Revived a Powerbook 520c

[MOS8_030]

So while I'm waiting for new caps to come in for the Fat Mac with the Hyperdrive I thought I'd dust this off and see if it worked.

PowerBook 520c "BlackBird"

I picked this up years and years ago and literally never did a thing with it. It's just been in a box in the garage for about 12 years.

Anyway, when I powered it up and it gave me the Sad Mac.

I figured out it was a hard drive error so I hunted up a Disk Tools floppy that would boot the machine and re-initialized the disk. Success! No more Sad Mac!

After more digging I found a set of System 7.5 floppies and loaded it up.

I was really worried that I might have problems with the 20+ year old floppies but they were all still good!

So after I got the system loaded up I discovered it's got 12mb of ram and 320mb HD.

The screen had some lines on the top half but after I re-seated the ribbon cables the the lines went away. Wow, passive matrix. I'd forgotten about ghosting!

Just like every one of these I ever worked on the screen bezel is cracked where it attaches to the hinge screws and it's also missing the port cover on the back.

They may have been a cool design but were not Apple's best constructed PowerBook. Performance-wise they were good but they fell apart rather quickly.

I hated working on these back in the day, they were just so fragile.

I found three batteries for it and they all appear really dead, as in the PowerBook doesn't recognize them.

Seems like I remember there was an "intelligent" battery utility wasn't there? I don't recall if it was for the 500-series.

I also found two "new" still-in-OEM-package PRAM batteries I have for the 500-series but I'm sure they're just as dead as the one in the system.

"Ready for PowerPC Upgrade!"

Heh, yeah, I remember installing a NuPowr 117mhz 603e upgrade card in one of these for a friend. It wasn't a terribly impressive upgrade if I recall.

Anyway, one down several more to go.... Maybe tomorrow I'll get out the 1400.

 

[Alex]

Gorgeous little machine.

Could you provide any more details on the "intelligent" battery?

In terms of the pram battery, I am not sure of the model in that unit but if you make a video of yourself taking apart the PRAM battery I am sure you will find that you can rebuild it with new batteries. There shouldn't be anything terribly difficult. So the idea is to unwrap the battery seal and once you get the old batteries out you should be able to read the values and simply rebuild the battery and reattach the original cables. I personally use copper tape, I try to avoid soldering onto batteries as the heat can blow them up. Maybe this is an idea for you to explore and consider.

 

[techknight]

The monochrome LCD panel has some caps in it that will need attention soon. Just an FYI. 

 

[MOS8_030]

Gorgeous little machine.

Could you provide any more details on the "intelligent" battery?

In terms of the pram battery, I am not sure of the model in that unit but if you make a video of yourself taking apart the PRAM battery I am sure you will find that you can rebuild it with new batteries. There shouldn't be anything terribly difficult. So the idea is to unwrap the battery seal and once you get the old batteries out you should be able to read the values and simply rebuild the battery and reattach the original cables. I personally use copper tape, I try to avoid soldering onto batteries as the heat can blow them up. Maybe this is an idea for you to explore and consider.

Here's a whole thread about the batteries. I'll have to see if I've got the Intelligent Battery utility around somewhere.



Yes, the PRAM battery just looks like a pair of CR2302's or something similar and shouldn't be too hard to rebuild. There's probably already a thread here for that as well!

The monochrome LCD panel has some caps in it that will need attention soon. Just an FYI. 

The screen is color, a whole 256 of them. It just looks washed out in the photos. And you're probably correct about the caps.

 

[Alex]

I found the software you are looking for … https://www.macintoshrepository.org/6877-apple-older-software-downloads-archive?ns=1. Search for Battery on this page using our browser. Download and enjoy!

 

[MOS8_030]

Hey, thanks! I found the software this morning and tried it out. I was able to get one battery to look like it was charging for minute.

Then it quit. The other two batteries appear to be dead dead.

The Lund software just tells me the Panasonic cells are bad. Duh.

While I was goofing with the batteries I loaded up SimCity 2000 on it.

I had to shut it down until later so I didn't waste the whole afternoon trying to save Flint, Michigan.

Sad that Flint is still a thing ~25 years later.

I'll mess with the 520c some more later tonight. Maybe try to get the PowerCD working with it since I no longer have any external scsi enclosures.

(I used to have several including an external CDROM. I never should have let them go I guess.)

Digging around I found a car charger for the 520 so I can take it on the road!

 

[Alex]

Sounds good. And yes, Flint is a disaster that should never have happened, sadly it is not the only city suffering.

So the software is not by Apple? I would try what's on the Macintosh Repository.

 

[MOS8_030]

Sounds good. And yes, Flint is a disaster that should never have happened, sadly it is not the only city suffering.

So the software is not by Apple? I would try what's on the Macintosh Repository.

I tried both the Apple and the Lund battery software. Even if I could get one to charge it wouldn't last long. They need to be rebuilt, after all they're ~23 years old!

I'm just glad none of them are visibly leaking.

 

[MOS8_030]

Well after some more fiddling I was actually able to get that one battery to at least appear to take a charge!

Although even though it shows 100% charged I doubt it would run the Powerbook for more than five minutes...

I decided to see if I could get the PowerCD working. Success!

I loaded up 7.6.1 from a CD which took about 45 mins but did produce a noticeable speed improvement.

Damn, don't they look sexy together?

 

[Alex]

Looks great! Love the little PowerCD, really nice unit. That is a nice setup you have going. There is something really charming about these older vintage macs. Glad to see all the old hardware still working!

 

[AlpineRaven]

That stopped me scrolling - this is a good read about this PowerBook! Good read yeah.. Thank you

Cheers

AP

 

[Charadis]

Nice little computer  I thought about tethering the PowerCD on my Blackbird, but I felt it was a tad large for a CD player. Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see it, matching color and Apple logo. 

My 520's hinge is the same way. Opened it up, tried some super glue, broke again. Did not feel it was worth so much trouble to fix, but would like to see if there can be a more permanent solution for this (other than bolting the hinge through the back plastic, which looks ugly, repulsive, and absolutely terrible as a fix)

 

[MOS8_030]

It's a pity that the post office destroyed that 520 when I shipped it to another forum member. All that remains is that photo and some random parts.