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PowerBook G4 SuperDrive Speed Bump Hack

Posted by pudge on from the do-not-try-this-at-home dept.

George Wright writes "A guy called cynikal has managed to hack the firmware on the PowerBook G4's "Superdrive" (the Panasonic UJ-815A slimline slot loading DVD-R/RW burner) to enable DVD-R burning at 2x (instead of 1x), DVD-RW burning at 1x (instead of it being disabled), CD-R burning at 16x (instead of 8x) and CD-RW burning at 8x (instead of 4x). Thanks a lot cynikal! The drive now reports as a UJ-815A instead of a UJ-815, and has a firmware revision of D101 instead of the DOC4, DOCB or DWDB the PowerBooks came with. A firmware downgrader can be obtained from the same place to downgrade back to DOCB if you want to, and there is a discussion thread."

3 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I would use it, but... by whorfin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Perhaps the manufacturer sells a variety of drive 'packages', and they all actually use the same hardware, and are differentiated only by the firmware running them. Saves the manufacturer a lot of money on engineering/producing several different product lines...

    Kinda like when you go to a restaurant and the kids meal, at 1/3 the price, is the same food as the 'adult meal'.

    --
    Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
  2. Why? by CrackedButter · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If this DVD Writer has been crippled due to heat or battery issues, why did Apple disallow burning of RW DVD's? Why must they all burn DVD-R and if it is for compatibility then shouldn't that be up to the customer, afterall if they allow RW then it gives them greater choice anyway.

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    Jonathanjk.com
  3. Re:I would use it, but... by shaitand · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dunno specifically about the DVD-RW writing, I imagine it's more intensive for the drive with the overhead involved in a RW but I'm no expert on the internal physical workings of the drive. Even the man who write the firmware upgrade doesn't know if the operations would actually cause any kind of heat issue.