Outbound Laptop Hooked Up To An SE?

[Mac128]

This eBay auction seems to indicate the Outbound could be hooked up to a Plus or SE for "more power". However, I thought it was a stand-alone computer that used the Plus or SE ROM. Could this guy have it wrong or was there really such a feature? And if so, how did it work?

EDIT:

By golly I guess it does!

So my question now is how did this work? With the SE, I can imagine installing the card it speaks of, but how would it work on the Plus?

 

[LCGuy]

Slightly OT, but is it just me, or do you guys also find it amusing how Outbound always had a kangaroo in their logo, despite the fact that they weren't an Australian company, and AFAIK, didn't even sell anything here.

As for the answer to your question...I'm thinking...maybe it would go through the serial ports, or maybe they had a custom designed board that went in the place the logic board normally goes...

 

[Franklinstein]

The "card" probably slips over the original processor or something. Both the Plus and SE had the same DIP 68000, so it wouldn't be hard to make it cross-compatible. Perhaps something else plugged into the now-vacant ROM sockets on the Mac, as well. Dunno for sure. Maybe I should buy it and attempt to find out...

 

[trag]

Um, did you read the question and answer at the bottom of the auction?

There was a daughter card, although I've never seen one. Back around 1995 a fellow offered to sell me three of them for $15 each, but insisted on a money order. I was willing to pay in advance and didn't want to bother with the hassle of a money order, but that wasn't good enough and I never heard from the guy again. I still gently kick myself about that sometimes.

The cable from the daughter card exited through the right-hand lower vent and terminated in a Hirose DX style connector (looks like a mini-centronics, but it's not) which is what the Laptop used to connect their external floppy and SCSI adapter.

I'm not sure how the daughter card connected inside the Mac. It was not a simple plug-in job though. There were additional connections.

However, the Outbound also supported a SCSI docking mode (forget what Apple called it on the PB1xx series) so you could connect your Outbound to a desktop Mac via SCSI cable (if you had the SCSI adapter) and put the Outbound in a mode where it would behave like an external hard drive.

But the docked-to-Plus would be very cool. According to the literature, both screens were usable when docked and all the peripherals.

Also, the NY Times article has it a little wrong. The keyboard did have an IR interface, but there was also a cable provided. So there were three connection modes for the keyboard. IR with the keyboard attached to the Laptop (there's a latch to hold it together). IR with the keyboard detached. Cabled with the keyboard detached.

The keyboard has its own battery and when that goes flat it isn't possible to turn the Laptop on. I wonder how many of these may have been tossed as "broken" because of a dead keyboard battery.

 

[Mac128]

Um, did you read the question and answer at the bottom of the auction?

Actually, despite the conflicting dates, that Q&A was not there when I originally posted. However, it actually answers nothing more than yes it could dock with an SE. But it doesn't really shed any light on how this was accomplished, particularly on a Plus, which has no PDS or other expansion slots, not how this actually works or the benefits of using it in this manner. I still don't get that actually, unless it allowed for monitor spanning, in which case that would really be something for 1986 era technology.

However, the Outbound also supported a SCSI docking mode (forget what Apple called it on the PB1xx series) so you could connect your Outbound to a desktop Mac via SCSI cable (if you had the SCSI adapter) and put the Outbound in a mode where it would behave like an external hard drive.

This is also a feature supported by the Portable with an adapter, so I am not surprised. Nevertheless, quite advanced features for a company working outside of Apple. Imagine if they had Apple's capital without the egos.

 

[trag]

Actually, despite the conflicting dates, that Q&A was not there when I originally posted.

Ah. Mea culpe. I thought, based on the dates that it would have been there when you posted your original message.

However, it actually answers nothing more than yes it could dock with an SE. But it doesn't really shed any light on how this was accomplished, particularly on a Plus,

Well it tells you that there was a daughter card. That gives you the general idea of how it was done. True, it doesn't tell you the specifics, such as that monitor spanning was available and all of the peripherals of each could be used. On the other hand, I'm basing all this on the Outbound literature and have never gotten my hands on one (the docking card) darn it. I've often wondered if all four serial ports are available. Also, it seems like performance of anything at the Macintosh end would suffer, since that cable is maybe 8 bits parallel at most and operating at serial port compatible speeds (some peripherals use an 85C30 to interface to it).

What level of detail did you want regarding the connection of the daughter card to the host? Schematics would be nice.

 

[retrogmr]

If there are some things you guys would like me to try out when this thing arrives (yes, I sprung some bucks for this, but this was the last real portable Mac I was planning to buy ), let me know.