Apple PowerBook Duo: The Laptop That Was Also a Desktop
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- Опубліковано 3 гру 2020
- In the early 1990's, there was an industry trend to make laptops smaller and lighter. These so-called subnotebooks often resulted in a compromise between portability and practicality. Apple's PowerBook Duo series, however, tried to do everything.
Sources (in order of appearance):
AST Premium Exec laptop photo: openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/ret...
PC Magazine, April 14, 1992.
Toshiba Libretto photo: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
LGR's ThinkPad 701c video: • IBM ThinkPad 701C: The...
HP Omnibook 800CT photo: muzeuldecalculatoare.ro/2018/...
Compaq Contura Aero photo: / restored_compaq_contur...
PC Magazine, September 28, 1993.
Computerworld, August 15, 1994.
MacUser, December 1992.
Macworld, December 1992.
Macworld, December 1993.
Macintosh Duo System Developer Note, November 1992.
AAUI ThinNet transceiver photo: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
AAUI 10Base-T transceiver photo: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
The Apple Catalog, Spring 1993.
Macintosh Classic photo: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
MacUser, November 1995.
The Apple Catalog, Fall 1993.
MacUser, December 1993.
Duo battery charger photo: www.ebay.com/itm/APPLE-M7778-...
Duo 270c upgraded to 2300 photo: www.flickr.com/photos/kenleew...
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Intro music by BoxCat Games (www.box-cat.com). - Наука та технологія
"a lot of potential buyers felt like they were getting nickeled and dimed by all the accessories' Oh Apple, you never change
This 100% 👍
That was the pre-Jobs era. They wouldn’t ever do that today.
@@JasperJanssen lol
On the other hand, you could simply buy a non-DUO PowerBook and be alright without all the accessories. So: No, it wasn't just "the Apple thing to do".
@@fryke JuSt DoNt BuY iT
My Aunt had a Duo when I was a kid. It felt like a computer from the future.
Cool!
How much it cost back in 1992?
Thunderbolt 3 making this stuff possible again.
The idea would fly today.
Especially today. It's no longer a bad idea to buy a laptop if you require high performance.
Not Apple though. Fuck Apple.
Samsung, or Asus or Dell (Alienware) should do this.
@@nexxusty ah yess the docking gaming laptops migh be cool too
Your videos are an unlikely source of peace and stability during these hectic times, just like I imagine you use these projects to lose yourself and escape your day-to-day concerns, the audience gets to follow you to that tinkerer's nirvana. Thank you for doing such a wonderful job on these videos.
So happy my dad kept his Duo Dock and a handful of Duo laptops.
Still have mine too.
That was my dream setup 👍🏽
I still have my 2300, my minidoc and my QuickTake (as shown in the advertising lol).
18:02 "they mustve had experience installing car stereos too". I feel personally attacked lol
I legit laughed out loud from that… it’s so freaking true. 😆
I still have my duo 2300c, along with the full duo dock. I bought it (lightly) used in the late 90s, and used it through middle and high school. It was a surprising powerhouse for the day…especially when in the dock. I boot it up every so often for nostalgia purposes, and to show people a docking-style laptop was around in the early 90s.
A few years ago, I put an SSD in it, and it made the battery last significantly longer. Yes, even my battery still holds a charge.
Definitely ahead of its time, and looks good next to my SE/30.
“ARE YOU *quack*ING KIDDING ME”
"They weren't comfortable to use back at the office." Looks at the horrible keyboard and trackpad on my work provided HP ProBook. Yep, some things never change.
Laptop manufacturers these days seem to have a vendetta against sensible keyboard layouts and usable pointing devices. "Clickpads" are unacceptable.
Which version of the ProBook? My HP ProBook 440 G7 has a good enough keyboard (except when the P key fcks up when it overheats) and a usable glass clickpad (although I prefer my Logitech wireless mouse)
@@s8wc3 ya for my two cents, I still like the stick between the F and G keys , but still seems to only be on some Lenovo models
When looks takes priority over usability these things happen for sure.
You would imagine that something with the name "Pro" on it would be work focused tho instead of a shiny looks grabbing thing but I guess they just wanna capitalize on people buying stuff with a "pro" tag to seem better.
@@Kalvinjj newer (~
glad to see these machines brought back to life. I'm the guy who donated the external floppy and the duo mini dock to you. Hope they were of some use to you and your project. Great video. I had been curious as to when i'd see this powerbook duo vid. no wonder it took so long with the display issues. Nice work. I really love your closeup shots.
Thanks again for sending them along! I’ve also got another long-term project in the works that they’ll come in useful for...
Using the soldering iron to get the brass threads in was genius! Thoroughly enjoyed the vid
I love the careful repair you did on the standoffs. Great video! It reminded me of my early teenage years when I would buy out the local thrift stores of their outdated computer hardware to mess with at home
that grease pencil pricing is the same thing that they use to price items at Savers thrift store.
There's just something about "desktop replacement" machines from that era that fascinates me. Probably a mix of the immensely advanced and expensive technology combined with how rapidly it was totally obsoleted by even better things. This stuff is amazing.
one of my teachers had one of these setups and it genuinely inspired me to think differently about computers and form factors.
Right? This was so ahead of it's time. This is literally how I run my setup now: laptop > usb-c cable -> monitor with extended I/O.
25:24 Woooah. Serious nostalgia over that Netscape logo.
Although not entirely original, I think I have seen SATA to SCSI adapters.
Also the OS is still available.
So at least you can get a working machine.
There's also the SCSI2SD Powerbook Edition.
I would love to see a solid state disk in one of these. A 1GB CompactFlash card might be perfect if you can find a scsi adapter for it
One word comes to mind when thinking about Apple products: expensive. This seems to be no exception.
Ultraportable ultralight comes at a price. For all manufacturers.
@@JasperJanssen That's only half the story.
Their products weren't super expensive when they first started out. The Apple II line was relatively inexpensive.
@@davidfrischknecht8261
After the Apple 1 and Apple 2 they made the Lisa's for fucking 10.000 dolars in 83. 100.000 dolars now, each. Today no are 20 Lisas in operation, and most were discarded from the stock to the trash for obsolescence in 84, or transform in Macintosh XL.
So how much would a comparable Windows Laptop sell for?
finally some more stuff about the Duo that isn’t just “this laptop is rare, oh right the battery will die”
26 min in and I just realized this basically was the first switch and switch dock haha. I love the idea and the complexity to each part. Thanks for the great and informative video!
I scrolled and scrolled to find this comment! Just goes to show that this was a solid idea, just ahead of its time.
Your vids are the best, great job! Also, I take no offense to the car stereo comment about wiring :-P
It would be fun, if you were the original owner who hacked that wiring together.
@@silvernode right, that guy is probably still out there. Maybe he'll run across this video and explain himself....
I dont know id find Big D heeeeere
we've all been there lol
yeah
Thankfully you can still find a lot of this stuff for super cheap out in the wild. Just sad that it is getting harder to find.
Hey Rin.
Ywnbaw
I love how in depth you go in your videos! You spend loads of time bringing great quality and information!
This was a great watch. Repairing a classic and throwing in an abundance of well researched material.
Very impressive video. Your commitment to repairing these cool old machines is really nice to see! Thanks for letting us see your process step by step.
Great video, Colin! You perfectly portrayed the frustration of trying to find parts for these machines, let alone waiting for them, only for the part to be the wrong one. I have had that happen many times, it makes the repair itself seem like a quarter of the total effort involved. Your 3D printed parts were thoroughly impressive. It's hard to maintain and preserve plastic that is getting older and older, but with solutions like yours, we can try our best.
Really quality video production! I enjoyed it a lot. Also I admire the efforts you put into restoring these. Great job on the broken standoffs!!!
Loved this video and the soldering iron tip is brilliant!
I was in middle school when these were new. I remember the principals all had one in their offices, but never undocked them.
Superglue and plastic works great! I like to add some baking soda on it. It hardens to rock-solid immediately. No wait and what seems like a stronger hold!
Yep, plus if you don't have a 3D printer, and need to say fill in a small gap it works wonders along with a small file to make it smooth once it's dried.
Good on you for saving this!
I saved two of these from being thrown out and stored them carefully at work. Then I fell ill and when I returned to work they had been dumped.
They weren’t fast but they were a great talking point and that push button eject was amazing. Somewhere I still have the locking keys that physically locked it into the desk unit and disabled the switch that ejected the Duo.
Loved the video, and the thread repair on the caselid and 3d print replacements was ingenious, thank you colin!
Always a joy to watch these, Colin. As some born in 95' whose first computer was a Windows 2000 it's really interesting to learn what other companies like Apple were doing both before and during the decade.
I’m new to this channel but I love it already. One of the greatest vintage electronics restoration channels on UA-cam. The camera work is amazing, the story flow is natural and the narration is very professional. Kudos, thumbs up and a subscription on me. 👍😀
Again good video Collin. Love to see your devotion to repair the laptop. And cool to see such dock with it.
Colin this is a great video,as always from you. You show both historical and repair content.
Just bought one as well! Your video has kindled my interest in them.
very interesting, thank you so much for that video and the patience for repairing the Duo
I loved this! I've really been enjoying content based upon old Macs this year, and this was really informative. I wish I could give more than one like!
Back in the day I really wanted this because as a teacher I could take my work home then pop it in as a daily thing.! Instead I had a 520C and an LC II at home using floppies to do the daily transfer for my work in class. But the prices were ridiculous back then especially for a teacher. Either way, I do love watching these restorations.
This was a great video. The innovative repair solutions were a treat to watch!
Top job Colin. A challenging project expertly completed. Great video and historical commentary. Thanks for sharing. Very enjoyable.
This was an excellent video. Great content, fun to watch, a ton to learn.
Jerry had a Duo setup on his desk for a while on Seinfeld. The dock for the color models required a taller desktop dock to fit. But you could just replace the removable top to get it to fit. I’ve had several including the 2300c. They all had a lot of flex on the plastics. Neat units though.
I used to have the same PowerBook. It was an amazing machine.
I love watching videos like this restoring old tech. You did a great job on the repairs, and certainly had a few hurdles along the way. For as fascinating as this series of machines are though I definitely would not have wanted one back in the day. I have never cared for laptops. I've worked various jobs that have issued them to me, but my preference has always been to have a regular desktop PC.
What a lovely video. Thanks for the explanation and the repair.
Lots of good tricks to get everything to work. I’m glad everything worked out well.
So much to love in this video! The disassembly and repairs and the whole trip down memory lane for one of my favorite Macintosh product families. I’ve loved most of the smallest PowerBooks from the PB100 and Duo series to the 12” MacBook Pro Retina and my current portable powerhouse, a 14” m1 MacBook Pro.
I had a Duo Dock at home and at work, and several different PowerBook Duos over the years. The 270c and 280c were my favorites.
I previously used a Syquest (removable hard drive) cartridge for software development and carried it back and forth to work, but the Duo was like a Syquest that was also a whole computer which worked in or out of the Duo Dock. ❤
Love it, thanks man! I never knew these back in the day since I was only like 2 when they released lol but due to my work as a computer technician and love for retro tech, I've admired these from afar for a very long time!
I always thought the idea of sticking the entire laptop in like a cartridge and thereby expanding its capabilities was pretty awesome and extremely revolutionary for that time, and I am more than a little envious of the fact you have not one but TWO of them PLUS the dock and accessories!!! I collect old laptops (as well as other misc. tech like PDA's, Pocket PC's, old video game consoles, etc) and try to snag them off ebay whenever I can, however I haven't managed to get around to any of the Duos yet.. (mosty DUE-O to the price lol! [sry... couldn't help myself]).
Also, I wanted to mention I was thoroughly impressed with your ability to repair the units as well as you did, specifically with the 3D printed pieces which was very cool! And I appreciate you demonstrating that trick you used melting the metal screw insert in with the soldering iron - that's valuable knowledge to me that I won't soon forget!
Anyway, thanks again man! I really enjoyed the video!!!
Hi Colin! Love your Macintosh videos that also kind of are restoration videos :) It’s really cool with the Macs that basically there are uniform replacement parts that are still sourcable. And the modern touch with the 3D printed parts. Hope to see much more cool Mac videos!
Really enjoyed that. Good work Colin, one of the best.
Wonderful video as always! It's neat to see what external docks looked like in the 1990s, vs what a Thunderbolt 3 dock looks like today!
i love the focusing on the small parts great job on camera shots!
So much attention and love for these old machines!
From 2000-2001 I worked for a medium sized newspaper in IT-support. It was the time when the whole vintage IT was thrown out that had been collected in several cellars from the 80s onwards. There were about 10 PowerBook Duo with DuoDock from the media department (as well as CBM, Apple, Atari, Amiga and other computers and even terminals). The photographers had used the PB Duo machines together with early digital cameras that used a serial connection for image transfer. They had (of course) analog cameras as well. They usually took several photos with both digital and analog cameras on events, connected the digital camera after the event and transferred the digital pictures to the Duo. Sometimes they used a landline modem (maybe even quite expensive and slow mobile modems) for direct transfer to the newspaper for fast integration into articles for the next day. The serial port on the PB Duo was perfectly fitting for this use-case. When the photographer was back in his office, he just had to connect the PB Duo to the Dock to transfer the digital images to the network-archive. The analog developing and scanning of the analog camera film often took 1-2 days depending of the backlog the department had. Going digital was often the only way to have on-time reports of events from the pervious day in the current newspaper with pictures. The cameras had resolution (around 1.0 - 2.5 MP) that was good enough for a newspaper. I can remember that even in 2000, i was quite baffled that they had this kind of streamlined process since the early 90s.
This video brought me peace for some reason. Just hearing those nostalgic clicks when that hard drive booted for the first time in 20 something years is music to my ears lol thanks for this awesome upload I know making these videos solo is not easy
I loved my Duo 230 with doc. reminded me of an oversized vcr. still loved it go to back and forth between work
Thanks for the video! Brought back memories of supporting a bunch of young creatives with Duos. Loved the big dock, but some folks thought a good spot for the dock was the shelf above their desk. Had to repair (ok, replace...) screens on several of them, because they’d put it in the dock asleep - not shut down - and the dock ejected the duo, tossing it to the desk or to the floor! Thank goodness you could renew AppleCare almost eternally back then!
It’s so cool to see something like this was still an idea back in the late 90s. Now a days USB C docks allow this kinda thing with so many laptops and it’s much more common place.
Thanks for including the Duo 2300 in this retro look! I never had any of these Duo products but I was very familiar with them growing up (I would gawk at them in MacMall/MacWarehouse etc catalogs). Great video!
Great video. It brought back memories for me.I had one of the 2300Cs in 1996-97 with a Newer Ultradock, external floppy and later got a duo dock from work. (a mac reseller). Also got the duo through them at a good price on an EPP. It was not a powerhouse machine, but a neat computer to own. I played WC2 on it with friends using a phone net adapter and used it for school work. I also connected a giagantic Lacie CD-R drive to the ultradock at home and used it to burn CDs and install Crystal Caliburn PInball Fun times. Your restoration was great and had some suspenseful moments!
I still have a Libretto 70CT in my box of old stuff. It worked the last time I used it. Cool interface with mouse buttons on the back of the screen.
Repairing Retro Tech is always a love and hate relationship. I know the feelings of trying to rebuild some neat old tech to only leads to further problems as you return it to working order... Sometimes it's a difficult process and leads to depression with thought of quoting the project. Glad you kept at it! Appreciate the retro tech review!
Glad you mentioned the upgrades at the end, I used to have a Duo 2300c which had a track ball and I always wondered why. Must have been a 280c that had been upgraded, it had no model number on the screen bezel.
Was a great machine, and also had the full size dock and the mini dock, along with a few other accessories. Sold it on eBay many years ago for far too little (compared to today’s prices).
I don't know how you say it so calmly when you find out the hard drive works. Best feeling ever lol
this is a very great series of videos. I really love this deep dive into lovely topic
look fwd to every repair video you put out. stupendous quality.
This is an incredible refurbishment. This inspires me to 3D print standoffs for my PowerBook 180. Thank you for sharing this Colin.
This is a fantastic video. Thank you for making it
Colin, way too much love and professionality go into these videos. I'm voting you up for a show in repairs on Netflix.
TDNC: repairs a PowerBook Duo
* Louis Rossman has entered the chat.
I *lusted* over the Duo back in the day, so great to see one saved from the trash heap. Excellent video!
I really do find it relaxing when I'm watching cool videos about Apple products while using a Mac Pro 5,1 with a 30" Cinema Display. Thanks for the video :)
man i have always loved the use of docks, seeing my brothers arriving and just droping the laptop and everything is connected at once was handy, i have always been a laptop user but none of them had a compatible dock until i got one with thunderbolt 2 and got the Belkin dock (have been using it for 4 years now) and is still kicking
Nicely done restorations!
This was a really enjoyable episode. I really liked the 3D printing method for the standoffs. I think this technique might be used a lot more in the future. I like a nice clean fix like that.
Brings back fond memories of my Powerbook 100 and Duo 210 I got second had. In those days I was the only one with anything that slightly resembled a laptop
Love it! My first laptop was an inherited Duo 230 in 1999, along with the Duo Dock. I feel like my MacBook Pro is a spiritual successor to it, and I also keep it docked on my desk with a TB3 dock.
Man, that was the most epic one you've made so far.
As those of us who had the original Chromebook test units from Google found out, super glue will NOT hold for those inserts. You have to use a proper epoxy like JB Weld.
that would work, or he could try super glue mixed with baking soda. Tech Tangents did a video about it a while back with good results, and I've used the trick before in the past on a pair Philips headphones one of my nephews broke, and it's held up well for about a year so far.
Great craftsmanship on the replacement standoffs!
I love these videos! Thanks so much for making them.
Just discovered your channel. Absolutely brilliant stuff!
The original laptop dock, nice!
your patience alone deserves sub! Content is superb!
What an awesome video. Prior to this I had no interest in 90s era mobile computing, but this has easily woken up a hobby in me.
I used to have a Duo 2300c back when I was in my early twenties. (2001). I learned that you could transfer files, and even whole programs, over Appletalk. It was painfully slow, going through the printer/serial port, but it worked! 🙂
It’s hard to imagine how much of my early professional and student life were spent waiting for files to transfer over AppleTalk or worse, slow dial-up modems in hardware like this. Ethernet was amazing, and I was thrilled to eventually upgrade to 10base2 (coax) and ISDN in my home office.
Best thing about colins videos are the no BS intro it's just hey here's the thing. It's brilliant
Really enjoyed this mate, nice one!
Fantastic Video, very enjoyable and relaxing to watch!
Jolly fine stuff. Thank you. There's so much cheap, amateur muck about these days; so nice to find a properly-made video. Thank you again.
Thanks for sharing!
I had the PowerBook Duo 230 and duo dock 1 station, there was the duo dock 2 which had the letter box like flap! Which I later purchased!
Super interesting! Brings me back to my childhood. New sub. Great content.
Worked on a couple of these in the 90s when I was a tech at CompUSA, but I never got to see the dock. Very cool.
Awesome video! Older Mac computers like these are always super cool!
In 1992 I worked on the board line manufacturing the mother boards in Fountain Colorado. 12 hr. shifts alternating 4 days a week then 3 days. I recall those days vividly. All the jobs have long since been out sourced over seas decades ago now. Sad what happened to most all of our manufacturing jobs. Thanks for the blast from the past.
A lot of work, and risk, went into this video. Subscribed.
Oh that boot up sound was heavenly man I missed that old sound
I still miss my 280c 😭. Great video, thanks!
loved the suspense when you opened the 2nd LCD package