Outbound portable 68k Mac clone & dock: tech info

[flecom]

mod_edit

Split from this Trading Post thread.

/monthly_02_2016/post-1829-0-76677400-1456733726.jpg">View attachment 8574

/monthly_02_2016/post-1829-0-65217000-1456733703.jpg">View attachment 8573

/monthly_02_2016/post-1829-0-26677400-1456733690.jpg">View attachment 8572

Cosmo, does that Laptop include the daughter card which is meant to be installed in the SE or Plus from which the ROMs were taken.  The daughter card then makes it possible to dock the Outbound 125 to the ROMless SE or Plus.

Only as shown in pictures i'm afraid.

Thank you. I'm beginning to think that that daughter card was mostly vapor...

/mod_edit

wow that is really awesome, those used orange gas plasma displays right? I loved those so much...

wish I had something interesting to trade!

 

[unity]

No, no orange plasma. Passive matrix fluorescent backlight. So that means they sold a portable with backlight before even Apple did.

 

[Bunsen]

orange gas plasma displays

You're thinking of the Dynamac laptops.

 

[flecom]

yep absolutely right, doh!

 

[james_w]

@trag yeah I'm super curious about that daughter card too - never seen any evidence for its existence besides the references in software and adverts for the Outbound. My Outbound 125 came with lots of stuff, but sadly no manuals, software or the elusive card!

 

[unity]

Ditto on that card. It does exist, but they seem to be very rare. I have only seen eBay auctions for two. I almost had one at one point. My outbound is near complete less the original power adapter, floppy drive and the darn card. Everything else is there. I think the problem is the Outbound, on numbers alone, were not popular. So you have a product that was not produced by the millions. Then couple that with the fact that tying a laptop to a desktop as a symbiotic relationship was not normal, so when the hardware was passed on, sold, etc - they were broken up most likely as two separate systems. Now think about which model compacts are the most common, the Plus and SE - so they are not really high in value and end up just getting recycled.

So in the end, mathematically, the odds of finding a card is pretty slim. And if a card is found on its own, its just another PC card that probably ends up in the trash/recycled unless the person holding it knows what it really is.

At least the Outbound itself can operate in "target disk mode". I used that to transfer the valuable contents of mine to an SE.

 

[james_w]

@unity I'm lucky enough to have the original PSU (now dead) and original floppy drive (I've not tested it).

Do you have the software installers? I'd be very grateful for disk images!

And yes, I backed up mine in target disk mode too

 

[olePigeon]

I had a very complete Outbound laptop I sold a few years back with pretty much everything, including the Outbound carrying bag.  It didn't have the card, though.

 

[trag]

Ditto on that card. It does exist, but they seem to be very rare. I have only seen eBay auctions for two. I almost had one at one point.

You've actually seen Ebay auctions for them?!? That's more than I've seen. Although a guy did offer to sell me three of them through comp.sys.mac.wanted way back when, but the deal fell through. Still not certain that wasn't a scam though.

When did you see them on Ebay? Was it recent?

Agree with you about the rarity. To make matters even worse, a Mac with the card installed won't boot up, so the Mac appears dead and is even more likely to be discarded once seperated from its Outbound.

 

[unity]

Yes on the auctions. In fact, deep in the archive is a link to an eBay auction with one. But I am sure that link is dead. And there had been another since. I really hate how eBay erases auctions after a short time.

And you make yet another good point, the donor Mac is no good on its own. So even less sellable in ones eyes. And to the trash/recycler it goes!

@ james_w = I can probably do so, but not any time soon. Send me a PM to remind me. I am sorta reorganizing things here again and dont have a good workflow setup for imaging floppies and getting them online. But I do have all the disks as far as I know. They are blue and original. I never used them since I never needed too - and I have no floppy drive for it  But when I have time, I will do the imaging. Just be sure to remind me. I buy/sell a lot of Macs so I forget things like this.

 

[Bunsen]

So we need to keep our eyes out for non-booting Plus/SEs with mystery ports?

 

[unity]

In short, the Plus gets a card that interfaces directly to the ROM sockets. The cable gets a bracket installed inside that directs the cable out the security lock in back.

The SE gets a setup like we would expect. A plug-in card and a cable that goes out the normal access port in back.

Sorry for derailing the thread more....

 

[james_w]

@ james_w = I can probably do so, but not any time soon. Send me a PM to remind me. I am sorta reorganizing things here again and dont have a good workflow setup for imaging floppies and getting them online. But I do have all the disks as far as I know. They are blue and original. I never used them since I never needed too - and I have no floppy drive for it  But when I have time, I will do the imaging. Just be sure to remind me. I buy/sell a lot of Macs so I forget things like this.

Awesome thank you. I'll drop you a reminder in a few weeks or so

And thanks for the manual images - if you had the time to do the whole manual that would be amazing too! Be good to archive it somewhere on the web. I've been searching a lot.

 

[Bunsen]

Sorry for derailing the thread more....

More information is always welcome!  Thanks in particular for the manual scans.

What I might do is split off the technical discussion to a new thread, outside the Trading Post.

the Plus gets a card that interfaces directly to the ROM sockets

And the CPU bus, by the look of one of your scanned pages.

The SE gets a / plug-in card

A PDS card?  Or does it mount the same way as the Plus card?

 

[unity]

From the manual, it mounts in the PDS and it did not mention anything like the plus style mount. Unless I missed it. But that makes me wonder about the ROM sockets. If ROMS are removed, that would mean the PDS slot has the ability to direct the motherboard to it for substitute ROM access, in this case. I will look things over again and try to get a PDF made of the manuals if I can get my scanner working.

 

[Bunsen]

Poking around EveryMac's clones page, I spotted this:
 

RealTech sold a small line of MacOS-Compatible laptops from May 1992 to December 1992. RealTech signed an agreement to distribute systems manufactured by Outbound under its own private label.
 
RealTech: Traveler
 
Traveler 880
Traveler 1480

 

[unity]

I have not heard of those! Must be as rare as the Newton 2100 with the round "N" logo instead of the Apple logo.

 

[Bunsen]

Short video comparing the Outbound, Dynamac, and Mac Portable