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540c alive again

MacUp72

Well-known member
I got this machine over a friend for 60 Euros, he said it booted then years ago but it has no power adapter. Unfortunatley it got damaged a bit during shipping( he seemed not very experienced with those things), wrapping paper was added in the box but the powerbook not IN it.:p
A little piece of the left corner broke, also a foot. The two intelligent batteries were complete but corroded( of course).
I mailed him and he gave me a 40 Euros refund, ok.
I took it apart , inside the standard config, 33Mhz XC68LC40 and a 8MB RAM card, 320MB drive..


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on the board back I noticed some odd cap soldering.. bad Apple, bad, I cleaned that up.

DayGlo board :cool:

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MacUp72

Well-known member
As I dont have an original power supply I just made a mockup with an adjustable Hama 15-24V universal power adapter and a selfmade mini adapter with two D sub female pins stuck into a piece of a semicircled foam, this because the two pins dont stick to the board pins very strongly.
At first it wouldnt boot, it didnt chime and the screent was black.
I removed the RAM card and ..Voila.

boot.jpg

then I took off the keyboard and noticed two bent pins in the RAM socket, fixed that with a tweezer, now the RAM is being regonized, great.

ram.jpg

strange Apple sticker on the back..
st.png



I glued the little plastic parts I found in the shipping box and it actually is complete now..
have to repaint the edge maybe, but it is strong now, I also glued back the foot.


now I try to find a better power adapter solution and doing a RAM upgrade with some addditional chip soldering..
maybe an oscillator upgrade tp 40 Mhz would be ok, too..but I dont find any info on that particular vintage buddy

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:p
 
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twelvetone12

Well-known member
very nice work! I had a 520c as my first "serious" laptop and the 540c was my dream, I would like to get one once I finish my PB100 project.
 

croissantking

Well-known member
Nice job. I have a 520c and a 540c, both working. I don’t understand why some European countries used grey key caps, it spoils the look a bit. BTW, I have a spare 500 series palmrest/top case if you want to improve yours 😄
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Check your 540c’s LCD MacUp! Looks based on the glossy polarizer film that you’ve probably got the Sharp LCD, which has a bunch of caps that could need to be replaced.
 

MacUp72

Well-known member
Check your 540c’s LCD MacUp! Looks based on the glossy polarizer film that you’ve probably got the Sharp LCD, which has a bunch of caps that could need to be replaced.
hm, when I crack up the display I'll look into that, must be very careful, so brittle..

I cleaned up the 540c keyboard, most keys almost were stuck, Mr Fluff was hiding in every crack..
yummy

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simple and effective design, a key consists of three parts, key, plastic clip and rubber foot. The basic key push motion is implemented just with a 'spring function' solely based on the flexibility of the rubber foot inside. The little white plastic clip holds the key to the base, so that the rubber foot is trapped under it. clever. The larger keys like the space bar have an aditional attached spring.
After 30 years all the plastics are intact and still flexible, not a single one broke, interesting.

next week or so a 520 ( with some other stuff) will come in and I'll switch top case and keyboard..
why am I doing this.
lolz
 
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MacUp72

Well-known member
I was thinking about maybe doing a complete refinish ( black or white) I dont mind the vintage worth too much when I have an interesting personal machine.
If I do spray paint the keyboard, the key stickers will be covered so I designed new ones in Illustrator..
as far as I could eleborate this the basic font of the older PowerBooks is based on Univers 57 Condensed Oblique, but I noticed a unique, squarisch '&' on the keyboard that I haven't seen anywhere in my fonts.
Apple again.

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So, I think it will be possible to print that out on thin decal foil and slip it on the keys
(the original letters are also very thinly applied stickers basically)
 

GRudolf94

Well-known member
Darn it. I kinda want that white keyboard, lol. The downside is my spare PB500 keyboard is in another continent, else I'd offer to trade.
 

MacUp72

Well-known member
I tried to connect it to my PB Titanium and PB G4 12" via a Asanté FriendlyNet Ethernet adapter but no success. I arranged a working network between the 540c and the other powerbooks and was able to transfer files, but wasnt able to use the PB's WLAN for the 540c.
With the newer PBs (under Tiger) you can be connected to the WiFi and parallel to that use Ethernet, this is not possible with the older 540c because of different protocols AFAIK.. it just puts out an error. With the Titanium under 9.2.2 this doesnt work because in AppleTalk you only can choose one network connection type, not two.
 

croissantking

Well-known member
I tried to connect it to my PB Titanium and PB G4 12" via a Asanté FriendlyNet Ethernet adapter but no success. I arranged a working network between the 540c and the other powerbooks and was able to transfer files, but wasnt able to use the PB's WLAN for the 540c.
With the newer PBs (under Tiger) you can be connected to the WiFi and parallel to that use Ethernet, this is not possible with the older 540c because of different protocols AFAIK.. it just puts out an error. With the Titanium under 9.2.2 this doesnt work because in AppleTalk you only can choose one network connection type, not two.
Would IPNetRouter help here?

 

MacUp72

Well-known member
a 520 and a PB 160 came in quite cheap..the 160 actually is an interesting machine, currently my oldest Mac. Both are grayscale displays and both have probs :LOL:..I recapped the 520 display, cleaned the area there, inspected the connector cables and it is somewhat better now ( before it was only white), the lower half of the screen has lines, but when you press the lid on the sides it clears, changing contrast also helps.
It's 120 IBM MB scsi drive works .

on the back of the board there seems to be a factory wire mod(?)

wire.jpg


the 160 chimed but the screen is white, I didnt have enough caps for a complete recap but I changed the two biggest (100uF and 22uF.) now the display came alive. kinda.with stipes on top.
It's drive is dead, it doesnt turn on, neither in the blackbird, so I guess its toast.
it behaves strange when I put in the blackbirds SCSI drive..after the chime it is not spinning up, you get the question mark folder, then the drive starts, stops, starts..maybe power issues.
there was a RAM extension board installed, the profiler says 14MB..


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