Testing Apple's FIRST iBook - Will it Work?

Thanks to Victor for the donation!
Today we're going to explore one of Apple's first iBook G3 Clamshells that was recently sent my way. Will it work? Or will it require some repairs? Let's find out!
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#MichaelMJD #iBook #Apple

[@laur6405]

A really nice collector's piece. You don't really get to see 20+ year old hardware in such good shape.

[@vlsaurus1700]

It was only after contacting MJD that I found out this was a collector's item. I'm honestly surprised that it turned on at all, let alone boot into a USABLE OS!!

[@laur6405]

@@vlsaurus1700 Well it clearly didn't see that much use otherwise it wouldn't have been in such good shape. It would be have been a collector's item even if it wouldn't have worked because the chassis can be reused with a working board

[@KeithMyers2022]

I remember very briefly using a blue clamshell PC in an after-school program in 2008. Played a lot of fun brain on that pc

[@cjsebes]

I bought one from off a Craigslist ad a few years ago and met the seller at a Dunking Donuts. After seeing the iBook, we shook hands, I paid him, and he almost fell over as I flipped out the handle and picked it up. After owning the laptop for like 10 years, he had no idea the handle was there. Too funny.

[@iiTsFaded_]

I’m a good friend of Victor’s, he told me he sent something your way for a video, but I never expected this!

[@vlsaurus1700]

Hi Kyle

[@iiTsFaded_]

@@vlsaurus1700 hey

[@vlsaurus1700]

Yes I am! Hello 👋

[@smartperson1]

The original tangerine iBook was a quirky thing of beauty. I miss fun Apple…

[@RisingRevengeance]

Late 90's-early 00's was the best apple has ever been even if not financially

[@MattExzy]

I still want one!! I wanted one as a kid then, and I still want one now.. there's a part of my brain that still treats it like a new computer worth having, totally useable in the modern day, which is quite delusional, but a testament to it.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@lazytwaaat they're saying they're using a metric other than pure finances and sales (though of course it's probably part of it, since this iBook was a sales success). I'm guessing more in terms of product design creativity, execution of core concepts, and so on

[@baoquoc3710]

@lazytwaaat The 6 isn't that good of a phone as we think it was, even with 200m sales. Bending, ghost touches, sluggish dual-core is just enough to put you off, the next iteration while less sale, proved to be less being e-waste than the heavily flawed 6.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@kaitlyn__LFor a long time they used sales numbers to show their growth. But then they moved to revenue. Because sales don't increase anymore, but the phones are becoming more expensive.

[@jaikishorsharan5971]

The device was nice in the past, unfortunately the resolution of 800x600 was an issue, because 1024x768 was already pretty common at that time.

[@appleinfl]

If you can source a specific display from an early 2001 white iBook g3 and cable, you can make some adjustments in open firmware to add 1027x768 resolution. Definitely makes them much more functional in OS X

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@appleinfl openfirmware is underrated, probably just because it's command line rather than a text-mode menu as people had become accustomed-to on Intel PCs. I love it

[@ProtoMario]

I am always stunned that people got rid of these old machines, like if they still work, use them. They cost like 2 to 6 grand back in the 90s just to toss that away. Man crazy.

[@scallen3841]

Yep

[@TheLucidLuxray]

Technology evolved at an astronomical rate around the time this machine came out, so I can see the justification of upgrading to something new every three years then.

[@matchc0635]

Something sad is I would like to use my 10yr+ old computer equipment but the technology had advanced to a point it can't even handle 480p KZbin or video editing in the slightest

[@TheBishopFury]

​@@matchc0635 Curious. You mean Intel era macs? PowerPC I agree, what they still do well these days is raising noise level in the room and that's it.

[@matchc0635]

@@TheBishopFury nope, just computers in general no matter mac or not, got an thinkpad that's one of it's last kind which still have the IBM badge on it, cool factor is a 10 but barely useable in current day enviroment

[@MattExzy]

Those older drives can sometimes have a thing called 'stiction' - it was a real thing spoken of in Mac circles around the time - the myth/fact was that the lubricant in the drive would stick when it hadn't been used for a while. Could explain why it worked after warming up and cycling for a bit.

[@Hendrik382]

Sounds like my 2007 Audi haha

[@dabombinablemi6188]

I thought the typical cause was the HDD head cold welding itself to a platter - at least in the early 90's.

[@Lampe2020]

A word to the CD drive: if the laser is broken it would still spin up, then slam the laser into the disc to try to get a focus, then spin down again, then repeat. If it can open the hatch but doesn't even attempt to spin up it must be the motor that spins the disc which is broken.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Probably the classic disintegrating belt. I have a drive with a completely stretched out belt that keeps randomly opening on it's own. Replacing the belt helps.

[@Lampe2020]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Especially in the bigger drives the CD holder head is mounted directly to a simple DC motor. So there's no belt to desintegrate and either the control board or the motor is toast.

[@outsidethewaxbox]

The clip-in keyboard is indeed a feature I miss. My iBook G4 from 2005 also had that and allowed me to slide in RAM and a new HDD without an issue. Although servicing my plastic unibody MacBook from 2010 and MacBook Pro from 2012 weren’t all that difficult either.

[@goclunker]

Ram yes , hdd no. Ibook g4 required a full teardown for hdd

[@flotowncomputerguy6243]

I still have one that I overclocked via moving some resistors. The heatsink runs on thoughts and prayers. It was much improved in the white iBook g3. You can actually swap a 1024x768 screen into one of these clamshells if you have one of the later models with more video memory

[@anurag9314]

Has Michael ever done a face reveal? He seems like he'd be a perfect friend to have a drink with

[@RostMor]

Nope, he's a full incognito. If a reflection could appear from the monitor, he puts on a mask.

[@mvevitsis]

He's actually Krazy Ken

[@Telefoon-bi9wf]

​@@mvevitsis the plot thickens

[@BloominFleury29]

@@RostMor ngl that’s the best way to be

[@MikeSparksMusic]

@@RostMorAlthough he did show himself from the collar area down when he tried on the Microsoft Windows Ugly Christmas sweaters a few years back.

[@HeadsetGuy]

A lot of old CD-ROM drives struggle to read CD-Rs, especially if they weren't burned at a slow speed. If you have any proper CD-ROMs, you should test the CD drive with one of those.

[@TimurTripp2]

This was the computer that started me off collecting too back 8 years ago. Good to see one being reviewed on your channel!

[@TimurTripp2]

It’s 9 years actually. Time is moving too fast 😬

[@christopherwilliams9418]

By far the iBook Clamshell is my favorite Apple, my favorite computer, to ever be produced. My indigo firewire SE is my pride and joy, I have a 128GB SSD in it, an 8x DVD drive (currently with a graphite drive bezel but always looking for a way to get it matching), maxed out RAM... I'm looking to have the battery rebuilt but it's hard finding someone willing to weld the tabs onto the 18650 cells I bought for it. Something interesting, on the firewire models, there's actually a second unpopulated bank for onboard memory. People have theorized that this might have been for an unreleased Revision D model of the Clamshell, which hypothetically could have shipped with as much as 256mb of onboard memory. There's an interesting topic about it on... I think the Macrumors forums? It's been a while. Would love if someone actually managed to get those working, definitely a computer surgery I'd be willing to pay for to have it done to my own. By that point the GPU would be the real bottleneck... Would love if someone somehow managed to get a 16mb one off a DualUSB iBook in there. :P EDIT: Forgot to mention the matching iBookBag and the matching RCA ColorView CRT television! I love to accessorize... XD

[@goclunker]

Scratch the contacts on the batts and carefully solder. Make sure you don’t heat them too much with your iron. The the wires will stick once scratched and fluxed

[@waterlillymiller3207]

I love hearing you talk about how you got into collecting old computers, especially because you got me interested in it and I'm now the proud owner of two Compaq Presario PCs, a 5000 series and an SR5202HM

[@chriswertz1661]

I have a laptop that I hasn't run for 4+ years. It took about 3 reboots to run right. I think the drive stiffened up and took a while to loosen up again. Works fine now.

[@nilz23]

I don't know how you can resist punching Eddy right in his face what with him looking at you with that self satisfied grin on his face through every video.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

"So unlike Apple today." Hell, I remember Apple marketing material from that time that boasted of the modularity and easy access as positive features.

[@LatiLag]

The first generation of IBook G3 was very original and crazy. It's like a weird fusion of Y2K design of the late '90 of 1900 and.. Art Nouveau of the late' 90 of 1800. I always loved these Apple products

[@alexiiconner]

1800😭 do u mean 1980? or am i confused 😅

[@LatiLag]

@@alexiiconnerNo, no. Properly the '90's of 1800 when Art Nouveau was a huge new thing, this can be weird but it is a personal prospective, nothing is official. This comparison is for the curved lines of the G3 and the sense of "innovation" of this colored design, compared to the rest of the scene at the time

[@kuroinekonya]

Glad to see so many uploads this month! :)

[@dcarpenter85]

I love when retro devices have a history attached to them. It's really cool seeing how these devices were used back in the day.

[@hh-kw4vo]

always awesome when you post!

[@JamieGAdaire]

I remember we each got one of these in school to use. We had to return them at the end of the school day, but I certainly loved the handle for sure!

[@ahmadzahid266]

an imac portable, was an iconic laptop on this era, hope in next video fixing cd room and disassemble for this ibook and discover how looks inside of this device, and also making a projects on this device like what you do with wii, it's was so fun videos

[@NaoPb]

Love the look of the old iBooks and the white MacBook. I feel like working with some of them again and finally get my hands (again) on an iBook G4 and G3.

[@TangoTheDamnMango]

your videos are great, when im bored i always go to your channel and search for some cool stuff! keep up the great work!

[@jeffyp2483]

ive been looking for that hand towel all week, and you had it all along!

[@blahmehpfft]

Omg so good thanks for sharing ❤

[@thecatherd]

Oh hey, I had one of these as a hand-me-down which I used for homework and essays up until around 2015. These things are crazy study and are still perfectly cromulent for offline use like word processing. And they still look great too!

[@justin6581]

Do you still have it?

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Thanks, Victor!

[@ikwilgeenkanaalzeur]

Love the design!

[@abigaillilac1370]

The old iBooks look so cool. I haven't used one before because I was too young. My elementary school got the all white mostly rectangular Macbooks when those came out in the mid '00s. I do remember using Bondi Blue G3s when I was in kindergarten.

[@shanecottam5550]

Lovely iBook, they are so much nicer looking that their modern equivalents. Just a thought regarding your faulty CD ROM drive. The issue may be that the rubber band that spins the disk may have perished. Great video BTW

[@GreggyMcfly]

Funny on how we used to call these "Judy Jetson's EZ Bake Oven." 🤣🤣

[@E_yad]

Didn't finish the video, Going great so far 👍

[@rowermusic]

this model looks so cute!

[@willt9172]

Awesome, yes do some more with it in the future!

[@Dez_The_Wolf]

I bought one on release day! this brings back so many memories!

[@d3adman404]

YES! i love this old macintosh videos!

[@prescientdove]

i have this one, still powers up and runs great.

[@plechaim]

I remember a teacher having one of these when it must have been brand new, same colour. He was a Mac fanatic!

[@Dedicated2WendyWilliams]

yours is in the best condition that ive seen. its rare to find these in such good condition

[@blushslice]

I want one so bad ugh the lime green one is so pretty 💚

[@exaltedb]

I think for me, the Mac that got me into collecting a few of them was a Power Mac G4 MDD with the dual 1.42ghz processors (that a friend gave me for free). Sadly it stopped working and I had no means to fix it but now I have a couple MacBooks as well as a Power Mac G5 (late 05) that I use as a web server. Much as fan of vintage macs as well

[@Voltasaur]

Always wanted one of these in lime green ☺️

[@LukeZalvino]

Sad that I dont have any nostalgia connected to 2000s mac stuff. Never had any mac stuff or barely used it besides in like 1999 to play Oregon trail.

[@blainepalmerza]

Awesome video, Michael!

[@OwenSpahiu]

HAPPY 420K SUBS!

[@ericjenks9596]

You can always hook it up to a local network and connect it to another mac with apple talk! I had to do that with my imac g3 running 8.6. It never had the usb mass storage update installed, so it wouldn’t recognize usb sticks. I networked it to my g4 tower and backed up the drive to another hdd, and downloaded the needed firmware and software updates it was missing.

[@pedropassamani]

Love that indigo one. Beautiful color. My first Mac was a G3 iMac in indigo blue.

[@troyvanheer3827]

Hi Michael, great video as always! I have a suggestion, give the laser on the iBook a quick clean and fiddle around with the drive to see if you can get it spinning again, even if it's just temporarily. Sometimes people get lucky and it ends up working, BUT THAT'S MY CHALLENGE TO YOU! 😁

[@ZeroHourProductions407]

Steve jobs then: "lift this flap, and all the technology is there for you." *Crowd oohs and ahhs and cheers* Tim cook now: "you can't upgrade the ram. You cant upgrade the storage. You take a screwdriver to it and we will shoot you and ban your itunes account." Crowd: *crickets* Me: "is this the 1984 timeline or what?"

[@umuclaudius]

The worst thing about this anti-consumer bullshit all of these companies are doing (its not just apple, its all of them) is that most people just dont care, we just let it happen. There will be a point where we cant go back and itll be our fault for not doing anything about it. Theres still a chance to stop it. All we need to do is stop buying the products of these companies. But no one seems to care.

[@Dogeforlife0]

Orange, white, victor.... WAIT! ITS VECTOR

[@PixelatedFolf]

Been watching your channel for awhile now, much love and support as always!

[@thekornreeper]

Hell yeah ❤

[@mintybudgie]

yeah

[@KSCPMark6742]

I always hope to see a project to entirely replace the internals in one of these classics with the internals from for example a modern 13" MB Air....

[@WalterMan]

Old Apple laptops are just amazing. I recently bought a 2007 MacBook Pro as I really love the look of them. I wanted to see if I could fix it, unfortunately I don’t believe I will be able too.

[@LuneLovehearn]

When I was a kid, I always wanted to own the clamshell iBook from that era. those looked so cool with those colors and plastic design... I saw one on a tech magazine from 1999 ~ 2001 iirc. also the ads on the TV about it... one day i found one at college on the computer science labs. too bad the professors didn't allowed me to attempt to revive it and try it. there was another channel trying to upgrade those to the latest possible hardware while keeping the chasis of it. you may like to check out that project where it ended running with an intel i7 and 8 GiB RAM with the latest macOS from 2018 iirc. nowadays I just want the latest intel based macbook to learn mac til M processors get good enough.

[@Haluu_]

glad to see a video from you! honestly, if you started a patreon/youtube member thing i would love to support you!

[@MichaelMJD]

I have debated starting a Patreon page for years now, so I'm glad to see there's some interest!

[@Haluu_]

@@MichaelMJD Yeah! As long as you don't have the prices too terribly outrageous, id love to support your content!

[@Kingelfdemondevourer]

i have vivid memories of that orange ibook.. many many many hours over 20 years ago spent playing many games.. but the one i remember most i believe was Turok.. this was late 90's and early 2000's

[@Stefan_38]

The collors are a vibe

[@sirflimflam]

I could never really get over the toylike appearance of these compared to other laptops, especially considering that these bright transparent colors were all tie rage on actual toys in that time period. Not that I could afford one at the time in the first place being like 14 years old. Looking back, it actually doesn't look that bad.

[@jbdbibbaerman8071]

I can definitely see what you mean. I wasnt around at the time but it definitely looks like a toy. It's an interesting choice

[@hammondOT]

Same. I can't stand the look. I had the impression they weren't "real" computers. Way too gimmicky.

[@Monsuco]

I found one of those and kept it around. It needed a new HDD and a new touch pad, the battery was toast so I got rid of it and I got it up to 544 MB of RAM but now it works. I got it to dual-boot macOS 9.2.2, the final version of Classic macOS alongside macOS 10.4.11 "Tiger". Officially it can't run Tiger unless it has a firewire port but a tool called XPostFacto allows it to bypass Apple's arbitrary hardware restriction. You can play old mac games on it and it's an interesting piece.

[@95Comics]

U can easily add the fire wire port. The pinout is on the board and you can solder a new one in. Hardest part is cutting the hole but a hot screwdriver will make short work of it!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

You really lucked out, in general. It is good that you had an extra iBook to swap the hard drive with. Enjoy!

[@RosieBee463]

Those old clamshells and the other fruity colored imacs certainly had character compared to what was going on with PCs at the time. My only memory of these is playing with the display units in Best Buy, yet they still stand out to me after so many years.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Overall, you have a great machine!

[@emmaimprenti3078]

Love that machine, brought mine in 2016 and it is the KeyLime

[@MichaelMJD]

The Key Lime is probably my favorite color!

[@davidmckendry4491]

Love seeing the Eddie "reliable" trusffull figure smiling next to a apple product.😂

[@pop-coyotart]

What I wouldn't give to have one of these with windows 7 on it! Wow, what a cool piece of tech!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Hey, a PowerPC 750 and ATi graphics, just like my Gamecube. I've always wondered if it would be possible to get OSX onto the console.

[@electricmiragemedia]

Your response to the price of the CD ROM drive was nice.

[@whatbroicanhave50character35]

Super common in schools for sure. Never used G3s but used G4s in 2008-9 at one school. Then Ipads from 2011-2013 at another

[@mbgeralds3010]

I still have the one I bought my son (he was 11) in 2000 in its original box. Cleaning closets and noticed it on a top shelf. Trying to think of a way to upcycle it brought me here

[@David_Phantom]

A cliché potential for the issue with the disc drive is capacitors. But if there are issues with power, that could also explain the initial problem you had with booting the hard drive. After the capacitors "warmed up" so to speak, they were able to handle booting the hard drive. Just a thought, though things that punch holes in this hypothesis are the fact the screen appeared to have no issues and that the sound seemed to work fine. Also, can the iBook boot from a USB DVD drive?

[@sjgrall]

I miss my blueberry iBook. I stupidly sold it off when I needed money about a decade ago. It was nearly mint, despite heavy use.

[@gracekim25]

This is pretty cool tech 😮 I’m amazed by how creative Apple were at the beginning 15.8.23

[@aquaz_eu]

10:43 that voice was almost like "the missle knows where it is" :D

[@daleadams6947]

8:21 Startup sound!

[@5argetech56]

Whenever I see one of those clam shell iBooks, I think of Alton Brown! He always used a blue and white one on his show Good Eats! ☺

[@vascanj]

My favorite color of this type of MacBook!

[@RandomFandomOfficial]

Max it out with fancy upgrades!

[@E_yad]

Finished it better than butter!

[@bvanbranden]

The palm app came standard on the iBook 99 install CD.

[@sadmac356]

yeah 15:43 is why I'm _still_ struggling to back up mine. I'd just throw it in target disk mode if it had firewire, but since it doesn't, I'm trying to back it up over a network connection

[@30anerds]

Where did you find that one. WOW. Would LOVE to have a Tangerine. Fantastic condition. So SO SO jealous.

[@phr3dmcc0y]

You might be able to remove the optical drive and look at the numbers on it to see if it is a generic style from that time period, and get one similar to it from a different laptop, and just move the plastics to the replacement. Or see if that drive can be repaired by someone who is a mac fanatic.

[@Demonguy84]

Did you trie using a non burned disc? Around that time, a lot of drives (in my experience) couldn't read CD-R/RW.

[@voltare2amstereo]

the cd drive model is likely just a generc IDE type as used in windows pc's their were 2 or 3 types to do with how the front bezel attaches

[@gillesp782]

I have 6 of them (all colors and a second tangerine), they all works fine !

[@RyZe_VeXiL]

i love the orange color

[@jasm817]

Nice review on the clam :) ha ha Well, Take noitce that after the internal battery got some sort of charge the harddrive worked, I believe these old laptops have issues with cmos / bios connection. I had similar issue with a dell laptop when internal cmos battery and laptop battery completely dead, I thought the hrddrive and the CD was broke but they simply were not mounting. Replacement of the cmos battery corrects this or oddly a partially charged laptop battery can get around it.

[@chris88962]

I put an msata 64gb drive in an ata enclosure in to mine. Getting to that hdd is a huge pain.

[@sjgrall]

Wow, your indigo hasn't faded!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Ok! Let's order pizza off of it now. I'm hungry.

[@TuscanMapping]

Hey Michael, do you remember the Compaq Portable 1? When will come out the part 2? (Sorry for the english, im Italian)

[@PipimiOden]

I think I've seen a japanese user use it for one of the di gi charat email programs semi recently, using some cords to connect it to their modern pc to screen record with obs

[@empireOfcHiNa8888]

I have that Macintosh in the same color!

[@David_Quinn_Photography]

old school laptops are cool and Apple had the coolest looking one.

[@APM_29]

How did you get an iMac G3, what a crazy portable piece of old Mac

[@logan_page]

You got the tangerine? Lucky. I only have the blueberry.