So, as some of you know, I've been thinking about building a Pismo completely from scratch. I think it will be a cool project. Of course, I need a parts list and some general guide. Other than that, any suggestions and/or comments?

As a shamless Pismo lover (I use mine instead of my G4 1.2 GHZ iBook) I am very interested, what, exactly do you mean? Part by part, to build a stock/upgraded Pismo or using the Pismo case with more modern "guts"?

Do you have any parts yet?
I can give you a good list to start with at least, just from memory:

Top Case inc. Trackpad and Speakers;
Bottom Case;
Front Screen Bezel;
Rear Screen Bezel;
Logic Board;
Battery Charge Board;
AC/Sound Board;
CPU Module & Heatsink;
PCMCIA Card Cage;
Airport Card Cable;
LCD Panel (There are two different ones, they might use different displaycables);
Display Cable;
Inverter Board;
Inverter Cable;
Modem Board & RJ11 Cable;
Airport Antenna Cable;
Microphone & Cable;
Keyboard;
Optical Drive Module;
Hard Drive Cage & Cable;
Battery;
Hinges;
Clutch Cover with Power Button;
PRAM Battery;
Port Cover (usually with the bottom case);
Heat Shield;
Fan;
Rib Frame (often found with bottom case on eBay);

Obviously you will need a hard drive, RAM (PC100 or 133 SDRAM) and your choice of optical drive to fit in the module. And screws to hold it all together.
If I have missed out any parts, they will mostly be included with one of the other parts on my list.

Upgrade Options are as follows:
G4 CPU up to 550MHz or so;
G3 up to 1GHz or so;
RAM up to 1GB;
Hard Drive up to 128GB I suspect;
Will happily run a DVDRW;
PCMCIA Expansion;
Not sure if you can overclock the Rage128 GPU or not;
High-Capacity Battery;

Should get you started at any rate.

Probably would be too pricey at the moment, and the biggest one I found was only 1GB, but I have been wondering about using a PCMCIA flash card to boot OS X on an older PowerBook. I figure 8GB of flash would give you a nice big, fast scratch disk.

I mean part by part, sir. All the way!


Pretty daunting, but I think it will be fun. I'm going to be asking for everybody's help on here because, in all honesty, I've never touched a Pismo but I love them to death...

kinda like a crush.... err... maybe

waragainstsleep,

Thanks for the list. I'll make that my starting point. Right now I'm cruising on eBay and comparing part prices. I want this to be as cheap as possible.

Eventually, I want it completely upgraded. It would be cool if I could get the now defunct G3/1GHz, but they're super rare and super expensive. I would like that to be an eventual goal. If not, I'll get the G4

The Apple service manuals have the exploded view at the end which is a great visual reference.

http://www.applerepairmanuals.com/#portable

pismo is the best G3 portable in the history of the world. you can even get G4 1.9ghz upgrades for them now.

good luck and happy building!

1.9mhz for a Pismo? Havent heard of that. I know that there is such a cpu for Tibooks. I have had great success with a FastMac G4. Now if I could get around to getting another battery.

This is one crazy idea, but weirdly fascinating . Gonna look forward to following this project.

you're right. its for the tibook. wasn't thinking..