Hopefully, I'm not jinxing myself here, but here goes... I was attempting to use my Pismo for recording audio from a small mixing board, to which was connected a number of vintage keyboard instruments. The board's output was plugged into the Pismo's input jack, as I'd done a few times before, and a pair of headphones was plugged into it's headphone jack. I had just opened Audacity when I saw a bright blue flash come from the back of the Pismo, accompanied by a loud *BANG!* I immediately shut down my equipment, and unplugged everything from the back of the Pismo, after which a lovely burning smell permeated from it's audio ports.
Miraculously, the computer was still running via battery power, though an ominous crackling/hissing sound could be heard through the speakers. I quickly shut it down, waited a few minutes, and then cautiously started it back up. The crackling had gone away, the starting chime occurred as normal, and the computer booted up just fine. Nothing seems to have gone awry with the power board or AC adapter, since the battery seems to be charging fine. Both the speakers and internal microphone seem to be working as well as they did before the incident, as does the headphone jack. The input jack may be a different story, since a quick test with an old-fashioned microphone connected to it produces a softer sound than expected, along with an annoying humming noise; however, I wouldn't call that a scientific test, so who knows. I'm not quite sure what happened; I think one of the connectors got pinched, causing a short which made one heck of a spark from one of the audio ports. I think I'm going to retire the Pismo from recording duties after this, especially since it seems to be allergic to my Behringer F-Control Audio FCA-202 Firewire audio interface (attempting to select it as an input source in the Sound control panel causes an instant kernel panic), and consider myself lucky that the Pismo was, as a whole, able to survive my little episode of stupidity. Hopefully, it'll continue to operate as normally as an eight year old notebook can be expected to work. Anyway, I figured I'd share this with the G- Book community as a testament to the durability of the venerable Pismo, as well as a tip for those who might try to use it's input jack for something other than a simple microphone or some-such... -Adam -- Adam Vaughn Collector of old computers, video game systems, radios and other electronic equipment... Visit my page at http://www.electronixandmore.com/adam/index.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Low End Mac's G-Books list, a group for those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books). The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
