Powerbook G4

A few weeks ago, a colleague approached me in the hallway, and asked if the
rumors were true. She had heard that I was a collector of vintage computers and
associated paraphernalia. I couldn't deny this, of course, but added that
nowadays, I am somewhat more selective when it comes to taking on old stuff. She
explained that she had an old clamshell iBook G3 and a another Apple laptop that
was a bit more recent, neither of which were seeing any use. I declined the
iBook, since they're not only bulky but also in my opinion quite ugly. I was
fascinated by the other machine though, and said that I was interested in it.

A couple of weeks later, the same colleague said that she had the machine in her
office. I got sufficiently excited to leave my tea brewing while I went with her
to have a look at the mysterious laptop. Upon seeing it, I quickly recognized it
as a 12" PowerBook G4. It was in excellent condition, and I immediately said
that I'd be happy to take it off her hands. By the time I got back to my tea,
the brew had turned bitter. My latest acquisition, however, was sweet enough
to keep my mind preoccupied while I swallowed down the vile liquid.

What's so special about this machine, then? First of all, the size. With a 12"
screen, it's quite handy to carry around. While it is on the heavy side, it's
easy to squeeze into a briefcase or small drawer. Secondly, it's built on the
venerable PowerPC architecture and thus belongs to one of the last generations
of truly different Macs. It may seem like nitpicking, but to me it has symbolic
value. Every time I see the discreet font printed below the screen and read the
letters "G4", I'm reminded of a decade when Apple was struggling for its very
survival, in a time before the iPhone or even iPod, when Windows had conquered
so much of the operating system market that Microsoft was trying to satiate its
appetite by devouring all competing web browsers as well. It wasn't obvious then
that Windows had reached the height of its success and that it would go downhill
from there on. Apple provided niche products for hardcore customers who
willingly sacrificed compatibility and economy simply because they were
dedicated to their brand. As a person who bought a Saab even after the
bankruptcy, I can sympathize with that mentality. At that time, though, I still
hadn't used a Mac, simply because I couldn't afford one and didn't know any
people with discarded ones. I frequently rummaged through bins of electronic
waste and occasionally found some useful stuff. Once I even found a fully
functional PC, which I later used as a server for a year. But not a single Apple
product.

I remember being in a waiting room once, probably in the early 2000s. I think it
was at a dentist's office or some other healthcare related facility. As usual,
there were thumbed magazines strewn around. I noticed an issue of a glossy Mac
magazine and started browsing it.  The well-composed, impeccably lit pictures of neatly
designed Macs were almost intimidating to my eyes, being accustomed to the drab
grey PC of the 1990s. I dreamed for a moment, then I put it down again, knowing
that I would never be able to afford one.

So, as I sit now, typing this on the Powerbook G4, I can't help but feeling that
the sensation of resting my hands on the aluminum casing, or listening to the
gong sound as I boot it up, marks the fulfillment of an old dream. Unlike the
dreadful clamshell iBooks and their even worse-looking iMac counterparts, this
Powerbook is still pretty to look at. It's proportionate, and the faux-metal
painted keyboard matches the all-aluminum casing perfectly. It may be heavy,
but it's worth it every time I feel that cold aluminum when I pick it up. After
using it for a while, it instead gets warm and cozy.

The 1.33Ghz processor, for all its G4 mystique, is no longer the powerhouse it
once was. The 512 MB of RAM isn't exactly impressive either. Apple has long
since moved on and the last Mac OS X version I can install is 10.5 (Leopard).
Thankfully, there's always Linux. The good people who develop Debian have
maintained support for PowerPC-based machines, even G4s like this one. So, the
first thing I did was format the hard drive, and install Debian 7. Since the
Powerbook has limited hardware assets, by modern standards, I chose not to
include a graphical user interface. That means that the Powerbook boots up to a
text console. This is more than fine as far as I'm concerned. I set up the wifi,
so that it connects automatically to my wireless network at home. Then I
installed a few useful programs, such as Git and Vim. I even included a few
console games: Nethack and Greed.

Since it was broad daylight, I chose a black-on-white color scheme for this Vim session.

I've already done some work on my thesis on the Powerbook. It's perfect for
sitting down in a comfortable chair in front of the fireplace, and it fits perfectly
in my antique drawer just next to the favorite chair. Not only is this machine
compatible with my current writing workflow, more importantly, it lets me do
it in style. In that sense it's analogous to my antique chairs and tables. Like the
furniture, it deserved a better fate than ending up in a heap of trash.

Memories of a Compaq Contura

It was the summer of 2005. During the summer break from the university, I spent most of June, July and August in my old hometown, working at my uncle's place. He owns a small plot of forested land, and it had been ravaged by a storm that past winter. Most of the toppled trees had already been stripped of their branches, so the only thing that remained was to haul the logs onto the trailer that was hooked up to an old 1950s tractor, then drive them to the sawing station, haul them off the trailer and onto the sawing rack, cut them up into boards, then stack the boards so that they could dry without getting warped. My uncle has a severe chronic back injury since quite a few years back, so most of the manual labor was up to me. I really enjoyed the work, putting my back into it until my muscles ached, soaked in sweat, inhaling the smell of freshly cut lumber with every deep breath. We'd take long lunch breaks at my grandparents' place, wolfing down generous servings of my grandmother's delicious cooking. Afterwards, I'd make some coffee and relax in the worn leather couch. A couple of hours was just enough to recover from a morning of hard work.

The question was: what to do with those daily hours of rest? I slept well at night back in those days, so no need to nap. Naturally, I decided to undertake yet another time-consuming and ultimately pointless computer project. I didn't have much money to spend, but I managed to find a cheap old laptop at an online auction site. It was a Compaq Contura 430C from 1995. The amount I paid for it was roughly equal to the cost of having the machine shipped to me, a total of around 300 SEK (about $40 at the time) if I recall correctly. It was surprisingly heavy, but pretty compact in terms of size. The screen was tiny, with a maximum resolution of 640x480. The Contura 430C had a 100Mhz 486DX processor. To most people, that means nothing. To me, it brought back nostalgic memories of my old 33Mhz 486SX, my very first computer. Back in those days, I dreamed of a 486DX4 processor, but couldn't afford such luxuries, or even find one. In addition to that powerhouse of a processor, the Contura had 8MB of RAM and a 540 MB hard drive. My machine came equipped with a worn-out battery and a floppy disk drive, with Windows 95 installed. I remembered Windows 95 very well from my youth and wasn't very interested in reliving those particular memories: flashbacks of blue screens, crashes and lag.

Compaq Contura 430C. Image courtesy of Tim Holtan (www.tholt.com/comptop.html).

So, I decided to put Linux on the Contura. By then, I had a fair bit of experience with Fedora Core (as it was called back then) and FreeSCO. Eventually, after a bit of research, I downloaded an old version of Slackware and began the painstaking procedure of installing it using floppy disks. The old 1.44 MB disks were pretty and I miss the feeling of one snapping in place in its drive, but they were also a major pain when you had software spread out on a dozen or more disks. Inevitably, one disk, probably one of the last three or so, would suffer a hardware failure of some sort, spewing out corrupt data. Naturally, this happened to me. Growing up with an underpowered 486 had prepared me well, I knew that persistence was the only solution. After a few hours, I had Slackware up and running on the Contura. Since the hardware of the machine was so limited, I skipped the GUI altogether, relying solely on a command-line console. 

Once I had a basic system up and running, I started to experiment and tinker with all sorts of things, from MySQL databases to typing up text documents in Vim. It was a powerful testament to the flexibility of Linux and the hidden potential of an old discarded laptop. As soon as I had eaten my lunch, I'd immediately immerse myself in that laptop and stay glued to the screen until my uncle decided it was time to get back to work. When the summer was over, I brought the Contura with me to Lund. I spent a few weeks staying at a friend's place, sleeping on his couch. The Contura was the perfect companion, enabling me to tinker with Linux even while living out of my backpack. Shortly thereafter, I moved into a dorm and found myself absorbed in this brand new world and the people in it. The Contura spent more and more time gathering dust. Eventually, it ended up in my basement storage. At some point, probably a few moves later, I threw it away.

Today I regret that decision. I wish I still had that machine, just to look at it, touch its keyboard, boot it up and hear that humble BIOS beep after completing its RAM check. Like my dear grandparents, it's nothing more than a memory now. Unlike them, it's something I could have kept at my side for as long as I wanted. It could have been a physical link to those summer days of years past, but it got lost somehow, like all those phone calls I never got around to and all those postcards I never sent. I'll never forget it.