Andy’s PowerBook Problem

[AndyO]

Huh, that's an interesting problem I never thought about!

It doesn't sound to me that it's particularly debilitating, but of course, I don't experience it, so I can't know. Maybe it is?). At best, it seems that it just makes you rather clumsy at times, I guess?

Is it something that can improve somewhat through deliberate practice and exercise?

Sorry if I mangled my words a bit. Tact is not always my greatest strength.

c

Clumsy is about the best way to describe it I think. Hard to know for sure from the inside, but I'd guess that's what it looks like to others.

It isn't so much debilitating as very frustrating sometimes, and if I was doing something such as soldering on a regular basis, through trial and error I'd find the tools that felt right for me to use, and it would work just fine in the same way that I can type well on very particular keyboards. I used to do lots of soldering, building circuits, but totally lost touch with it over the past 20 years.

 

[LaPorta]

We all have our difficulties in life, to be sure. There's things I am good at, and things I know I will most likely never be able to do well. That's the beauty of humanity: none of us has all the pieces of the puzzle, but we all have a piece to be able to help each other out.

 

[AndyO]

We all have our difficulties in life, to be sure. There's things I am good at, and things I know I will most likely never be able to do well. That's the beauty of humanity: none of us has all the pieces of the puzzle, but we all have a piece to be able to help each other out.

This is certainly true. It doesn't help when some who see fumbling and walking into things assume you're drunk, or similar, but I don't really care much what others think anyway!

It's frustrating, but many have much worse issues to deal with.

 

[AndyO]

I opened the sealed bag, and the new PowerBook 5300 is a cs model - hardly a surprise of course.

 

[AndyO]

But does it work?



Oh yes it does!

It's running Mac OS 7.5.2, it had 16Mb RAM and a 750Mb HD, and this is the start of installing software from my SCSI2SD thumb drive.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Amazing! How’s the battery? Is the keyboard at all stiff?

 

[LaPorta]

Amazing….brand new. I’d keep that thing mint!

 

[AndyO]

The thing looks and feels like totally new. The battery appears to be charging, but I suspect it probably isn't - or at least will hold barely any charge since it can't have benefited from being on a shelf for that many years.

The keyboard is absolutely fine. I've spent a couple of hours installing software from ym SCSI2SD thumb drive - MS Office, WordPerfect 3.5, Claris Works 4, Photoshop, PageMaker, SuperPaint, HyperCard... that kind of thing. All very smooth, if a bit slow due to limited RAM I suspect. Then typed a document outline, and saved it to floppy to take to work in the morning.

Quite excellent. I would say it might actually be worth the $200!!

Curiously, it is a rather different shade of grey to the PB 5300ce I bought last month. Rather lighter shade. I'll take a photo of both to compare tomorrow when the light is better.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Awesome. Absolutely worth the 200!!! Try unplugging it to see what happens! I’ve heard that NiMH batteries have a pretty good shelf life, so there may be hope! Is the PRAM battery still good? If it doesn’t immediately start when the power connector is plugged in (with no main battery) then it is.

 

[CC_333]

Curiously, it is a rather different shade of grey to the PB 5300ce I bought last month. Rather lighter shade. I'll take a photo of both to compare tomorrow when the light is better.

That could be because of fading? Many, if not most plastics nowadays, if they've been exposed and used at all seem to have some degree of yellowing, fading and/or darkening. Perhaps because this 5300cs has been packed in its box for so many years, it has been spared that, and the lighter shade is more or less its true color?

That passive display, by the way, is probably the clearest one I've ever seen! I'm sure the fact that it's never been used has helped, as usually they'll have lots of artifacts and ghosting that I can't imagine people would've been able to tolerate even back then.

c

 

[AndyO]

Sadly it did boot up immediately the power was connected, so the PRAM battery is likely dead, but I'll have more time to experiment with it when I get home tonight and over the weekend. The battery is holding a charge of sorts, but not usefully. A little bit of exercising it might help of course.

The display is surprisingly good for passive matrix. It ghosts at the 'Welcome to Mac OS' splash screen during start up, but almost no artifacts after that. I am actually quite impressed. Certainly pleased!

Set up and all the software installations went very smoothly, and aside from a floppy disk it wouldn't properly eject at one point (I fed it quite a few and the rest were fine), it was flawless.

The difference in shade of grey is very noticeable, and probably is due to the original one being exposed to the air and the new one being sealed up, but it's as distinct a difference as the two grey shades used in the plastics of the 500 series. At least I'll be able to tell them apart for a while!

I certainly think it was worth the price, and probably more - though I can't believe I dithered over it for an hour at $200 before nabbing it. What was I thinking?!

 

[LaPorta]

Might you get a photo of one next to the other?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Try running the battery recondition tool that it should have shipped with. It might bring it back.

 

[AndyO]

I'm going to get a photo of both the 5300s side by side later when I get home.... and clear enough space for them in my pile of junk! Hopefully the difference in color will show up!

It would certainly be a nice extra if the battery held some charge, though even if it does I rather doubt it would be capable of running the system for long. Still, the battery in my 190 does also show a charge, and if nothing else, retains the date and time for a day or so at least.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

What’s really funny is that my completely perished and leaking 5300 packs both still show voltage… The less leaky of the 2 holds about 1 volt and the very very leaky one holds either 0.3 or 0.5v, I can’t remember.

 

[AndyO]

If I recall, there's a capacitance effect which can play a part in that and provide a measurable, though low, voltage at virtually no current. Or I may be thinking of lead acid types. I get 1450mv off my long-dead Duo 230 battery, and 0.9v from one out of the 520c.

 

[AndyO]

I can't really get a good photo of the two 5300s since the light in my living room isn't great - but these are the two of them. Obviously the original on the left, and the new one on the right. To the eye, there's a very notable difference, with the original being not just darker (and obviously scratched a bit) but also according to my calibrator, rather more yellowish.



As to the battery, it ran the computer independent of the PSU for 5 minutes before shutdown. Not much, but prior to any attempt at conditioning, pretty cool.

 

[LaPorta]

Perhaps get the new one in a photo with a stock color card to preserve a photo of what they look like new out of the bag. Then, in a few years, snap another and see. I will also note that the Apples are virtually identical.

 

[AndyO]

As to the battery, it ran the computer independent of the PSU for 5 minutes before shutdown. Not much, but prior to any attempt at conditioning, pretty cool.

Somewhat amusingly, I had unplugged the 5300 (and removed the battery) in an attempt to troubleshoot a problem where the trackpad had stopped working. When powering it back up everything worked fine, though the clock was still showing as correct, so perhaps the PRAM battery is not entirely dead. Then about 30 minutes later I got a battery warning, and discovered I hadn't actually reconnected the PSU properly, so it had been running on battery. Exercising it seems to have helped a bit!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

That’s awesome! I’ll bet you could get a couple hours after a run through the recondition software. If these are anything like the 3400, they also won’t cold boot from a battery after all power sources are removed if the PRAM battery is flat or missing. (You would need to jump-start off the charger the first time the battery is connected, after that you can shutdown and boot again untethered until the battery is removed/goes dead). If it completely cold-booted without a jumpstart, the PRAM battery is good. My G3 PDQ also does this.