Near Mint Macintosh PowerBook 180!

[PB145B]

Some of you probably saw this PowerBook 180 I posted about in my conquests thread.




Finally decided to crack it open to inspect the internal plastics yesterday.





Of course, the usual problem standoffs were broken! It seems actual use has little do do with this. I think what happens is the plastic just shrinks around the brass inserts, causing it to crack and crumble. IMO this plastic really isn't too bad though, as far as how brittle it is. I have seen MUCH worse.

So anyway, I got my soldering iron out and melted them back together! It isn't pretty but the standoffs are good as new again. So much better than the old superglue method I used to use!






Oh and here's a pic of the original IBM 120MB hard drive. Works great!



It has that auto-park feature, so it "clicks" ever few seconds after it has just been accessed. This is NORMAL! I wonder how many people have tossed these because they thought the drive was failing because of the click sound?

Oh and here's the best part, I disassembled the display housing and the hinge mounts are MINT! No cracks at all.




Very nice!

And the screen is still showing absolutely ZERO signs of tunnel vision! The only defect I can see is a single dead pixel. Amazing!

So, needless to say I'm very satisfied with this laptop and am so happy to have a PB180 in the fleet now. I really enjoy these PowerBook 100 series machines a lot. So simple and a lot of fun to use. I think visually they are some of the coolest-looking laptops ever made too! I also love the parts interchangeability between the different models of these machines, it really makes maintenance super easy!

Next I really want to get a 160 or 165 I think. Between a 145B, 170, 160/165 and the 180 I think that would be a really nice collection of 100 series machines! And then maybe a 165c or a 180c at some point, but that's not urgent.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Aha so you are 80scompaqpc! Here I was noting down that two people had recently found tunnel-vision free PB180s.
Curious, why a 160 or 165? They’re just a 180 with a worse display.

 

[PB145B]

Aha so you are 80scompaqpc! Here I was noting down that two people had recently found tunnel-vision free PB180s.
Curious, why a 160 or 165? They’re just a 180 with a worse display.

Yep, that’s me!

It has always been a goal to get a 160 and/or a 165 for my collection. I’ve always enjoyed my mono passive laptops so I think I would really have fun with one! And between it and my 145B, 170, and 180 I would then have 1-bit black and white and 4-bit grayscale PowerBooks in both passive and active!

The 100 series PowerBooks are hands down some of my favorite vintage Apple notebooks, so having the different lower and higher end models is fun to me!

 

[desertrout]

The 100 series PowerBooks are hands down some of my favorite vintage Apple notebooks, so having the different lower and higher end models is fun to me!

Same for me - I have (at least) one of each in restored condition for that reason. Congrats on the beauty of a 180 - that screen looks especially fresh (all of my active matrix displays have that brown tint).

 

[PB145B]

Same for me - I have (at least) one of each in restored condition for that reason. Congrats on the beauty of a 180 - that screen looks especially fresh (all of my active matrix displays have that brown tint).

Cool that you have one of each model! Do you have a 100 as well? I have actually been quite curious about those lately, but I know they can be a real headache to fix up these days. But man are they neat when fully working.

Thank you! Yeah, I really don’t think this one was used much.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I have a 100 and they are indeed getting expensive to acquire and repair. If you get unlucky and the one you just spent $150 on doesn’t come back after a recap, that’s $150 down the drain. LCDs get pressure damaged and are unobtainium. I got lucky and my first one worked.

 

[PB145B]

I have a 100 and they are indeed getting expensive to acquire and repair. If you get unlucky and the one you just spent $150 on doesn’t come back after a recap, that’s $150 down the drain. LCDs get pressure damaged and are unobtainium. I got lucky and my first one worked.

Yeah, I would NEVER pay $150 for a broken one personally. I’d like to get one for more like $50 to $75. There are a few that have sold reasonable on eBay recently. I might consider grabbing one if I see it for the right price.

I really wish I could find a lot of like two or three of them, then that way I could almost certainly get one working machine from the parts.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I think I paid between $100 and 120 for my broken one. Came with an aftermarket AC adapter and the external floppy drive. Screen was undamaged so I took a chance.

 

[PB145B]

I think I paid between $100 and 120 for my broken one. Came with an aftermarket AC adapter and the external floppy drive. Screen was undamaged so I took a chance.

Glad you got lucky!

 

[desertrout]

Cool that you have one of each model! Do you have a 100 as well? I have actually been quite curious about those lately, but I know they can be a real headache to fix up these days. But man are they neat when fully working.

Thank you! Yeah, I really don’t think this one was used much.

I do have a 100 and it ranks up there as a favorite - it needed some work but thankfully was a successful restoration and works great (a little pressure damage on the LCD but you I don't really notice while using it). I've had it for a few years so I don't remember what I paid for it... probably around $75? I had actually won an auction for one before it for less, but eBay decided in their infinite and unassailable wisdom that it was too risky to ship it across the US border to Canada and cancelled the transaction... gave me a refund and the 100 just disappeared (they don't return those items back to the seller, it just goes... somewhere else). I'm still pissed about it. But the one I have here is used to belong to a Toronto Star photographer, so that's fun - it did some field work, was set up to network with the newspaper. Always neat if you have some idea of the machine's former life.

 

[PB145B]

I do have a 100 and it ranks up there as a favorite - it needed some work but thankfully was a successful restoration and works great (a little pressure damage on the LCD but you I don't really notice while using it). I've had it for a few years so I don't remember what I paid for it... probably around $75? I had actually won an auction for one before it for less, but eBay decided in their infinite and unassailable wisdom that it was too risky to ship it across the US border to Canada and cancelled the transaction... gave me a refund and the 100 just disappeared (they don't return those items back to the seller, it just goes... somewhere else). I'm still pissed about it. But the one I have here is used to belong to a Toronto Star photographer, so that's fun - it did some field work, was set up to network with the newspaper. Always neat if you have some idea of the machine's former life.

Very nice $75 is a pretty decent price for one I think.

Ouch! Yeah, I’d be furious about that too. Shipping something from the USA to Canada shouldn’t be an issue at all, that’s just idiotic on eBay’s part if you ask me.

Oh, that’s really neat! Yes, I agree, it’s always fun to know a machine’s backstory.

 

[desertrout]

Ouch! Yeah, I’d be furious about that too. Shipping something from the USA to Canada shouldn’t be an issue at all, that’s just idiotic on eBay’s part if you ask me.

There are some very tight regulations for transporting SLA batteries and they can't be shipped via air from the US to Canada without being handled a certain way, so I can't *really* blame them... but what was so bothersome about it all was there was no discussion about it and no recourse to change the shipping method or destination. They just refunded my money and let me know what they'd done. I had to pester them to find out vaguely why. I'm less bothered about not having the machine than I am about it just going somewhere unloved, possibly being destroyed.

After this experience, I now have items won from US eBay sellers shipped to the border and I go pick them up. I cross the border pretty regularly (it's only 45 minutes from where I live), so it works out pretty well, and actually ends up saving me a fair bit of money.

 

[PB145B]

There are some very tight regulations for transporting SLA batteries and they can't be shipped via air from the US to Canada without being handled a certain way

Ah, I didn’t even think of that. I know there can be a lot of red tape with shipping batteries. It would have been nice if they could have just removed the battery and sent you the PowerBook without it, but oh well.

 

[desertrout]

Ah, I didn’t even think of that. I know there can be a lot of red tape with shipping batteries. It would have been nice if they could have just removed the battery and sent you the PowerBook without it, but oh well.

Yeah, I doubt they're going to start unpacking stuff... but yeah, at least a head's up from them with options would have been welcome. Anyway....

So, your 180... do you have a display cable? These are great with an external monitor. Also, a SCSI adapter is pretty much necessary. Pretty easy to rebuild batteries too if you want to make it actually portable.

 

[PB145B]

So, your 180... do you have a display cable? These are great with an external monitor. Also, a SCSI adapter is pretty much necessary. Pretty easy to rebuild batteries too if you want to make it actually portable.

I do have a display cable! New in box too. Found it at Goodwill years ago and saved it because I knew I’d have a 160 and/or a 180 at some point. And yes I do have a SCSI adapter, also a Goodwill find!

Yep, I actually have been looking into rebuilding a battery. Just 6v with two contacts so should be super simple as you said. I would LOVE to be able to use one of these on the go with me! I think these packs have two sets of odd sized cells wired in parallel, but since NiMh cells are available now in much higher capacity, I may just install a single set of more common AA sized cells for added simplicity.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

There are some very tight regulations for transporting SLA batteries and they can't be shipped via air from the US to Canada without being handled a certain way, so I can't *really* blame them...

How’d they even know it was SLA? There’s no actual marking on the battery saying so.

 

[desertrout]

How’d they even know it was SLA? There’s no actual marking on the battery saying so.

Good question, I'm actually not certain on that point - maybe they didn't know it was SLA in particular. But a battery regardless. My memory of the interaction with eBay was that the battery was the issue.

 

[PB145B]

I actually got ANOTHER PowerBook 180 that does NOT have tunnel vision also! (This is kind of a parts machine) It has developed some dead pixels since I got it though (no tunnel vision yet), but I'm hoping they won't get too much worse (though I fully plan on buying more parts 180s!) I did try some awesome .jpg files with it though! Here's one... Looks amazing! I'm currently running a BlueSCSI with WiFi in it! Works Great! I fully plan on rebuilding a battery for one of these to take with me on the go! #GalGadot #WonderWoman I love mono active matrix! I love trying badass *.jpg files on old computers (Mac or PC). Here I'm using JPEGView 3.3.1. The BlueSCSI is one of the best modern inventions I've seen for vintage Macs in a long time! Great work!
View attachment 75223

 

[croissantking]

If it’s not tunnel vision, it’s dead pixels! These bloody screens!

 

[PB145B]

If it’s not tunnel vision, it’s dead pixels! These bloody screens!

Always has to be something! Oh well, I plan on buying more parts 180s anyway.