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Powerbook 145b

AndyO

Well-known member
A big yawn for many, I suspect, because there are faster, bigger PowerBooks out there with better screens, but it was a 100-series PB I wanted and have been looking for. I was given (literally) a PB 170 in 1991 when they had just come out for joining the business school staff, but these seem hard to find in good condition.

I saw the 145b at the weekend, and got it for $100, which seems a good enough price on eBay. I wasn't expecting a miracle, but it is in fact it in superb physical condition - even still has the hinged flap on the back - and not a scratch on it anywhere. It boots and runs just fine, and everything behaves as I would have expected. Battery is dead and doesn't seem to want to come out, but there's a tiny bit of wiggle in it, so it will eventually. And the passive matrix screen is fine - some ghosting as usual, but it doesn't bother me at all once I'm working on it.

What will probably seal my fate as a judge of these things, is that it's going to join my snowbook as a favorite laptop! Seriously though, it looks as if it just came out of the box.
 

androda

Well-known member
Here's hoping the screen capacitors have been replaced - they eventually go bad and then cause a solid black screen.

I like the looks of the 1xx series powerbooks. Those and the Wallstreet G3 are my favorite.
 

Juror22

Well-known member
Here's hoping the screen capacitors have been replaced - they eventually go bad and then cause a solid black screen
I have one of these that I refreshed (re-capped, re-hinged, re-lubed) a few years back and I love mine. Yours sounds like it is in very fine original shape, enjoy!
 

AndyO

Well-known member
The screen has all the usual hallmarks of passive matrix designs, and it does have a 'problem' in that it begins almost totally washed out and then fades to a more normal brightness and contrast over about 5 minutes - very similar to my PB 1400 in fact, which is also passive matrix. The brightness and contrast controls work just fine though.

Undoubtedly it's going to need some work because it is hardly possible it won't, but I love the early PowerBook design - so compact with the trackball, palm-rest, and the small screen. And this one really does look like it just got unboxed. It's been really carefully taken care of, though it looks like the last use it had might have been in mid-1999. The battery still holds a bit of a charge, but only a few minutes, and obviously it'll have to come out before it swells too much.

It has an internal modem, which is ironic since I no longer have a landline to try it with, is running System 7.1, has 4Mb RAM and appears to have an 80Mb HD. And the battery does actually still hold a tiny bit of charge, though only a few minutes worth. That was unexpected!
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Whoa! An original PowerBook Ni-Cd battery that still holds a charge? That's super impressive! I had a "what is your oldest working battery" thread, but it got lost in the database crash. The oldest PowerBook battery someone had that worked were 500 series batteries! I'm shocked frankly.
 

AndyO

Well-known member
Whoa! An original PowerBook Ni-Cd battery that still holds a charge? That's super impressive! I had a "what is your oldest working battery" thread, but it got lost in the database crash. The oldest PowerBook battery someone had that worked were 500 series batteries! I'm shocked frankly.

I almost wouldn't have known, because I expected it to be totally dead, so had it ready to plug in when I had brought it to work yesterday. But I pressed the power button, and without the PSU, it chimed and got as far as the desktop, then died when it started opening a document. I can't get the battery out to check if it's original or perhaps had been refurbished, but near the end of the day it had been powered and in use, I pulled the power cable, and it ran for two or three minutes again.

Quite something!
 
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