Best System 6 'book?

[Bunsen]

Roll up, roll up and cast your votes:

What's the best Powerbook for System 6?

Note that speed is not the only consideration here. Other factors that go into making a 'book the 'best include:

• Screen: crisp, clear, large, lots of pixels, daylight readable (backlight off?). Colour optional. I'll take a crisp mono over a washed-out grey/colour anyday.
  
• RAM: cheap and easy to find, large capacity
  
• Keyboard: reliable and easy to type on (bye bye, Duos)
  
• Expandable: ports, connectors, etc.
  
• HD: IDE would be nice
  
• Size and weight: less is more
  
• Pointing device: my preference is for trackballs
  
• Battery: easy to find, repair or remake (not "intelligent" 5x0s)
  
• Can boot into 7.x (optional)
  
• ... other ?

A FrankenBook would be a possibility.

Let the banter begin :b&w:

hey how come there's no powerbook smilies?

 

[LCGuy]

The ONLY System 6 bootable portable Macs made (except for the compacts) were the Mac Portable and PowerBook 100. Sorry to say, but the 1x0 PBs are definately System 7 only.

 

[heebiejeebies]

That's what I thought. A system 6 powerbook would make my life complete!

 

[Quadraman]

Run Basilisk II on an Aluminum G4 or Macbook Pro under OS X.

Go here

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pear_computers/BasiliskII.html

There is a version for systems below 7 at the bottom.

 

[The Macster]

Run Basilisk on an Aluminum G4.

Yup, I'm afraid I would have to say the Acer Aspire is the best laptop for running 68k Mac OS (not OS 6 though, as that doesn't seem to work in Basilisk II, or maybe it needs a different Rom or something). What other laptop lets you run OS 7 or 8 many times faster than any real 68k Mac, has a 17" colour screen, half a gig of Ram and many many gigs of hard drive space that can be allocated purely to OS 7, allows you to access the web at true broadband speeds over wifi straight from Mac OS 7, and (I think) even lets you use USB storage keys, again right inside Mac OS 7? Not only that, but you can switch between Mac OS 7 and Windows Vista at the touch of a button! Take that, PowerBook 100!

 

[Bunsen]

Darn it

So: how does the PB100 rate on the above? Not so hot?

You know... a 100 with a 6-booting ROM out of a Mac Classic ... ... ...

 

[Quadraman]

not OS 6 though, as that doesn't seem to work in Basilisk II

The link I posted is a PPC/Universal translation of Basilisk II that will run on PPC/Intel based Powerbooks/iBooks/Macbooks with OS X installed., and there is a version that will run system 6 listed

 

[tomlee59]

Darn it
So: how does the PB100 rate on the above? Not so hot?

Regrettably, not so hot, using your criteria. Here are my ratings:

Screen: Passive monochrome (not greyscale), with all that implies.

RAM: Not cheap. Cleverly designed so that you can't even use the otherwise electrically compatible modules from other 1xx 'books to go above 4MB total. Max is 8MB (2MB on board + 6MB module).

Kybd: Not bad, all things considered.

Expansion: SCSI only. Has connectors for external scsi and floppy. No internal floppy.

Size/weight: Very nice; the lightest and smallest of the 1xx series.

Pointing dev: Trackball.

Battery: Finicky, always dead lead-acid. Impossible to find a cheap, working replacement.

OS: Can boot 7.x. It's a 16MHz 68000, so you can actually get reasonable performance running a light 7.x. Runs MacLynx ok.

I love my 100, but I can't use it as a true portable (I took the festering battery out to make it very light). With a scsi-ethernet connector, it surfs the web at a mighty pace!

 

[Kallikak]

You can put System 6 on a PB 140 and PB 170. There was a special Japanese release (6.0.7.1J from memory) that supported them - probably because System 7 in Japanese was delayed? There are instructions on the web about how to cut and paste string resources to work with it in English.

Ken

 

[Bolle]

some more info on that please. can´t find somethin on the net.

 

[tomlee59]

Kallikak -- VERY interesting! A little Googling turned up references to 6.0.7J and the early 'books.

The most intriguing one was a Japanese site. The fractured translation can be found here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.mamina.jp/mac/mysystemold.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D6.0.7j%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

It would seem that it's so!

Now I'll have to hunt down a copy of 6.0.7J to see how it can be hacked to install in English.

Thanks, Kallikak -- now you've triggered a major hunt!

 

[Kallikak]

For this very reason I keep a copy of 6.0.7J.

http://groups.google.com.au/group/comp.sys.mac.system/browse_thread/thread/edfe5ff7d8905f8c/a2fbf161f4d5f4a4?lnk=st&q=%22System+6%22+170&rnum=1&hl=en#a2fbf161f4d5f4a4

 

[Bunsen]

Only on a 140 and 170, or should it be possible on any of the other 1xx's?

 

[Kallikak]

I don't think it will work on any others. This isn't a hack, but was actually done by Apple. Still, no difficulty giving it a try on a PB 180 say...

 

[LCGuy]

It should also work on a 145 or 145B without much trouble...the 140, 145, 145B and 170 all use the same mobo, and IIRC they have similar ROMs too.

 

[Bunsen]

Sweet! Thanks for that on-topic answer. Not that I have any of them here to try it on... hint hint

 

[Bolle]

...gonna try it on my 145b

EDIT:

another source for kanji: http://www1.linkclub.or.jp/~kenfuji/KANJI%20Talking.htm

 

[Bolle]

works on 145b...

 

[LCGuy]

I wonder what the chances are of this working on newer '030's, such as a PowerBook 180c or LCIII? (both of which require 7.1 w/ their System Enabler) I might give it a go over the weekend.

I remember about 10 years ago i once managed to hack up a copy of 6.08 with resources out of System 7, and i actually managed to get it to boot on my LCIII, although once it got to the Finder a dialog box came up saying that it didn't support that model Mac I might have to have another hack at it one day.