G4 keyboard

For some reason, when I ordered my Powerbook G4, I upgraded everything apart from the hard drive - I should have got the 100GB but am stuck with the 80GB. I cant be bothered to send it in and have Apple do it for me so I decided to do it myself. I was surprised at how much disk space OS X uses - XCode developer tools alone took up over 1G of disk space.
Anyway, to open the Powerbook, you need a few precision screwdrivers and a small Alan key. The screws however are really tight - the person who put the machine together must have been on steroids or something. Anyway, after wrestling with the machine for about 20 mins, I finally got it open.
I noticed that the speakers were not parallel with each other - there is a third speaker just at the top of the battery compartment (I think that's for bass) - and yet these 3 speakers produce great quality sound - the bass is a little thin though but very acceptable. Have not changed the drive yet and just wanted to see how easy it was to remove it - seems pretty straight forward.
BTW, you need to remove two screws from the memory compartment (don't have to remove the memory) and two screws in the battery compartment. Then there's 4 long screws under the machine and a few on the sides.
Once all screws are removed, you remove the keyboard facing side of the machine and not the bottom - please do all this at your own risk :-)

Just before I put the machine back together however, I noticed the light sensors which trigger the keyboard lighting and display brightness. I was bummed at first that the Powerbook did not come with the ability to turn on and off the keyboard lighting - I covered the sensors with black electric tape (below). Don't forget that there are two light sensors both located under the speaker grille. Now I can have the keyboard lit under dimly lit conditions instead of having to turn all the lights in the room off and risking tripping over the wads of 10,000 yen notes lying around the place (I wish) .

Whilst normally you cant switch on the keyboard lighting at will - you can after you have done this. F8 will turn the lighting off while F9 turns it on.

yo, the lighting trick,
so im getting a powerbook,, i hope, there spensive little itters, hey? and am confused, so do they all come with onyl light sensitive capabilities, as in they are only on when it is pitch black? shitty, is this true though? or only for like the 17 inch 15 inch etc, etc i pretty much only want power over i for, well, the power, but the keyboard, bein a writer i mean--sloth, so suppose i could get someone to do what you did quite easily, and then id turn em on and off at will, or could it be that a 12 inch powerbook would not even have the cpability ??
hmm...
thanks for your time, enjoyed your welcome mat, truly, my ex had one, and the fan was about as annoying as him har har...


tlin

yo, the lighting trick,
so im getting a powerbook,, i hope, there spensive little itters, hey? and am confused, so do they all come with onyl light sensitive capabilities, as in they are only on when it is pitch black? shitty, is this true though? or only for like the 17 inch 15 inch etc, etc i pretty much only want power over i for, well, the power, but the keyboard, bein a writer i mean--sloth, so suppose i could get someone to do what you did quite easily, and then id turn em on and off at will, or could it be that a 12 inch powerbook would not even have the cpability ??
hmm...
thanks for your time, enjoyed your welcome mat, truly, my ex had one, and the fan was about as annoying as him har har...


tlin