Macintosh PowerBook
G3 Lombard

The PowerBook Lombard is identical in shape and size to the later Pismo but features a standard PowerBook SCSI port on the back instead of two firewire ports. It shipped with two processors a G3 rated at 333 mhz and one at 400 mhz. The 400 mhz version also had a DVD encoder built onto the motherboard so you did not need the card which the 333 and previous PowerBook Wallstreet required to play a DVD video.

The Lombard suffered from the loss of the little rubber feet on their bottoms. Sheppard makes stick on felt pieces that fit the spots perfectly and stay put. Available at Home Depots.

The Lombard shipped with a CD rom drive, like the Pismo you can also add a standard PC laptop CD burner such as the Sony which is also a DVD player, keep in mind that only the 400mhz board supports DVD. VST made this CD/RW drive that was a direct swap in for the Lombard and Pismos. I picked this one up on eBay.

The VST is a nice fit compared to cludging in aftermarket PC burners.

To access the internals you just pop the two clips at the top of the keyboard and slide it off. As with all PowerBook keyboards be careful because a thin ribbon cable connects the keyboard to the motherboard. As with most PowerBooks of this era the largest supported drives are 120GB which is what I run in my maxed out Lombard.

Not sure how this happens, long nails perhaps?

The Lombard does not have an internal airport card slot like the Pismo instead you had to install a wireless card in the single PCMCIA slot. I have used several cards on the Lombard under OSX and OS9. The 2Wire card which is a restickered Orinoco card works well under OS9. You will need the Orinoco drivers which can be found online for free. One special trick with the setup of the Orinoco card, if you use WEP encoding you need to add 0x ahead of your WEP password.

My Lombard 400 mhz running OSX works well with the Microsoft MN720 wireless card. It doesn't need special drivers instead using the built in airport sw loaded with the system. Apple's own AirPort card won't work in a Lombard since it doesn't have the built in antenna.

The Lombard was the last PowerBook to support built in SCSI, this can be a handy feature if you have a older filmscanner or other external SCSI device.

Is there a downside? Yup, the power connector is the weak link on the Lombard, Pismo, Wallstreet and 5300. What typically happens is the solder joints become loose over time and eventually let go. This is a fairly easy repair but you do have to strip down the PowerBook in order to get access to the AC sound board. On the Lombard it is in the right rear and slides down over connecting pins. We've come across many dead G3 laptops lately. Many can be easily repaired, what to know how?