On a PowerBook 160 that I have been playing with this morning, I noticed, to my surprise, that if I turn off the 16 greys and set the Monitors Control Panel to display in B/W only, the ghosting that had previously been fairly ghastly on the LCD is effectively eliminated. In B/W mode, the screen becomes very clear, and comparable to the crisp screen on my PowerBook 150 (yes, I did say that, a working 150's screen can be crisp).
I thought this worth a mention for those who may one day be challenged by PowerBook 1xx-series FTSN LCD ghosts. ("Who you gonna call…? Monitors Control Panel.")
A further point that struck me comes from comparison with my PowerBook 150. For all that my 150 presently has 18MB of RAM in it (versus 8MB in the 160), and an identical (128k) VRAM buffer in the circuitry controlling the LCD (alas, the separate 512k of VRAM in the 160 seems to be devoted to the external display port only — though allowing for extended desktop use in colour at up to 800x600 or at 640 x 870 on the Apple Portrait Display, and not just for video mirroring, by the way), the PowerBook 160 scrolls in a lengthy word processing document much faster than the 150.
I had been prepping my 150 for a modest writing role, being a writer who enjoys tinkering with these old technologies. Whereas the screen troubles on the 160 had hitherto effectively ruled it out in my mind, now I am inclined to think it the better machine for such purposes.
And B/W mode makes it run faster, improves battery life, and is just plain retro. … I like 'em like that.
I thought this worth a mention for those who may one day be challenged by PowerBook 1xx-series FTSN LCD ghosts. ("Who you gonna call…? Monitors Control Panel.")
A further point that struck me comes from comparison with my PowerBook 150. For all that my 150 presently has 18MB of RAM in it (versus 8MB in the 160), and an identical (128k) VRAM buffer in the circuitry controlling the LCD (alas, the separate 512k of VRAM in the 160 seems to be devoted to the external display port only — though allowing for extended desktop use in colour at up to 800x600 or at 640 x 870 on the Apple Portrait Display, and not just for video mirroring, by the way), the PowerBook 160 scrolls in a lengthy word processing document much faster than the 150.
I had been prepping my 150 for a modest writing role, being a writer who enjoys tinkering with these old technologies. Whereas the screen troubles on the 160 had hitherto effectively ruled it out in my mind, now I am inclined to think it the better machine for such purposes.
And B/W mode makes it run faster, improves battery life, and is just plain retro. … I like 'em like that.
