Turning your 12inch iBook into a Powerbook
HardMac has a tutorial on how to turn your low-end 12inch iBook G4 into a Powerbook G4. This is for the truly skilled and adventurous. The end result is you get an iBook G4 with Superdrive, a larger and faster hard drive, Bluetooth and more memory at a lower cost than a similarly-specced 12inch Powerbook.
The required materials :
* 1x iBook G4 12″ 1.2GHz or 1.33GHz standard (256MB/30GB/Combo/Airport Extreme).
* 1x superdrive 8x MATSHITA UJ-845S multi-formats (-RAM, -R, -RW, R, RW).
* 1x HD Hitachi 80GB 7200rpm 8MB cache (HTS721080G9AT00).
* 1x Apple Bluetooth kit for iBook (including the module, wires and antenna)
* 1x very small screw intended to fix the BT module to the motherboard (not necessarily provided with the BT kit).
* 1x 1GB of DDR SDRAM SODIMM PC2100 or PC2700 (CAS 25330).
The tutorial is easy to follow and very detailed – there’s a good discussion of tools needed to perform the task, and there are a lot of photos as well.
I’m quite happy with my iBook as it is, but it would be tempting to try this once my warranty expires!