from overseas, if over $20. Exceptions sometimes happen, and I tend to notice it most when what’s being shipped is used, not new.
 
THIRD, I’m still having trouble with the dosdude1-patched Mojave on this system and the iSight camera not working. Help with troubleshooting is welcomed. :)

The green iSight light comes on, but camera preview window remains blank/black. On the testing HDD this laptop is using, there is also an install of Lion; I confirmed the camera works fine on 10.7.5, so this is a specific software thing related to this MacBookPro8,2’s patching. I’m at a loss, and feedback or pointers to other solutions on the forums or elsewhere is definitely welcomed here.

I don’t think it’s security denying access, given this message on Console upon launch of Photo Booth (which, by default, has audio-video access, out-of-box on a fresh install):

View attachment 2411777

iSight camera also doesn’t work in QuickTime, FaceTime, or custom avatar setup for Users & Groups. When starting a video record in QuickTime, a series of the same error repeats about 20 times (probably hardware/system re-attempts before giving up):

View attachment 2411782

[My understanding is the iSight Patch relates to fixes for the MBP5,2 only and wouldn’t address the issue here on the MBP8,2.]

I may try pulling out my iSight FireWire camera this week (it’s buried in a box) to verify whether this issue carries over to other camera devices outside the internal bus.

As it is, my patches include:

View attachment 2411813

(I parse “version 0” as a patch which is not currently being used, but someone please correct me if that’s wrong.)
EDIT to add: It’s a long weekend and I’m quite awake, so heck it. I pulled the parts box from the basement to find and connect both the iSight FireWire camera and a basic, borescope-style USB camera (which I use for things like board close-ups).


The system did recognize the iSight FW camera and the live image appeared in both QuickTime and PhotoBooth. The USB borescope camera was not recognized (though its bus-powered LED ring lighting worked fine). (That camera works on the A1278.) Even with iSight FW working, I could not get the system to, say, use the iSight FW on Photo Booth whilst trying to use the built-in iSight in QuickTime.

So I’m stumped: cameras on USB aren’t happy, nor are they happening.

Buried on page zillion, on posts #18,397 through #18,399 of the highly organized “Mojave on Unsupported Macs” thread, is a kind of guesswork suggestion which, inexplicably, restores iSight function to the MBP8,2 (and, apparently, the 8,1 and probably 8,3, as well).

Following that somewhat brute-force suggestion, I ended up re-applying the standard 8,2 patches, along with manually checking legacy iSight support. I did this thrice, kextcache flush and all, each time.

Restoring a picture happened after the second go, but recording a sample clip in QuickTime had heavy green artifacting. On the third re-patch, this has eliminated the green issue.

Unlike the person in posts #18,397 and #18,399, I did not have the iSight issue when I upgraded High Sierra to Mojave on my late 2011 MBP8,1. I have no idea why outcomes might vary between two different laptops from the same revision number, using the same default-patched Mojave settings.

But this fix eliminates nearly everything on the to-do list. At this point, it’s mostly a matter of upgrading RAM and storage. :D
 
Congrats! :D

What do you think you'll go for on the storage front?

Quite honestly, I haven’t decided yet, since I might try to see whether a transplant of my two SSDs in the A1278 will run fine in the 8,2 environment. When the time comes, though, I’ll probably be looking at one or either a WD Blue or Red SSD, whether 2.5-inch form factor or m.2 blades with an adapter. I could, theoretically, look at a Blu-Ray drive, but I’d likely only rarely ever use it.

What I’m more interested to find (and which is getting close to hen’s teeth-level difficult to locate) is a Crumpler “The School Hymn” laptop zip case for it. They’re long discontinued. They came in a limited assortment of colours for 13, 15, and 17-inch laptops (though they were clearly designed with the PowerBook and, later, MacBook Pros in mind). A sample of hues:

1238588149_611475.jpg
1233047017_473326.jpg
1238588149_611472.jpg
1238589063_611478.jpg

Most of the above are later versions in all-single hues. The first revisions were all two-toned. Only the pale blue one, for the 17-inch, shows how the corners were once available with a different hue on corners.

For my 13-inch MBP, I’ve owned one not seen here (the same green as above, but with yellow corners) since September 2009, when I bought the mid-2009 model (which gave rise to the heavily customized Snow Leopard I still have and use!). The soft felt interior is tan, as with the open example above.

I never thought what they offered, hue-wise, to be especially attractive generally (the pale blue is meh, the black is harsh, and the red is too cool (as in, toward the bluer side). But they’re incredibly durable, easy to grab and hold onto, and fit nicely in a messenger bag or backpack. The green is also hard to miss, even in low lighting.

They also protect what’s inside (so long as one doesn’t have liquid get through the zippers, R.I.P. 2009 MBP). It’s why my 13-inch MBP cases show virtually no scuffs all these years later.

But they’ve been discontinued for over a decade. Whenever they do turn up, usually well-worn, the asking prices often exceed what they sold for new. (And yet, those listings tend to stay up for ages.)

So that’s my priority: to find an example of The School Hymn for the 15. :)
 
Here's the late-2008 15" MBP scored today.
20240903_145208.jpg


20240903_145215.jpg


20240903_145234.jpg


20240903_145425.jpg


20240903_161424.jpg

Condition was used, but well-looked-after. However, there were a couple of gotchas.
1) No keyboard backlight. A quick check showed I was not the first inside, and the backlight connector had been lost under the logic board. Fixed.
2) There are several non-working keys. I'd hoped that re-seating the keyboard connector might have fixed this, what with the evidence of clumsy cable shenanigans in 1). But no, it's a bad keyboard. Rats.
All else is original, drive and battery, which 435 cycles. SSD and fresh El Cap. It runs well.
 
Here's the late-2008 15" MBP scored today.
View attachment 2412337

View attachment 2412338

View attachment 2412339

View attachment 2412341

View attachment 2412340
Condition was used, but well-looked-after. However, there were a couple of gotchas.
1) No keyboard backlight. A quick check showed I was not the first inside, and the backlight connector had been lost under the logic board. Fixed.
2) There are several non-working keys. I'd hoped that re-seating the keyboard connector might have fixed this, what with the evidence of clumsy cable shenanigans in 1). But no, it's a bad keyboard. Rats.
All else is original, drive and battery, which 435 cycles. SSD and fresh El Cap. It runs well.

You may not have realized it, but your showing the OEM Apple SSD (which I’ve never, ever seen before) helped add to Table 1, factory location code, of the Decoding Mac Serials wikipost: IX for (a manufacturer in) Thailand.

(And in the notes for revision reason, I credit you, as well!)

That is a beautiful kit you picked up — box, materials, and all!
 
You may not have realized it, but your showing the OEM Apple SSD (which I’ve never, ever seen before) […]
This is a 250GB 5400rpm Hitachi HDD. One of my 2007 MBPs also came with one of these. Apple‘s SSDs of the time were made by Samsung (used in e.g. 2008/2009 MBA) or Toshiba. Hitachi never made SATA SSDs AFAICS, only high-end stuff.
 
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This is a 250GB 5400rpm Hitachi HDD. One of my 2007 MBPs also came with one of these. Apple‘s SSDs of the time were made by Samsung (used in e.g. 2008/2009 MBA) or Toshiba. Hitachi never made SATA SSDs AFAICS, only high-end stuff.

I’ve made the correction. (I misread @DCBassman the other day in his descrption of this laptop: he had yet to add in the SSD.). Cheers.

Also, of all the OEM HDDs my Macs have been bundled (2007 A1226, 2009 A1278, 2011 A1278, etc.), none was labelled in all-black as that example is.
 
From my collection: another example and another new factory location code:

View attachment 2412407

Huh. Interesting.

This one is missing an Apple serial number. The only to appear is the Fujitsu internal one (the one beginning with “K67BT…”). The syntax of that serial doesn’t fit with any of the Apple-assigned serials on their pre- or post-2010 parts. Were there one, then it would look something more like “K6912…” or “**909”, “**910”, “**911”, or “**912” — with “**” being whatever vendor code Apple might have assigned Fujitsu for that component.

I wonder what happened there.


Not from my collection: Apple/Toshiba SSD with another (new?) code.

This one, meanwhile, has both a Toshiba serial (11JA10EETLHZ) and an Apple serial (WL10300FUAP4A). I’ve added it and updated the map to include the Philippines for the first time.
 
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