Questions about the powerbook 180

[macintoshman]

I might be buying it. For about 12 dollars with the charger and a carrying case.

-Is it easy to re cell the battery, and could one of you walk me through it? I have soldering experience, so that is not an issue, but I do not want an explosion in my house.

-Do you like the power book 180? Is it fast or sluggish? Is it a good mac?

Any upgrades recommended?

-The seller does not know how much ram it has ( PC Person). But in the pictures, it is booting System 7.5.1.

And is it heavy or light?

-Macintoshman

 

[coius]

well, by no means is it light. It's pretty heavy because the harddrive is pretty heave, and that plastic is THICK. It's a nice machine. I had a 170 and it was wonderful, but don't expect to get on the net with it. If you have seen the dilbert comic where dogbert said he invented the internet to see how long you can wait for nothing. He musta had that machine in mind for the client end

You would need to look around about the Re-Celling. You might want to check http://www.applefritter.com/main/. I think they have a walkthrough on how to do that. If not, google it. Be prepared to have to un-weld the batteries. iirc, they actually electrically welded the batteries together. You will probably need to go to someplace like battery patrol or something and have them get the cells built and what not. Should cost like around $40 if I am correct.

Have fun with the new machine! let us know if you do the battery redo and let us know what the battery time is with the newly re-celled batteries

 

[tomlee59]

Depending on your expectations, you can surf (okay, more like dog-paddle) the web with the 180. Heck, you can even do it on the Plus, so the 180 will feel speedy in comparison. Just don't ask it to render media-rich pages correctly (if at all). Netscape 2.2 runs just fine, and wannabe68k is very fast (but text only).

As to recelling, removing the old cells is easy -- just cut them out. When getting new cells, look for the ones that already have tabs welded onto them. There is no serious danger of explosion; if you overheat them while soldering, an internal valve opens, causing the cell to die somewhat quickly, but not explosively. To avoid damaging the cells, work quickly.

 

[equill]

Yea. It is a good PB of its era. It will run OS 7.6.1 gracefully at 33MHz, if you maximize its RAM. And therein lies the rub. The base RAM is 4MB. These days, to find a 10MB RAM expansion card has just a little more probability than winning a State lottery. 4, 6 and 8MB cards also exist. It can support an augmented System 7.1 (a hybrid retrofitted with choice System 7.5 bits on top of 7.1 Pro, making a sort of 7.1.3) also if RAM is lacking. Its monochrome (but limited to 16 greyscale) active-matrix display is better than the passive-matrix display of its sibling PB 160, but some displays suffer from the (incurable) tunnel-vision, a progressive darkening of the corners until the blackness meets in the middle. Has a 68882 FPU, which the 160 does not.

Most of its parts are interchangeable with the 160 (25MHz), but not the inverter because of the difference in voltage for active- and passive-matrices. Good keyboard. Lumpish AC adapter. A trackball that is more responsive than a trackpad, if you like trackballs at all, and if both of its X and Y axes are still working.

Easily re-celled batteries (NiCd), with no 'smart' circuitry inside, but the case does not come apart gracefully because it is welded.

May you enjoy it!

de

 

[tomlee59]

Equill brings up several good points (as usual). If you have a chance to test it before buying it, I strongly recommend turning it on and observing it for perhaps 30 minutes or so to see if it suffers from the infamous "tunnel vision" effect equill refers to. If the corners start to darken (and get progressively darker with time), you may wish to reconsider your purchase (or renegotiate the price). This problem is fixable only through replacement of the panel, so it's a big defect.

 

[equill]

Be aware also that there is another manifestation of the tunnel-vision defect/degeneration (or so I gather, since it followed the t-v on my PB 180). That is a bright screen at startup that never gets around to any display at all, although the screen illumination is still responsive to the brightness slider. I know that there is good video signal being generated, by mirroring the display externally on an Apple Color Plus 14".

I was peeved enough to get the t-v after rescuing and upgrading my 180 to the max. with OS 7.6.1, and it is not much comfort to know that the backlight/inverter combination is still functional after a few months of rest on a shelf, attached the while to its AC adapter. A pity, because spare displays are seldom available. But all is not lost while mirroring is possible, even though the 'portability' of the Mac is thereby defeated.

de

 

[equill]

I just a moment ago stumbled on a source of 10MB RAM pseudo-SRAM expansion cards for the PB 160/180. That fact may be more comforting than their price, however.

de