Powerbook 1400

[bibilit]

Was looking for a 1400 for a long time.

Found a local ad for a 1400 c /166, no PSU and nothing more than the Powerbook.

A phone call later and the 1400 was mine, the lady advertised the item for spares or collector only, as there was no way it can be tested.

Once home, the PSU from the Clamshell was hooked and it came to life



The unit is not perfect, but very clean, has 48 Mb of ram and mac OS 8 in the disk.

Most of all, has the best screen of the range.

Best thing, was only 10 €





The CD is not working, tried to adjust the lens...but didn't work... no big deal.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Nice score! The PB 1400 is a great portable Mac.

 

[Byrd]

You should be able to source a replacement optical drive from a comparable PC unit of the same era - recall it used a Teac 224 drive.

The 'c' screen is very nice - enough to make you not want to use a 'cs' model at all.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Welcome to the 1400 Club! Fabulous machines, especially the KBD. I haven't been able to get at fixing mine up or building one for a bud yet, but 1400 playtime start up pretty soon.

 

[Macdrone]

Ya I just found out you could stack the ram on the 1400 so I just found out I have 64 Meg's in mine now. It's sweet, and my battery holds a ten minute charge ! :approve:

 

[bibilit]

The 'c' screen is very nice - enough to make you not want to use a 'cs' model at all

Yes, there is a huge difference in quality compared with my 5300 CS

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You kids are spoiled by availability. Back when they were only very expensive bought secondhand, having any PowerBook screen at all to use was a huge treat.

 

[bibilit]

Small update.

I went looking through all my CD drives, none of them will work with the Powerbook.

So this morning i removed the original one and tried to adjust the lens once again. The first attempt i only turned the small screw anticlokwise (counterclockwise) as the repair method only stated this way.

But i figured out that maybe my drive can be out of adjustment on the other side...i was right, turning the screw clockwise (slightly) and the disk was mounted !!

Adjusting the screw a bit more, gave me a fully functional CD drive



Sorry for the blurry picture.

I removed the casing from the battery to have a look inside, and now the battery is detected (look at the pic)

Anybody has tried a recell successfully ?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Command-Shift-3

Nice work with the fix.

 

[techknight]

Eh. I was always against the "turning the screw" fix, because it really isnt a fix. eventually itll run the laser diode into the ground and there will be no recovery. Ive seen alot of high-end collectable CD players ruined this way.

 

[bibilit]

eventually itll run the laser diode into the ground and there will be no recovery.

I agree, but for me the drive was dead anyway