Powerbook 190 w/Ethernet & PCMCIA boot

[pb190]

I bought a powerbook 190 on ebay recently.  I am planning to install a m.2 SATA SSD in it to replace the existing IDE boot drive, just to see if it will work.  I've gotten some very useful things to work on this machine:

* I can boot from a Compact Flash card in a PCMCIA adapter (formatted the card, then copied over my system folder).  Once I boot from the PCMCIA card, I can then format my internal drive.  More convenient than using an external SCSI drive.

* I bought a Farallon PN595a ethernet PCMCIA card.  It is working with System 7.61.

* I "manually" installed Open Transport 1.3 (it kept asking for floppies Install 1 and Install 2 - I just had everything in a big folder on my hard drive.  I just copied the various files to what seemed to be the right places).  Once I installed that, I was able to connect to my OS X 10.4 iBook as a file server.  I go to the chooser, and click the button to connect via TCP/IP.  

I was not able to connect to my 10.4 Mac via TCP/IP until I installed the Open Transport 1.3 update.  Previously it had Open Transport 1.12, and although it did have the button to connect via TCP/IP that did not work.

So in the end the ability to connect a 68k Mac to a 10.4 OS X server via ethernet is much more useful than being able to boot the machine from a SSD.  But as soon as the 16Gb SSD comes in the mail, I will try to install it.  BTW I am using IDE to m.2 SATA adapter, designed for the tiny 42mm drives.  The host computer "thinks" you have an IDE drive, and you can use any m.2 SATA 42mm drive that you can find.  There are plenty of drives out there.  I even have a 250Gb m.2 SSD drive in a 17" powerbook G4 that is working great, so I am assuming this setup will work for my powerbook 190 as well since that's IDE.

The picture shows the 190 booting into 7.55 from a compact flash card, but I am now using 7.61 as I have a pre-built system 7.61 from my Mac support days in the 1990s.

 

[stormy]

Hi, I'd be interested in how you got along with your internal ssd adaptor, did it work & what exact models did you use? Thanks

 

[pb190]

Unfortunately I was not able to get an SSD to work in this machine.  I think this is what I had tried:

MINI PCI-E SATA SSD Netbook Hard drive 8GB fit Asus eee PC 701 900 900A 1000

Along with an Ableconn IIDE-MSAT mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch IDE Adapter

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017VQT5YW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Basically, a 42mm mSATA SSD with an adapter that lets me use that 42mm mSATA in a 2.5mm IDE setting.  I have successfully used the Ableconn adapter with various Samsung 42mm mSATA drives.  For example I've been using a 17" PB G4 1.33 GHz with a 500Gb Samsung 860 EVO mSATA drive.  That has been working great for several years.  So I had hoped that I could get the PB 190, which is also IDE, working with an SSD.  I had initially tried a Samsung 32Gb mSATA drive, with various partition sizes, and that did not work.  I then tried the above 8Gb mSATA drive but that didn't work either.  I could not even get it to mount under OS 8.  So I gave up and instead I'm booting from a compact flash card (with adapter) in the PCMCIA slot.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

What amazing toys we have today!  I wonder if the problem is the 040-030 I/O bridge ASIC? It may work VIA the 2300c/5300/1400 series PPC-030 I/O Bridge ASIC?

 

[Fizzbinn]

I couldn't get that Ableconn adapter to work correctly in my 1400. Works fine in my 2400, G3 Pismo, and iBook G4. My guess is the IDE controller in the early Macs that used IDE may not be smart enough to be compatible with newer drives/drive adapters that support DMA/faster operational modes. I ended up using a CF card with a simple IDE adapter in my 1400, it benchmarks a bit faster on this internal bus vs. being in an CF-PMCIA adapter (which is still fine).

CY CF Compact Flash Merory Card to Laptop 2.5 44 Pins Male IDE Hard Disk Drive HDD SSD Adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Flash-Merory-Laptop-Adapter/dp/B00S6GIHS2/

I also tried this dual CF card to IDE adapter in the 1400 but couldn't get it to work at all (https://www.amazon.com/Syba-Compact-Adapter-Enclosure-SD-ADA45006/dp/B0036DDXUM/)

 

[pb190]

That's a great idea.  I'm going to pick up a Compact Flash to IDE adapter for my PB 190.  

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I couldn't get that Ableconn adapter to work correctly in my 1400. Works fine in my 2400, G3 Pismo, and iBook G4. My guess is the IDE controller in the early Macs that used IDE may not be smart enough to be compatible with newer drives/drive adapters that support DMA/faster operational modes.

Thanks for the confirmation, I thought it might be the case that it would only work in the later PCI architecture 'Books. Apple's mid-90s IDE implementations left much to be desired.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Welcome aboard BTW! I missed your low post count earlier today.

 

[stormy]

Yeah cheers for coming back to life to follow up this post! I was thinking about trying this in my 190 but now I know not to waste the money, so thanks lol  I am going to use an IDE > CF instead, I'm sure this will perform ideally.