Restoration of a '90s Apple Powerbook - Trash to Treasure
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Today we go back to 1992 and try to bring an Apple Powerbook 160 back to its former glory. Part of Apple's first laptop range this deserves some TLC rather than ending up in landfill so lets see what we can do.
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What would you put inside this Powerbook? My Patrons over at patreon.com/retromancave have pointed me in the direction of a reduced side SCSI2SD made to fit inside the Powerbook, it's not cheap but it's an option, or do we need the sound of a spinning drive inside here for the full experience? Let me know your thoughts and thanks for watching.
Neil - RMC
SCSI2SD is better than HDDs cause, HDDs from that era die a lot.
I'd second the SCSI2SD, I think I saw The 8-Bit Guy use one in a MAC.
RetroManCave I have a SCSI2SD in my Performa. I do miss the rattle of the spinning drive, but I do not miss the loud whine. For functionality, I’d go with the adapter. You can configure it with up to 4 virtual drives.
I think the SCSI2SD Powerbook version is the best bet as well. Perhaps an opportunity to work with the developer to add a speaker either on the board or via a header so the drive sounds can be simulated? That would be a great project!
I wonder if you could use an arduino or similar device as the go between for the sd card, since all other options are expensive. would take some programming I am sure... and is floppy emulation the same way but slower? I am sure someone has thought of the gotek option if it would be optimal. idk. sorry kind of a noob but I bet something could be made for it by someone smarter than me lol. The hundred dollar scsi2sd option that exists still seems better than the six hundred dollar option, especially since it can die at any minute, except for like historical restoration purposes or if you wanna be a purist and keep it stock. Gotta pick your poison I guess. I'd like to see what you come up with for it for sure though.
Nicely done on the restoration! For the hard drive, I'd go with the SCSI2SD -- there's a smaller 2.5" version available that's specifically designed to fit PowerBooks. I bought mine from Inertial Computing.
Thank you, great to see you here
I ended up using this with my PowerBook 165. This plus a 10mb memory expansion used as a RAM disk makes for a really slick classic mac
So you've got an extra motherboard? You could turn that into its own desktop PC, potentially. Reassemble it without the screen, it'll be like a little Apple II.
Hehe that's a fun idea! I've safely wrapped all the spares up and kept them safe so potentially a project
RetroManCave that be a cool fun project
RetroManCave also I might have a drive laying around I have a few of these old Mac laptops in the shed
You could turn it into an external SCSI hdd too if you can solve that hdd issue.
@@RMCRetro or you could make the first apple car computer!have it fed into a 10 inch head unit
I have a IBM H2172-S2 160MB SCSI harddrive with the Apple logo on it and everything. it does work it was pulled from a newer powerbook that had a 040 in it. that laptop is long gone and this HDD has been sitting in my spare HDD drawer ever since. I have no plans on using it it could use a new home...
“This isn’t going to be as straightforward as I thought it was.” - the words we are all hoping to hear 😂
"this apple is rotten "
Said no man ever... lol. Isnt that always the case though. I just treat any job with expect the unexpected now and just go with the flo....
I feel like this is my reaction to just about every project.
@@dj_paultuk7052 Of course you are right - what I meant was that these are the words we want to hear Neil say, because it means that the project gets more interesting :).
I was creaming my jeans when those caps 'came off'! 😂😂😂
Fantastic video, so happy to see you're almost at 100k subs!
Thanks mate, so close!!!
Soak your desoldering braid with flux, it will wick out solder 100x better.
Nice tip thank you
@@RMCRetro Make sure you buy "Servisol Soldamop No-Clean" desoldering braid. I've tried loads of brands, but nothing mops up solder anywhere near as good as Servisol No-Clean. It's impregnated with some kind of dry flux powder.
I just thought the solder wick I had was crap, so I started doing that. Then I got some recommended stuff, nope, still had to put flux on it to make it work more effectively.
I think Big Clive runs a flux pen over his before using it.
The cheap ebay stuff you have to flux or it barely wicks, but if you have original Goot braid it's pre fluxed and works amazingly well. That being said the GOOT is pretty expensive, ie, $7 to $1, so I have some amazing DeoxIT/Caig flux that can turn any bad braid to brilliant in an instant - ebay fluxes don't hold a candle to it -.
There is an improved powerbook version of the SCSI2SD, SCSI2SD V5 Powerbook Edition (2.5").
store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
came here to say this. it's not dirt cheap, but reasonable compared to the alternatives
store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
The link.. store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
This is my vote...
SCSI2CF boards ought to be a fair bit smaller, and from my field (old synthesizers and samplers) we've found CF to be more reliable with older systems than SD for some reason.
CF cards in my experience act more like traditional IDE harddrives. So much so, that on IDE systems, the converter from IDE to CF is mostly passive.
That was my thinking, too- A SCIS to CF or sd card or soemthing of that sort.
CF cards are great for replacing IDE drives, but SD card adapters seem to be far more popular for SCSI replacements. Probably because the CF card using the IDE standard is of no advantage for adapting to SCSI and good industrial grade SD cards being far cheaper to buy than the equivalent CF cards.
Yes because Drednaw is water/rock. Yes ground.
SD cards are also serial in nature like SCSI is, ide like CF cards are parallel. You can convert SCSI to ide and vice versa, but it can be problematic as the adapter won't convert some of the SCSI commands a SCSI controller will expect and obviously a ide drive can't do a lot of those commands either.
Interestingly, apple migrated to FireWire because of how similar to SCSI it is so was much easier to swap over. The same to some extent with thunderbolt I believe, though not quite as simple as SCSI-firewire.
I used to go dumpster diving when the school year ended to scrounge up stuff that was thrown out barely used (ink ribbons, books, composition journals, etc) and I remember finding one of these in the trash bins behind my high school, this was around 1994. It was in working order but was missing the power brick. The 10 or so minutes of power that were left on the battery were enough to deduce it was probably used by the administrative staff (apparently they didn't bother to wipe the hard drive). I actually still have it in a box somewhere, some day I'll get around to finding the power brick.
4:55 - worth pointing out this was an issue from new! The plastics were always brittle and we usually replaced the bottom case along with the I/O flap as the daughter card & cousin cards (no really that's what Apple called them!) needed to be secure otherwise you could get system errors! (The boards tended to lift up due to heat & vibration).
We did try melting them back in place with a soldering iron, but it made an awful smell and ruined a few tips!
I agree - my PB 160 had plastic bits break even when just a few years old. It has a crack on the bottom from when I put in the RAM expansion; space was really tight.
A while ago I repaired a Powerbook 145B (pretty much the same machine). You can get an SCSI2SD Powerbook edition which is smaller and has a more appropriate connectors there. I installed mine in the battery compartment by gluing nylon standoffs to the case and then just screwing in the module there. The battery was dead anyways, and the thing works beautifully. Plus I can easily remove the SD card. Just open the battery compartment and get the SD card out.
Also... the plastics in these machines really are horrible. Small cracks everywhere. Mine even had them on the hinges where the display is screwed on. So the LCD doesn't quite fit together like it should. But luckily it's only a cosmetic issue for now.
Not sure if you watch @BigClive 's channel, but he has an excellent soldering tutorial video. After watching that i solder like a pro now !. Hes a master at it. Trick is to apply the solder tip to the joint for about 2 seconds, then apply the solder directly into the joint. Leave 1 more second so it flows around the entire pad then remove the iron tip from the joint. Do not apply solder to the tip first..... Clive would be doing lots of FacePalms if he saw this. hehehe.
These Trash to Treasure videos are absolutely outstanding! Great work as always.
Thanks Blake
I couldn't have said it better than Blake really I think. Great stuff Neil. The videos bring a mix of memories and nostalgia, but also curiousity
Great job =D Was going to suggest SCSI2SD but it's too large =/ I wonder if there's anyway to fit it if the SCSI connector was replaced with a cable soldered to the PCB where the IDC socket was - I doubt it, probably still to large in its length and width.
What kind of India Pale Ale would you recommend for cleaning computers?
Cave Dweller IPA from the Bluestone Brewing Co. 😁
That's isopropyl alcohol dummy
@@mybigfatpolishlife Unlike Captain America, you didn't understant that reference 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ah, that takes me back. My first laptop was an old PowerBook 180C bought at an electronics street sale for $25 in the late '90s. It was old and slow but a lot of fun to fool around with.
It's absolutely wonderful of you to actually tell us the soldering iron temperature, nobody else seems to do that on retro UA-cam and I have a bunch of stuff I was afraid to work on because the iron was too cold!
you can't boot from floppy, right ? can you get system 6 to run ? go for basic HD &
keep the SCSI2SD external ... easier to share software that way.
i've got a 1400cs & 5300cs (?) haven't used them in years ...
batteries are original (!) [i should check if they leaked !]
My daily serotonin drop finally arrived
You should talk more about the luggable and the explosive design flaw
SCSI2SD is open hardware, schematics and pcb files are on their git page. The only expensive part, CY8C5267AXI is ~$6 at RS Components/Mouser. JLCPCB loves to sponsor YTbers, you could do collaboration with them and earn some money while doing interesting project :) Maybe even make extra boards and sell on a side/supply fellow retro collectors.
Worst case scenario you will end up with 10 modules for the price of one (~$100).
You brought back many great memories of being in high school being the school's Mac expert. Then a couple years later working for The Computer Store, an early Apple reseller, as a field service tech. We were still fixing the PB160s in 1997-98 and a bit further. The PowerBooks were great until the PB 190/5300 fiasco. ;-)
Thanks for doing this video!
I know some one who has a few of these sitting in storage. I'll see if I can get a hard-drive for you.
I also have an old Sharp LCD, it is part of a very expensive portable (high end 386 laptop from 1991). Sadly the caps inside leaked too and destroyed the color TFT layers and connections...
I still have my three Mac 100 series Laptops -- the first was a 145b. All of 100MB of hard drive. Oy vey (!) compared to 2020. Loved it -- loved them all ... and was introduced to the WorldWideInterNetS on them mid-90's when I got this noisy screechy thang called a Modem. All of 14.4 BTS. Got my AOL account on it and wowza .... time flies.
Back in the day, as a screenwriter, I was asked to be a Beta Tester on a new fangled screenwriting program called, 'FINAL DRAFT' (which became the industry standard).
D.A.
I have a Powerbook 150 and when I plug it in it makes the booting up sound but no image appears, what would you suggest?
As soon as I saw the moving SCSI emblem, I thought "Target Disk Mode". Good to know that feature's been around since the old days.
Apple under Jobs had a well-deserved reputation for quality but a lot of their 90s stuff was pretty ropey. 90s ThinkPads and Compaqs had much better build qulity than this thing!
Great restoration as always. Keep up the good work.
I'm dusting off my 145b and found out that the system date only got to dec 31, 2019. I wonder if updating it to 7.5 could fix it. Currently running system 7.1 right now, and from what I can remember, updating it via floppy drive was a real pain in the butt
You could have a large cable running to a briefcase which has the external hard drive and a large spare battery in it, no one would suspect anything
Great video, the only option for me looks like the SDCard version, but to be honest is think there will be a smaller version that willd fit out there in the wild.
hi to all there's alot of audio recoders from 1998 that use scsi hard drives finding a 50pin drive is getting hard i look into the scsi to sd card i wish some one made it alot smaller
What is the point of all this work? This old Mac has absolutely no practical use. None at all.
Boy, remember the days when you could disassemble and fix an Apple product without them absolutely flipping the hell out or charging you $500+?
Amazing! I cant believe how nice of a job you did with that solder job, I could never do that
Yes you could..practice on junk boards.
@@trainingtheworld5093 u did not see the irony?
Daniel Satko Eh the PowerBook 100 isn’t junk. Practice on something useless that everyone hates like a printer mainboard.
6:05 - yes 2.5" SCSI drives stopped being manufactured during the lifetime of the later laptop models. Apple still had to honour warranty so they provided a very clumsy 2.5" IDE hard drive with an IDE to SCSI interface as way of a replacement. We bought their entire stock of 2.5" SCSI drives they didn't know they had (as they where a different part number for the LaserWriter range!)
Also with the correct cable & keyboard combination you could turn the PowerBook into an external SCSI hard drive! It supported up to 7 SCSI devices which where daisy chained (not just 4 you mentioned!). Also worth noting that this was the first PowerBook model that supported 8 bit colour (with a proprietary connector of course!). You could also plug a monitor into the SCSI port...
What's the difference between the scsi this device uses and the 2.5" scsi drives on eBay for less than $100? The connectors look similar, but I assume there are different generations similar to sata revisions.
@@sirseriously I don't know what SCSI drives you are referring to? The SCSI interface types are High Voltage Differential (HVD), Low Voltage Differential (LVD), and single-ended. as long as you don't mix LVD & HVD you can use most SCSI devices on the same bus (the bus will operate in single-ended mode which will impact transfer speeds). You can find that detail on Google. Perhaps more importantly (and as I mentioned in a previous post) 2.5" SCSI drives ceased being manufactured in the late 1990s. Any 2.5" SCSI drive you purchase now will be at least 20~25 years old! Worth bearing that in mind - given the use case you may find a SCSI to IDE or SD might be a better option.
Apple Crackintosh
How about another option. PCB design with RetroManCave and you create a new smaller SCSI card and swap the components. :-)
I had a powerbook 130 that I bought as a gift to my mac-fan Mother-in-law, but I've no idea what she did with it. I know she was using it as a "portable" word-processor, around the house (battery was dead so she'd save her work, then find another outlet when she'd want to move)...but alas, it's gone now.
Funny coincidence I just started working on a powerbook 520 yesterday
I remember booting Mac OS from a Zip disk. I was running Shapeshifter on the Amiga and didn't have space for a Mac partition.
Yup, that was slow but it worked!
Quantum Go 40MB SCSI 2.5" drives on ebay at the moment for about £80 delivered. Well worth picking up! Ideal for the authentic experience (@t).
my suggestion would be to take the MADITGEEK`s offer and install his working drive ......nice vid Neil.....@@@kim@@@
The 2.5" SCSI2SD seems like the best ticket forward for me. Also note that you shouldn't hot-swap ADB devices; if you're unlucky you can blow a fuse on the motherboard. Most newer Macs had polyfuses, but ADB hubs and earlier Macs are going to make you break out the soldering iron.
Thanks for the tip on the ADB, I wasn't aware of that
@leaded solder - did that ever happen to you??? I'd heard exactly the same thing back in 1997 when I purchased my first PowerBook 150 (not nearly as capable as this machine). I went on from tinkering on Macs to working with them full time. In all those ABD years I never had (or heard of) any Mac die as a result of hot-swaping ADB. I'm not suggesting you do it, just relaying my experience and keen to hear if anyone actually had an issue.
@@davidczepanski1359 I blew a port out on an AppleVision 1710 monitor by hot-swapping a Gravis game controller. The PowerBook might have a little bit of magic since I would assume they'd expect people to be hot-swapping all the time.
@@leadedsolder owch. and of course there's even more reason not to try it now these machines are so old! SO thankful for USB when it came along!
@@davidczepanski1359 Yes - USB is a huge blessing. It could always have been an ESD failure, too - I never did take the monitor apart and confirm the death of a fuse.
If the traces were not in the way I guess you COULD potentially slim down the SCSI2SD board with a dremel until it fits, but it's very hacky, so yeah...
If it was a 180 model I coulda gave you my old one from high school. It has a good screen but it doesn't turn on.
if you do not find a sd to scsi converter that fits inside the MAC, an alternative option is an external one with the cable if it is nicely boxed, but I would also prefer to have the device in the machine.
Lions will always regret not having enough money to keep its Powerbook 145, but that's just the result of choices in younger age. It worked perfectly except for difficulty booting up, probably because of a cracked solder joint. Those old active matrix, 2 color screens looked unique to their time. It's a good example of the kinds of consequences which happen 40 years after the decision to slack off.
Hmm... Running the SCSI2SD externally may be your best option for the time being. I'm trying to do that on a Macintosh Plus I have, but haven't acquired a terminator for it.
While trying to repair a Powerbook 180c the screen interconnect flex cable snapped and it seems nearly impossible to find a replacement.
I have 2 working SCSI hard drives. You’re welcome to one of them. SCSI drives can’t be that hard to find I working condition!
Thanks Ed, I've kindly been contacted and accepted an offer of a working one so hopefully we can have a follow up video soon
Fantastic. It may also be interesting to re build the internal battery using ni cad cells. I’ve done something similar with a few of my PowerBooks!
The BlueSCSI v2 has a laptop version. Aside from drive emulation, cd emulation, direct to SD copy, you also cad do wifi! Oh, and it’s cheaper.
I'm watching this on a modern macbook pro
Great Video :) Thank you. By the way i have the Apple Powerbook 190 :) from 1995 i have paid 136€
I remember back in the mid 1990s when my employer moved from Macs to PC. All these Powerbooks had a hammer put through the screens by the IT dept.
This is totally off topic but it's lovely to see you're still around. I have an interest in British Satellite Broadcasting and your wealth of videos/information was pretty much all you could find on the net for the longest time. Your videos on obscure equipment are excellent too. Cheers!
@@cromulence Hmm. I think I may have a Squarial in the garage. Maybe the subject of a UA-cam quick video, but I don't have any receivers any more.
I put a 357 slug in between the screen
Very informative..just got a PowerBook 180 and it has a 120MB disk in it. Didn't realize it's SCSI.
Apparently there were OEM scsi to 2.5 ide adapters and some machines even came with 2.5 ide drives with converters on them. I guess it is a matter of finding them or perhaps some viewer could make a donation?
Use a Raspberry Pi storage mod. there are ways of converting a Raspberry Pi into essentially a hard drive or storage device. once converted, you can use the Raspberry Pi and storage module with an SD card and just completely replace the hard drive causing it to act slightly similar to an SSD. probably would need to do some multi conversions with it but it's possible.
It's a pretty economical option ($30ish for a midrange Pi plus maybe $10-$20 to put together a level-shifter board for it) but something just feels kind of wrong about replacing a computer's hard drive with another computer that's like a hundred times more powerful than the host machine...
I love the form factor of my 165c. If it were modded and had a new clear screen, it would be a pleasure to write on.
I miss SCSI.
I don't miss the SCSI prices, or the seemingly endless combination of SCSI standards. :)
Today I learned about how important that Pin 1 on that SCSI cable is. Thanks mate!
Maybe he should've cut the wire and put a switch in there, that way it can do both.
Depending on the complexity of that SCSI board, Big Clive might be able to fabricate one for you that will fit the case? A *lot* would depend on the complexity I guess though?
As a Portable owner, I hate those surface mounted caps. But I probably don't have the skills that I should have to repair it. Ended up damaging a couple pads but it still works enough to give a power manager error.
I remember working on those in the 90's, usually installing RAM upgrades for friends. Then I got a job as a computer tech for a couple years (CFST, A+) after graduating in `92, some of the later Powerbooks and other models needed a special RAM module pulling tool or you could damage the mother board; there were about 5 or 6 different ones to make it more frustrating......
Can we have an Atari Falcon restoration next in the cave please? There appears to be four of them on ebay at the moment, all at eye watering prices!
SCSI2SD V5 from personal experience. About $85 USD for the PowerBook version. You will need the modified Apple HDSC setup utility. The one on your 7.5 CD will only initialize discs with an Apple EPROM. That can be found at most Apple abandonware sites. Also, if you’re going to break out to a monitor, you can use a DB15 to VGA adapter so you can use any VGA monitor.
What is really interesting on the external monitor output is how apple managed to have it in this PowerBook. There is a NuBus-ISA converter and a standard low-cost off-the-shelf VGA chipset (WD90C26, no acceleration) with 512KB of its own memory (Apple's own chipset didn't support external screens at all). Due to this design, it is possible to use both internal and external screen together in the extended desktop mode. This was not possible on PC laptops back then.
Apparently there are some Amiga lovers in the audience?.... (Looks at room full of Amigas)... hmmmm, you may be right! 😁 I've always loved Trash to Treasure, since you first started doing them, and the A500 one cost me an absolute fortune, and hours of grief and... why do I like them again? 😂 Brilliant work dude, as always 👍
What interface does the CD-ROM drive use internally? If it's not SCSI you might have an adapter in that 5.25" enclosure. Not perfect, you'd still be rocking an external HDD, but hey it'd be something temporarily if it is the case.
One piece of advice I would like to give you is that if you're EVER hardpressed to find a piece of equipment SHENZHEN,CHINA should be the first thing that comes to mind. If you need it they either HAVE it or can MAKE IT.
Did you clean the screen whilst it was out of the bezel?
Also was there a scratch on the lcd face or a hair ?
Another thing you can do if your soldering iron isn't playing ball is to see if you can fit a bigger bit in there. Ideally, you want the biggest bit you can fir onto the joint, to get the heat in quickly before the temperature starts to rise, traces start to lift and PCBs start to delaminate.
Good tip thank you. Sometimes I'll resort to the desoldering gun for solder duties with its huge tip, it can be very effective!
@@RMCRetro I was quality manager of a company that had its electronic products made in China. I am also a qualified electronics engineer. So I spent 18 months in China (fly out for a month, back for a couple of days, then back to China) to sort out the company's issues.
They had problems with delamination, lifted pads, solder balls, excess solder flow through the via, and when I watched them, it was easy to see why: they seemed to think that tiny little soldering iron bits were somehow more "professional", and they had no idea how to solder. They would melt a bit of solder onto the iron and try to persuade it to make a solder joint.
First thing was, I showed that doing it right was way quicker than doing it wrong: wipe the soldering iron every joint, tin the bit, have the soldering iron on the opposite side of the lead than the solder... then I taught everyone how it was done, including supervisors and managers, so they could see if someone was having trouble. We got Metcal irons so there was no temperature know to fiddle with, the biggest bits that would fit, and we videoed the training and had it subtitled in Chinese, to be shown to all new starters.
Eventually, when I had sorted out all the company's quality problems, my company hired a Chinese resident to take over, and I was made redundant (thanks, guys, £20,000 was nice, but it was still a rotten thing to do). But just a year ago, the ops manager, who hadn't been to the factory for the seven years since I did the training, called me up to say he'd just been over there, and it was mesmerising to see row after row of workers, soldering perfectly in accordance with what I taught. That at least was a boost after the redundancy.
Nice! I have quite a few classic Macs and PowerBooks in a collection. They all need looked at
This was a cool video. I always wanted a power book when I was a kid but could not afford one. I finally got an iBook around 2002 after college.
I like the scsi2sd option. But I would ask the designer to make a smaller version, or look for a smaller/better fitting alternative
I think you should be able to find a smaller SCSI to SD adapter than the one you have there, and with some skill you may even be able to deconstruct / reconstruct it a little in order to make a more suitable shape.
Restoration to Hackintosh ? I think it would be perfect...
I have exactly the same Powerbook and SCSI CD drive sitting on my desk at work. It was found while an old lab was being cleared out (I work at a university). Neither will power on, and the laptop is missing the hard drive, otherwise the condition of both is pretty good. I might put it up for sale so an enthusiast/hobbyist can have a go with it.
This will solve your problem.
The SCSI2SD V5 Powerbook Edition (2.5") is a SCSI to SD memory card adapter to suit Apple PowerBook laptops. This board replaces the 2.5" SCSI hard drive found in Apple PowerBook laptops.
SCSI2SD emulates a SCSI-2 hard drive using a micro-SD memory card. Each SCSI2SD purchase includes a fully assembled and tested circuit board, ready for use.
These can be purchased from inertialcomputing (dot) com
If you're going for authentic, get an Apple IDE to SCSI bridge card and up to an 8 GB 2.5 in. IDE drive. Back then I admired Apple for sticking with SCSI but as we all know SCSI died for all but rackmount servers. By 1992 or 1993 virtually everything 2.5 or 3.5 in. was IDE, and that was almost 30 years ago. SCSI did hang on for a little bit for 5.25 in. optical drives, but not very long.
Great video, just picked up a PowerBook 160 on FB marketplace that I'll need to recap as you did. You've got a new sub!
A 2.5inch SCSI2SD. If the link does not work look up SCSI2SD V5 Powerbook Edition (2.5") and use the first link on google.
store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
I have a few PowerBooks, from the early 2000's, which still run Mac OS 7.5 - 9.2, but they are not the 68K series CPU, of course. The first Mac laptop was the model 100. I recall working for my college bookstore, and we were selling 140 and 170 models, at the time. That and the LCII, and Color Classic, among other higher end models. It was a great time and Macs were aspirational to own, over PC.
if someone like you had been my teacher, i would likely have slept at school just to be sure to never miss a day.
That's kind thank you
I never had a teacher like this, but I slept right through several classes anyway.
Whoever owned these treated them like absolute garbage. I still have mine that I paid a fair amount for, used, in 1995. The rear door was made perfectly well. Mine is still attached and there certainly isn't a crack in the screen. The only thing that's messed up at all is the lower button of the trackball which is a little loose and lower on the right hand side - it has to be a bad spring. I used it without any issues through 2005.
Thanks. Love it! I just found a 1993 PowerBook 165 in the trash that needs restoration. The machine powers-up and chimes and the display is back-lighted but very dark. No cursor or other visual information appears. One video shows that problem being caused by bad caps on the sister board. I haven't been inside the machine, yet. Should I assume those caps and the display caps you replaced ALL need replacing? Any other advice before I begin this project? Thanks again. I've just subscribed.
Aww, nice restore. There is a SCSI2SD 2.5" PowerBook replacement. Not sure this works for your specific model but check it out:
store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
Try looking for a smaller SD to SCSI card they must make them smaller than that. Then you would get to keep the look and feel of the system. I am assuming that the battery is toast after all these years
There are now much smaller SD2SCSI units you can get. The one in my Beige G3 is a third the size of the one you have. A smaller one might be able to fit in the drive bay.
I have been told that someone had put a RaSCSI drive into a Powerbook 520. This would be an awesome option - it's basically a SCSI chain being run by a Raspberry Pi Zero. It allows for a few virtual 600mb drives to be mounted as well as emulating a SCSI ethernet connection via the Pi's Wifi connection.
Very good restoration, excellent video as always. I think it's too risky to buy another SCSI laptop hard drive for that ridiculous price, they are too old and maybe fail in short time too. I'm currently working on my Thinkpad 760XL, unfortunately the screen died too, it has a big black spot of dead pixels and the diffuser and polarizer sheets are damaged. The backlight works ok. I you have a spare Thinkpad 760 screen, please contact me, thank you!
The external scsi to sd adapter should work in a pinch, and then look for an internal scsi to sd or cf adapter ?
There are SCSI2SD adapters meant for the PowerBooks that will fit inside. Having it external is ugly as heck, don’t do that it’s super lame!
Here’s the adapter I was thinking of: store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/scsi2sd-v5-2.5-inch.htm
What you mention about 2.5" scsi HDD is of interest as I have 2 Sun SPARCstation Voyager "luggables" . They also use the same size HDDs, but annoyingly really hard to find proprietary memory modules, but have 16mb as standard. I really need to dig them out and see if I can get any life from either. If I can get one working I may put a rPi in the other that is known to not currently work and put a colour screen in it for a unique retro machine (another idea was a miniITX system, but fitting it in might well prove difficult).
I had a lower version powerbook that I bought in 1993 that I used for 5 years.
If you come across one of those SCSI to IDE adapters, I've got an Apple branded 4GB 2.5" drive you could have. Last I checked it was working.
Brittle plastics and Apple go hand in hand. I have a beautiful Power Mac 7600, souped up too. But the plastics are a nightmare. Cracked lid, bezels, and bezel cover. But everything else is perfect as it can be. Rather sad. I retro brighted it about 5 years ago. That probably didn't help matters any.
1:06 Is it just me or has youtube had much more of these artifacts in the last few months?
edit: Maybe it's a 4k processing issue, it doesn't appear there anymore.
I must have stopped and restarted this 5 or 6 times looking at the video-out on that machine. “Is that hdmi, DisplayPort, no way, what is that?”
Is the floppy drive SCSI? Could it be swapped for an internal SCSI ZIP drive, or a 3.5" SCSI HDD?
Otherwise remove it to make room for your adaptor board.