Refurb Weekend: PowerBook 1400
oldvcr.blogspot.com
oldvcr.blogspot.com
The aluminium Powerbooks and iBook G4s were introduced during 2003 and ran OS X exclusively. You can get them to boot OS9, but only via hacks that haven't become available until recent years. And of course, no x86 machine ever ran OS 9 in any form, so setting Apple's transition to "UNIX machines" with unibodies in 2008 - two years after the Intel shift, and five years after that's the only OS Apple actually shipped - seems a bit strange.
While it's true the beta of OS X as a desktop OS wasn't released until September 2000 [0], OS X Server 1.0 was released into "production" (limited though it may be) in March 1999 [1], which preceded the first G4's release in August 1999 [2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta
Predates Cheetah by two months, not Mac OS X. If you want to get super pedantic, Mac OS X is a continuation of NeXTSTEP which is partially based on 4.3BSD-Tahoe, but there were also the Betas including the Public Beta from September 2000 which Apple would have happily sold you for $29.95.
I don’t think there’s anything in particular about the Unibody MBP’s feature set that makes it more of a “professional-ass UNIX machine” than even say, the Pismo PowerBooks though other than about a decade’s worth of iterative improvements. They could all run Terminal, PhotoShop, PERL and AppleScript. It’s the software that defines them, and a MacBook Pro from the unibody era could also be reasonably called a “professional-ass NT machine” if you were primarily booting Windows on it.
IBMs Thinkpad line was driven more by market pressure from Compaq much later. Again, far from perfect.. but arguably an order of magnitude better than other options at the time.
Most relatively great platforms remain around years later. =)
I thought if only they pushed the keyboard back the would be a palm rest.
Apple’s PowerBook was the first computer that I knew of moved the keyboard back. And Apple had the first nicely integrated mouse.
When the ThinkPad was introduced a year or two later, it copied the keyboard placement on some (all?) of its keyboards. And I preferred the TrackPoint to Apple’s trackballs and trackpads. Although over time and many improvements I came to like the trackpad more.
But it was not based on the 170, as that launched in 1994, 3 years later.
I think the models that influenced it were the 140 and 170, both from 1991, and much chunkier than the 100.
Though of course, it makes sense despite Thinkpads existing in one form or another since 1991, they've also evolved a lot over three decades.
Apple co-designed the first PowerBook, the PB 100, with Sony.
Apple's original concept for a "laptop" was no-compromise, with the first active-matrix LCD... but it was the size of a small suitcase.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_porta...
It accommodated left-handed users (like me) with a relocatable trackball, something Asus hasn't thought of in the ZenBook Pro, or I might have considered one.
Sony took that design and turned it into this:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_power...
Relatively slim and light for the time, a relatively crappy passive-matrix display, but that meant it was usably slim and light and didn't need 5kg of lead-acid battery.
The history is mentioned here: https://lowendmac.com/1991/powerbook-100/
Used it for 5 or more years before switching to a ThinkPad.
My memory did not serve me correctly.
Pretty sure that thing is why I still don’t have kids.
The G4, with that titanium case, was definitely a ‘nads nuker, though.
(I've owned and used Powerbooks and MacBooks from the beginning -- I had a Powerbook 100, the 16 mhz 68000 with a lead acid battery. Used a 140 and 170 of that era as well. And a Duo230, and a 5300, and a Duo 2300, Tibook G4, White x86 Macbook, 2012 era Air and MBP, 2015 MBPs, a work 2017 MBP, Last x86 Air, M1 Air).
Early machines had a lot of flex. The hinges creaked. The trackball gummed up. Some of their keyboards were good (the 140 and 170 especially had _really_ nice mechanical keyboards, and a good trackball as well). And some of the keyboards were mushy goo (the Duos, and the Tibook to a lesser extent. Basically the low point till the 2016 MBP). Despite the magnesium frames in the duo, the whole computer could flex enough that the battery would disconnect while in use. Also, the Duos were a royal pain to repair -- I remmeber an hour or more to disassemble to get to one little piece in the back that needed replaced -- I think it was a serial port.
The spring loaded keyboard on the G4 (and the toilet seat ibooks) was great from a maintenance POV, because you could get into the innards really easily to replace memory, drives, etc. But the keyboards on the unibody are soooo much better.
The Tibook was an inflection point where the machines started lasting me more than a couple of years. Some of that was probably usage patterns (having a desktop for the heavy lifting), and some was build quality (and possibly, some was buying a top of the line machine for the first time). But even then, the Tibook has wear that the newer machines just don't show -- the paint on the frame rubbed/chipped off at the wrist rests. The body over the dvd would flex and rub on the spinning disk. The 2012 Air was basically the platonic ideal of a laptop at the time, and it worked in its form for 5+ years, only really being put out to pasture when Xcode demanded too much from it.
The unibody MBP was probably the closest to what you'd expect from a modular MBP these days, but it took a lot more futzing because of it. The SATA drive cable rubs on the frame due to flex, giving it a lifespan of a few years, even for pampered machines.
Colleagues in the 90s would joke “so when are you going to get a real computer?”
This naturally affects the conditions these machines are available in on the used market. Any of the pre-TiBook plastic models are likely to have cracked plastic with bits that have chipped off due to growing brittle with age. PowerBook G3s are likely to have their exteriors scratched up. Fruit flavored iBooks commonly have parts missing. As you noted, TiBooks have big problems with paint chipping and had bad hinges.
Once you get into the aluminum models things improve quite a lot… the PowerBook G4s and MacBook Pro’s, both pre and post unibody can easily be found in great condition. The counterpart white plastic iBook G3s/G4s and MacBooks also fared better, but are sometimes subject to yellowing. These generally don’t have mechanical issues and usually just need to have their spinning rust swapped out for an SSD and a thermal paste change to get them running nicely again.
That said, the pre-unibody alu Powerbooks and white plastic iBooks/MacBooks are a pain in the butt to work on. So many screws. If one doesn’t have much patience for that kind of thing and doesn’t explicitly need PowerPC one of the unibody MBPs with at least a Core 2 Duo is a no brainer when selecting an old Mac to tinker with.
The ports got better too -- I killed a couple of the old RS422 serial ports on the duo (printer/modem port), but none of the USBs have ever gotten knocked off the board. At least with the duo, the dock connector had a big physical latch separate from the massive electrical connector.
I’ve seen some people modding old thinkpads to use USB-C for charging instead of those old barrel connectors that love to get loose over time and break. I wonder how practical it would be to do that for pre-MagSafe PowerBooks/MacBooks.