In Praise of the Clamshell iBook

[Knight]

Tamara Keel explains why her 7-year-old clamshell iBook remains one of her favorite field computers.

Full Low End Mac Article

[weili]

Don't forget that the Clamshell iBook were the first Macs, and probably the first computers, to have built-in wi-fi.

[Turboladdade]

I believe they were, in fact, the first computers with built in 802.11b that was not externally visible in any way.

[ckilner]

I used an Indigo iBook (366MHz, Firewire) for 5 years and loved the machine (but the 800x600 screen is small for OS X). It went lovingly to my neice, who is still using it.
I recently picked up a Tangerine model (Rev. B w/ 6GB HDD and 64MB RAM) off the local Craigslist for $50 for my 8-yr-old daughter. It needs a new battery (I already tried the Battery Reset), but I already have an AirPort card and a 256MB stick of RAM for it... a Magic Eraser did a nice job of refreshing the exterior. It is running 10.3.9 and my daughter loves it.
However, my impression from setting up her iBook is that the Firewire Clamshell iBooks are much more versitile; they are supported by Tiger, have faster (lower power) processors, larger hard drives, sound out, video out, and Firewire connectivity (including Target Disk Mode... which I really missed while setting up the Tangerine model).
I presently have a G3 iBook 800, which is even more versitile with its added speed, storage, video RAM, screen resolution, and 2nd USB port in more compact form... but I don't use it as much now since I'm hooked on the features of Leopard (I will probably pass this iBook on to my 12-yr-old son who is going through laptop envy at the moment).

[Tamara]

Mine has gone all kinds of places you probably shouldn't take a laptop: The desert, a friend's hot tub, out into the woods to borrow a neighbor's AirPort connection when my 'net connection tanked (he said it was okay) and it just keeps chugging along.

Have I mentioned how much I love the handle?

[ckilner]

My Indigo went quite a few places, too. On a drive to the local hardware store, I once logged more than 50 open wireless networks.

I also edited my first iMovie on the iBook and played the movie on the TV with the display adapter.

My most memorable use of it was on 9/11/2001 - I had been sent home from work early since my tall office building was in the flightpath for Dulles airport (from the tenth floor, we could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon). I continued working (and checking news sites) from my front porch with the iBook while I waited for the schoolbus to bring the kids home - fighter jets circling the DC area with nothing else in the sky.

[Turboladdade]

Ah yes, I remember how amazing iMovie 2 seemed to me back in November of 2000. I had just spent two years trying to do video editing on a Compaq Presario and it was two years of hell. The iBook with iMovie seemed so amazing, and in retrospect it really was.

[rizon216]

I LOVE my Indigo iBook.

Growing up, my parents had a graphite iMac, and I had always wanted an iBook, though didn't have enough money to get one at the time.

I bought a MacBook Pro for college, and tried to use SheepShaver and other emulation options to play older Mac games (Bugdom, Nanosaur!) with little success.

Then I remembered the iBooks! I bought a "fix-up" Indigo unit from eBay, followed by LOTS of parts purchases. Heck, I probably spent more than I would have if I bought a complete, working iBook first - but now I am extremely attached to my iBook and LOVE it.