Powerbook XXXX

[chickenplucker]

Finally had this show up the other day, and I'm quite excited to get to work on it. Figured I'd start a new thread in case anyone wanted to follow along.

After it came out of its box and was set on the table plugging in the power adapter brought a happy bong sound, followed by some whirls and buzzes as it perked up. What I can only describe as a repeating "beee woooooo" sound must be its old Quantum drive protesting being woke up again. Eventually it gave up and went to the normal flashing ? disk icon.



Hinges are shot, they still are there but I likely won't be opening or closing this thing more until I find the time to take it apart and see whats going on. If anyone has any hints on hinge repair would love to hear them. Was thinking JB Plastic Epoxy on broken bits, but since its an XXXX I'm a little afraid to go to far with those types of repairs. Case also has a bunch of what looks like whiteout splashed about it. But some scrubbing with WD40 should get that to lift off. 

Bottom had a neat sticker on it, sadly it doesn't appear to be anything special other than a low/mid spec QA unit unless its hiding some other secrets I've yet to find. Its side bay is filled with just a floppy module. Battery seems to be an off the shelf NiMH model and not a flammable lithium one I was hoping for.



Hopefully the drive can be salvaged and maybe with some playing around its contents can be recovered *knock on wood*.  Would love to see some odd version of OS 7 on there, but would not be surprised if it was a release copy due to the wear and tear on the machine. Looks like it was actually used. 

May try to give it a compact flash drive upgrade when time allows, that way can keep wear and tear off the original drive and set it aside for safe keepings. 

Should be fun, I've never had one of these odd balls before. Can't wait to see it patched up and running like its old self again.

 

[ArmorAlley]

All you need now is an alien spacecraft to test it out on. Aliexpress maybe?

 

[bibilit]

If anyone has any hints on hinge repair would love to hear them. Was thinking JB Plastic

I will have a try at the ABS + acetone trick 

https://www.matterhackers.com/news/how-to-make-abs-juice-glue-and-slurry

Had a try at JB Weld or equivalent and won't last very long.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Before going by instructions that spec pure acetone, check out the safety sheets/contents listings of industry standard ABS cements. They're a solution that's mostly MEK with some acetone in the formula. I'm sure acetone works well enough alone, but why not (other than MEK being nastier stuff) go with the real deal? I've played around with straight MEK/ABS "Glop" to the point of building up a quarter section of a monitor's bucket on a modeling clay form, Snow White ribs and all! Working my way up to making reproduction parts on Investment Plaster molds slowly as time and interest permit.

Commercial ABS cement is available in Black, White and Yellow, so a formula approximating Mac Beige, Platinum or PowerBook colors is next on my list of experiments.

Acetone alone solution is "received wisdom" or "common knowledge" from the web. The "experts" are great tinkerers and experimenters, but they're not industrial chemists. Take tinkerer advice with a dose of healthy skepticism just as you would anything else you see on the web as a good start and do your own research. []

 

[Paralel]

Found the original owner:

https://biography.omicsonline.org/united-states-of-america/core-mobility-inc/rich-rifredi-799427

Considering how much time he spent working on the PB series, he might appreciate if you sent him a few pics to show at least one of the protos he worked on still exists and is well loved.

Before going by instructions that spec pure acetone, check out the safety sheets/contents listings of industry standard ABS cements. They're a solution that's mostly MEK with some acetone in the formula. I'm sure acetone works well enough alone, but why not (other than MEK being nastier stuff) go with the real deal? I've played around with straight MEK/ABS "Glop" to the point of building up a quarter section of a monitor's bucket on a modeling clay form, Snow White ribs and all! Working my way up to making reproduction parts on Investment Plaster molds slowly as time and interest permit.

Commercial ABS cement is available in Black, White and Yellow, so a formula approximating Mac Beige, Platinum or PowerBook colors is next on my list of experiments.

Acetone alone solution is "received wisdom" or "common knowledge" from the web. The "experts" are great tinkerers and experimenters, but they're not industrial chemists. Take tinkerer advice with a dose of healthy skepticism just as you would anything else you see on the web as a good start and do your own research. []

I can say, from a chemists perspective, that T-80 is completely correct.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks, I've been fighting an implacable foe when it comes to the "Acetone Solution" rampant on the web.

I just reported the post, methinks blacking out his name would be in order. We're outing someone under NDA  in the open forums, not good form. I'm sure he'd appreciate some pictures on the QT though.

 

[Paralel]

Thanks, I've been fighting an implacable foe when it comes to the "Acetone Solution" rampant on the web...

No prob. Those chemistry degrees have to be useful for something  :lol:

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

It wouldn't be pure science, but doing some chemical analysis/experimentation to determine the correct formulation of the solvent and testing best solutions for this kind of Mac repair would be a tremendous contribution to the Hacks Forum if you wanna do an article there. It's bound to be stickied.  :lol:

 

[Paralel]

It wouldn't be pure science, but doing some chemical analysis/experimentation to determine the correct formulation of the solvent and testing best solutions for this kind of Mac repair would be a tremendous contribution to the Hacks Forum if you wanna do an article there. It's bound to be stickied.  :lol:

That's a good idea. It falls more into material science, but, fortunately, I know a material science guy, so we could easily do this.

 

[LaPorta]

I'll admit: I do not know what this mythical PowerBook XXXX is...experimental?

 

[PB145B]

I'll admit: I do not know what this mythical PowerBook XXXX is...experimental?

It’s a prototype 5300. I’m assuming it was made before they had decided on “5300”, so they just put “XXXX” there until they figured out what they were going to name it.

 

[LaPorta]

Thats pretty awesome!

 

[Byrd]

If you get the HD spinning, it had better play the Men In Black theme tune at startup

 

[Franklinstein]

I'm not sure why it took them so long to decide to call it the 5300. I wouldn't have done so because they already had 5x00 series machines for the desktop and having the same numbers repeated in a portable could (and probably did) cause confusion, especially since the 5x00 desktops were decidedly low-end machines while the PB 5300 was supposed to be a top-end portable (reflected in the 5300ce's $6k price tag). I would probably have gone with 3x00 or 4x00, since there weren't any machines in that line at the time.

Anyway the sticker on the bottom suggests that the internal HD is IBM, not Quantum, which makes sense because IBM was Apple's main portable HD supplier in that era. Stiction is a common problem with those things. You can usually get them to come back to life by removing the drive, holding it between your thumb and fingers by the long side, and spinning it rapidly back and forth several times. You may have to repeat the process once or twice but I always get them to spin up after a few attempts. You have to use the drive frequently to keep it from sticking again, though.

 

[chickenplucker]

@Trash80toHP_Mini 

I've seen other such tags on the internet on dev units with others names, so I didn't think it would be a concern. But in hindsight I suppose most people would rather not have their names scattered around the net more so then they already are. I've blocked out the name in original image, but looks like 68kMLA caches images ether locally or maybe a cdn. Can't seem to find the edit button ether. Harder to put a cat back in a bag.

Anyway, thank you for the suggestions on hinge repair methods I think I may practice a bit on the case of some other old device I have kicking around before jumping into this straight away just to make sure its done right. First step though I think will still be to take it apart to see whats there to work with. 

Its crazy how they seemed to drag their feet on naming this series, or why the decision was made to use XXXX as the model in Mission Impossible and Independence Day instead of just say, labeling it just a Powerbook. It was great fun to re-watch Independence Day though, Jeff Goldblum drags that laptop all over that movie which is a bit funny cause its like carrying a cinder block around now. 

Will have to try that drive trick Franklinstein, I've always in the past just smacked them on my palm a few times, but that sounds a bit more delicate than just banging it around. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

No criticism intended, stuff happens. I only reported it because the mods can do the blackout. If not it's no biggie. Seeing a name like that wouldn't have been a concern to me if we weren't talking about Apple. []

Code names for product development were probably fun for the teams, harking back to flying the Jolly Rodger by the original team. PowerBook XXXX would have generated more interest in an unreleased product placement in a movie and gone along with the Mission Impossible theme. Can't be sure, but I think the XXXX/5300 might have made an appearance in The Saint as well, definitely a PowerBook or two in that one. I'm wondering about Assassins as well.

The 5300 seems like a big Patio Paver (rounded edges) now, but in the day it was a lot sleeker, sexier and possibly even lighter than the vast majority of its PC world competitors. Seems unwieldly to me too because of its thickness, but I have small hands. Jeff Goldblum is a very tall guy with big hands, so he made the XXXX seem smaller and lighter in the movie than it is IRL. All I ever used was my first love, a PowerBook 100. Then I had a decade long love affair with the Duo System through 68030 and then PPC CPU requirements of my software upgrades. Resemblance to a latter day 2300c was a major factor in love at first sight of my HP_Mini NetBook.

The 3400 based on the on the 5300 form factor, now there is one BigAss patio paver. :lol:

 

[Cory5412]

I'll work on this a little later today. It looks like, based on the source of the OP, the site might actually be caching the images. I don't know that particular detail, but I'm happy with it if that is what's happening, because of our experience before with personal sites and image hosters going down or otherwise off-site images being tampered with.

I am going to download the (updated) originals and attach them directly to the post,

EDIT: Done.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

@chickenplucker & @Cory5412 Cool, had a thread like this been in a protected forum (it belongs exactly here) I probably wouldn't even have thought about seeing the name on that sticker, but in the open forums it's a bit different.