David Cook
Well-known member
TLDR: Does anyone have the PowerVision drivers for the PowerBook 170 video out?
I purchased a PowerBook 170 with an aftermarket mod video out connector on the hinge.

The hard drive still worked. Booting it up, the PowerBook did not display anything on the external video. Sadly, the System does not contain any special extension or control panel, nor does the Monitors control panel show the external display. I think someone wiped out the original system.
I opened the PowerBook, hoping to find the exact model of the external output board. The PCB text isn't helpful.

But, the board sure looks like the other Internet pictures of the PowerVision. The board contains 6 MB of additional system RAM along with 2 MB of VRAM.

The bottom of the board

Now comes a shock! It looks like connector J3 has been ripped off the board.

And, when I opened the external video connector, I found that indeed some jerk had cut the cable.

So, yeah. At some point, someone wiped the drive of the drivers, cut the cable, and ripped off the connector.
There are only six wires for the connector. In the above image, I've mapped them to the standard Macintosh video port pins.
It would not be too difficult to replace the wires -- except notice none of them are monitor sense pins. Maybe the 100 ohm resistor acts as a cable sense? It is wired to vsync. My concern is that the video card is unlikely to output anything for me to test a monitor against without the drivers.
If any kind-hearted soul has the "Mirror PowerVision" software, I would sure appreciate a copy.
- David
References:
68kmla.org
I purchased a PowerBook 170 with an aftermarket mod video out connector on the hinge.

The hard drive still worked. Booting it up, the PowerBook did not display anything on the external video. Sadly, the System does not contain any special extension or control panel, nor does the Monitors control panel show the external display. I think someone wiped out the original system.
I opened the PowerBook, hoping to find the exact model of the external output board. The PCB text isn't helpful.

But, the board sure looks like the other Internet pictures of the PowerVision. The board contains 6 MB of additional system RAM along with 2 MB of VRAM.

The bottom of the board

Now comes a shock! It looks like connector J3 has been ripped off the board.

And, when I opened the external video connector, I found that indeed some jerk had cut the cable.

So, yeah. At some point, someone wiped the drive of the drivers, cut the cable, and ripped off the connector.
There are only six wires for the connector. In the above image, I've mapped them to the standard Macintosh video port pins.
It would not be too difficult to replace the wires -- except notice none of them are monitor sense pins. Maybe the 100 ohm resistor acts as a cable sense? It is wired to vsync. My concern is that the video card is unlikely to output anything for me to test a monitor against without the drivers.
If any kind-hearted soul has the "Mirror PowerVision" software, I would sure appreciate a copy.
- David
References:
MacWorld 9302 February 1993 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
MacWorld 9302 February 1993
archive.org
Some mod for Powerbook 170 display out?
I remember reading somewhere on the internet, that there was an adapter for the powerbook 170, which made it possible to connect it to a vga monitor... I wanted to know if anyone knows some mod using a protoboard or something like that to connect the soldering points of the motherboard to an...
