iSwag

The other day, a friend of mine was cleaning out his closet (A la Eminem? Not so much.) and dumped all of his old obsolete failing computer hardware on me. Ouch.

Included in the swag was a circa-2001 iBook “dual usb icebook”. This was the first of the square white iThings, with a 500mhz G3 (about the speed of a 1.0ghz Intel), 10GB hard drive, 64MG of memory, a fine 12″ screen, and an Airport card (that happens to be worth more than the rest of the machine, apparently). Oh, and a broken power connector so it only charged the battery when you wiggle and hold it properly; as well as the associated dead battery.

So I priced it out, and decided to ressurect it. “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. […] Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster…”.

120GB hard drive $79 special Bigger than the stock drive in my MacBook,
just enough room for all my mp3s.
512MB memory $120 not-so-special The cheapest chip I could find.
New battery $120 Gave my wife the new one, took hers.
Dissasamble
Repair power connector
Install new components
$0

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