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PowerBook 1400c CL Find
- Thread starter Rick Dangerous
- Start date
Rick Dangerous
Well-known member
It actually prompted me onscreen to hit the select button (which was green) which i did (went to unlit) but it didn't work either way around. Tried restarting; all the usual stuff. The extension is turned on; it's chosen, paper spooled up; not sure what the deal is.
Have it set to hand feed and when i hit print on the document it skips quickly past the first page and tries to print the second; asking me to feed another sheet of paper like the first one isn't there. Then says error trying to print. Odd. Will have to fiddle around further but if this rings a bell for anyone let me know.
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Rick Dangerous
Well-known member
No doubt; i'll try another cable! Thanks LaPorta!
I do have an ImageWriterII and in chooser it's an ImageWriter that's selected; but i think they use the same driver right?
I do have an ImageWriterII and in chooser it's an ImageWriter that's selected; but i think they use the same driver right?
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Please report back on this, because this has a lot of potential use cases for me, because I've got macs and PCs with pcmcia slots that supported storage. SD cards are cheap enough that even on older DOS machines, it's not that big of a waste of money to use, say, an 8GB SD card on a machine that only supports 2GB volumes, especially since in a non-booting context, you don't have to go and buy higher end cards.
I need to try 8.5/8.6 myself.
To be honest, my instinct is largely that 8.6 isn't realistically that much slimmer than 9.1, which itself will run (even if poorly) on 32 megs of RAM.
Between 8.1 and 8.5 it's basically going to be whether the slight improvement in native code is worth the trade-off in everything else in the OS being bigger/heavier and using more RAM.
It won't fly but it does run, it's a bit slower than 7.6.1, but all Macs that can run both are, so it kind of depends on your goals, right? If you want to run 9.1 and 9.1-era software (2000-2003 stuff) then you can basically forget it. Even with a G3 upgrade, at only 64 megs of RAM this machine just isn't going to run that software well.
But, if you wanted 9.1 for, IDK, some feature it had and you were going to run older software on it? It might be fine.
I would say the overall theme is to try and see what you can tolerate and whether the mix of capabilities on a given machine suit your needs.
Today, I don't know what 1400c G3 upgrades cost, but to be honest if you wanted a 9 laptop with a G3 in it, buying a Pismo or an iBook seems like it might make more sense. Even an iBook G3/500 is gonna be smaller, more durable, you can add airport, more likely to have a working battery, USB ports, firewire, onboard ethernet, so-on and so-forth, it's a huge quality of life boost. (Pismo and TiBook of course also have all those things, and even a Walstreet is just gonna be a faster 9 performer and have ethernet and cardbus for usb/wifi.)
Not that having a G3 in a 1400 wouldn't be fun, just that I do think it would be overkill and you'd end up with a poorly balanced system.
Can a 1400 boot from its PCMCIA slot? I don't remember if I've done that on mine. I believe the 2400/3400 can, but, different architecture.
If so, then the sky is the limit. 7.6.1 on any PPC mac can address partitions up to 2TB, although you might want to switch to HFS+ above a certain size for file size reasons, but, TBH, I have a 30GB IDE disk in my own 1400, split roughly 3 ways and all three of the partitions are plain HFS and it's perfectly fine.
(*I can try this, I do have a 1400, I just haven't had a chance to of late.)
The 1 and 2 are physically different printers from different manufacturers and so you may need to use the specific driver.
Switch to the ImageWriter II option and see if that gets it running.
LaPorta
Well-known member
They do use the same driver. Any flavor of "ImageWriter" extension that comes with System 7.x will run either printer.
Huxley
Well-known member
Can confirm! My PB1400 (CS model, upgraded with 40MB RAM and G3 CPU) has a 2x-height PCMCIA Hard Drive Card (a literal spinning-disk drive in the form of a double-height PCMCIA card) with a backup copy of MacOS 8.1 and it happily boots from it
Congrats @travistouchdown - the PB1400 is a really special machine, and you've got a great example of it here. Treat it well and it'll last forever
Huxley
Rick Dangerous
Well-known member
I will report back when i get the SD to PCMCIA if it works!
How would you boot from that card? I wonder if it's a selectable startup disk or if there's a magical key sequence.
There's no "Imagewriter II" printer to choose; i've given up on that for now. Think it just needs a fresh OS install to set things right again.
The "Impossible to get to" PRAM battery is my main concern with this machine right now....taking it apart completely just seems like a real pain to pull this thing? How bad would it be to leave it in there?
I tried zapping it the other day when starting up and it killed the machine immediately, had to restart by holding the PMU in for 20 seconds, then there were was a vertical red area on the left side of the screen on the boot screen (great--thankfully looks normal once started) so i don't want to do any further harm to the machine or the LCD with attempts to zap the PRAM or adjusting the clock, should i leave it or spend hours tearing this thing down to pull it and risk breaking delicate plastics?
How would you boot from that card? I wonder if it's a selectable startup disk or if there's a magical key sequence.
There's no "Imagewriter II" printer to choose; i've given up on that for now. Think it just needs a fresh OS install to set things right again.
The "Impossible to get to" PRAM battery is my main concern with this machine right now....taking it apart completely just seems like a real pain to pull this thing? How bad would it be to leave it in there?
I tried zapping it the other day when starting up and it killed the machine immediately, had to restart by holding the PMU in for 20 seconds, then there were was a vertical red area on the left side of the screen on the boot screen (great--thankfully looks normal once started) so i don't want to do any further harm to the machine or the LCD with attempts to zap the PRAM or adjusting the clock, should i leave it or spend hours tearing this thing down to pull it and risk breaking delicate plastics?
Huxley
Well-known member
In my case, it's just another disk in the Startup Disk control panel - no startup-key-combo magic required, thankfully
H.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
From what I recall it can. I've had a Type II (?) IBM HDD that I've used from way back when to boot all kinds of PCMCIA PowerBooks from for troubleshooting. I think maybe even the 190?
@Huxley glad to see you've confirmed. I replied without having refreshed this window since this morning, hence the edit. Gotta love those tiny little spinning disks! :approve:
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cheesestraws
Well-known member
FWIW, I had a 1400 booting from a CF card in an adapter for a while, and it just appeared as another disc in the startup control panel.
Huxley
Well-known member
At risk of derailing the topic, I just remembered that a year or two ago, I created a little Imgur album about the PCMCIA "Hard Disk Card" I referenced above, and how I use it with my PowerBook 1400 - here's the link, if anyone's curious: https://imgur.com/gallery/NbV8lnI
Huxley
Huxley
I love those MicroDrives. I've got a 520 meg Type II one labeled as CallunaCard, an IBM one at ~100-300 meg and a Maxtor one at also around 100-300 megs. The latter two came out of a ThinkPad 730T.
Back in my Pismo days, I had a CF card I ran a minimal install of 9.2.2 and AppleWorks 5 on, for hypermiling with the dual batteries and often with the display backlight turned off, because writing for 17 hours at a time is something normal humans definitely need. ( /s )
Back in my Pismo days, I had a CF card I ran a minimal install of 9.2.2 and AppleWorks 5 on, for hypermiling with the dual batteries and often with the display backlight turned off, because writing for 17 hours at a time is something normal humans definitely need. ( /s )
Rick Dangerous
Well-known member
I won another Powerbook 1400c on ebay for my $100 offered.
This one comes with
-24MB Ram Expansion
-CD-Rom and Floppy Drive
-Video Card and Cable
-Batteries, Power Cable, OS9 Discs, Various Flotsam and Jetsam
Between these two machines i should have a pretty sweet 1400c in the making!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-APPLE-MACINTOSH-POWERBOOK-1400CS-133-M3571-LAPTOP-COMPUTER-C2/233877609123?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
This one comes with
-24MB Ram Expansion
-CD-Rom and Floppy Drive
-Video Card and Cable
-Batteries, Power Cable, OS9 Discs, Various Flotsam and Jetsam
Between these two machines i should have a pretty sweet 1400c in the making!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-APPLE-MACINTOSH-POWERBOOK-1400CS-133-M3571-LAPTOP-COMPUTER-C2/233877609123?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
Huxley
Well-known member
Oh man, that's a great haul for the price! Just note that it's the "cs" edition (not the plain "c" model), so it will have the less-enjoyable passive-matrix display. My PB1400 is also a "cs" and I'm actively searching for a body-less "c" display I can do a monitor-swap with
Anyway, congrats again!
H.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
I was going to mention the video connector under the assflap of your 'Book. Deeper into the pics of that listing you'll see something more rare than a even a G3 Accelerator, the VIEWpowr 16-bit video card!
A full loadout of RAM to nestle up to that oversize card is a bit more difficult to source, but worth the wait. Nice snag, even if not a c model, the VIEWpowr alone is worth that price.
A full loadout of RAM to nestle up to that oversize card is a bit more difficult to source, but worth the wait. Nice snag, even if not a c model, the VIEWpowr alone is worth that price.
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CC_333
Well-known member
If you ever find one, let me know, as I have a 1400c...(something?) with the typical shot plastics down by the right hinge, and I'd be interested in possibly acquiring your "old" cs display, if you'd be willing [
] c
Rick Dangerous
Well-known member
Cool and very good to know; thank you! What capabilities does this card add over the stock port? Better resolution on a bigger monitor?
My initial find on CL is a "C" model; i got this "CS" on ebay for the CD-Rom Drive, RAM card, Video Card, and accessories/parts.
If you ever find one, let me know, as I have a 1400c...(something?) with the typical shot plastics down by the right hinge, and I'd be interested in possibly acquiring your "old" cs display, if you'd be willing [
c
Okay i will absolutely keep that in mind as i acquire 1-2 more spares in search of RAM.
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