I have been floating ideas on possible mods for my All-In-One G3 (The Tooth/Molar). I was installing a USB 2.0 PCI upagrde on it last night when my friend "asked why don't you turn it into a pc?"
So I look at it. Ingeniously removable mobo tray with room for floppy, zip, cdrom, and hard drive & a built in monitor. It seems like a really good answer to my question.
Now I run into problem #1. The Monitor interfaces with a "personality card" using a 10 pin ISA cable (I could be way off base here) and receives power from there as well.
If I install a Mini ATX board and standard graphics card how can I get it to work with the stock monitor?
Any help would be appreciated...I will post pics tonight.
Registered: 06/07/04
Posts: 1266
Loc: Stoughton, WI USA
Hmmm...it's been over a year since I used an AIO. I could have sworn it had a custom video card, so that maybe tricky. I bet if you rewire the cable and have it go into a VGA adapter for Mac displays, you could get it to work through the onboard VGA on a mini ATX board.
At the moment, I'm at work, so I'm unable to verify this.
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Registered: 10/16/04
Posts: 586
Loc: Vancouver, BC Canada
I think any mac thats a G3 or up is still a very valid machine and shouldn't have the guts ripped out of it to turn it into a pc. thats simply what I think but its not my puter.
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Mac mini C2D 1.83GHz - 2GB RAM - 200GB 7200rpm HD Sawtooth w/G4 1GHz - 1GB RAM - SIIG SATA w/2x1TB HD B&W w/G4 600MHz - 1GB RAM - 2x80GB HD Sawtooth G4 400MHz - 512MB RAM - 40GB HD Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP 20" Widescreen LCD 2.94TB Total Storage
well, I say, rip the guts out and put them in a new box for a carputer and use the case for something else. It is definitely the ugliest computer that "I" have ever seen. But that is just "my" opinion.
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"Fix it 'til it Breaks."
Jacob - EiC & Director of Technology Mac Pro Quad 2.66 - 4GB RAM 160 GB SATA RAID 1 - 650 GB Storage Quad 19" Widescreen LCDs Accessorized to the Hilt
Registered: 06/07/04
Posts: 1266
Loc: Stoughton, WI USA
I dug out my G3 Tower logic board and looked at the card. You should not have too much trouble matching the which cable goes to what pin from what I can tell. In fact, before I typed anything else up, I did some searching and found some kind gent put together a site which may help you out with your mod.
dont gut it. this AIO mac can be upgraded to a g4 with a sonnettech card. upgrade the procsesor hardrive and ram instead. a usb 2.0 card would work.. but a fire wire/usb 2.0 card would be most cost effective.. sonttech offers this as well.
you are right, it can be upgraded and I have been considering that as well. To be honest, the Tooth mod is a two-part mod looking well into the future. The ToothPC would funtion as a desktop system for about 8 months before I remove it and implant it into my car as a car-puter. The drawer system on the tooth makes it very easy to itegrate it under the overhang in the trunk. I am also considering a custom acrylic case instead so maybe the tooth will be spares :dry: . I do love the tooth tho, but its primarily the exterior beauty/ugliness that appeals to me. MacOS 9 feels too outdated to use and a G4 upgrade is a bit costly for me.