PowerBook 150

[3583Bytes]

OK so I said no more Macs but then there was this PowerBook 150 on sale for 15$ so how can I resist.

I actually have some memories of this PowerBook as it was kind of affordable.  I remember looking at it at a large computer store in the mid 90s considering whether or not to buy it.  I ended up buying a PC (which was probably better for my career) but it was close.


 
The PowerBook is in great shape, no issues with screen darkening or sound low.  The battery actually holds a bit of charge (like 1 minute).  

For now its my portable Master of Orion battleground.

 

[Tiptoeturtle]

It might be possible to disassemble the battery pack and replace the dying sub-component batteries. I do not know if it was true or not, but when I had a PowerBook 140 I remember the technician at the local apple dealership telling me that running a 140 with a dead (or missing) battery pack would eventually kill the 140 or kill the AC adaptor (and it did).

Donald

 

[Apache Thunder]

Looks like the battery hasn't died to the point of ceasing to work at all. So you might have a easier time replacing the dead cells. For completely dead batteries, I hear you have to clear the internal eeprom data of the battery controller as the battery will tell the computer it's dead even though you replaced the cells if you didn't reset it.

But 1 minute sounds like the battery hasn't given up yet.

 

[J English Smith]

I think those batteries can still be found on eBay - last time I looked - and not too dear. Different than the G3 Pismo batteries, which have all but disappeared...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Congrats! [] ]'>  Besides my PowerBook 100, which was my first laptop, the 150 is the only early PB I ever wanted for my collection. It's unique.

How much memory? Using Duo Modules (if you can find the adapter) and large IDE drives made the 150 the most expandable, long term useful member of the 100 series by far. This despite it being the last of the series with necessary designe trade-offs, purpose building it to occupy the low end of the next gen lineup.

Collectors poo-poo its passive matrix LCD, but it was made in a day when passive was commonplace and active was a very expensive subsystem, out of the price range of many, if not most. The vast majority of those detractors were not familiar with using laptops or the differences between the types if they'd been born at all in that era. To hear anyone call a Passive Matrix screen unusable is laughable. You used what you could afford and were happy to have it back in that day.

 

[flecom]

yep, I saved up a lot of allowance money to buy my powerbook 1400CS/117 back in the day... and ya the dual scan display suuuucked and the lack of cache made it painfully slow but it was what I could afford, and it could play C&C!

 

[3583Bytes]

Thanks for all the comments, I will let you know if I get anywhere with the batteries.  

For now I am just enjoying playing my old favs on it like Master of Orion, Sim City, RR Tycoon and Pirates.  It would be awesome to get Wolf 3D working on it but alas it complains at startup about lack of colors or something.   I still have not tried Populous yet or Lemmings (I grew up with an Amiga can you tell)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

yep, I saved up a lot of allowance money to buy my powerbook 1400CS/117 back in the day... and ya the dual scan display suuuucked and the lack of cache made it painfully slow but it was what I could afford, and it could play C&C!

Don't feel so bad, Passive Matrix was the norm for StarterBooks, at least yours was Grayscale!  [] ]'>  I just did a rough check and it seems that Apple never made a low end of a model year lineup, active matrix PowerBook until the introduction of the Lombard (Second gen PowerBook_G3) in 1999! Even when the 5300 came out with an Active Matrix GS LCD, the Passive Matrix PB190 was there on the Bronze Medal step of the lineup platform.

Passive Matrix BW, Passive Matrix GS, (Passive Matrix?) Dual Scan GS and Passive Matrix CS Color seem to have been at the low end of every individual model until the Lombard.