PowerBook 3400/200 Resurrected!

[Huxley]

Hi guys,

Some of you may remember a few months back, when I took on a huge load of surplus computing gear from Los Alamos National Labs (and some stuff from NASA). One of the items was a PowerBook 3400/200, which the previous owner assured me was dead, but might be good for parts.

I needed a break from playing with my 'new' Mac IIfx (yeah, right! [] ]'> ), so I decided to play with the ole' 3400. After a thorough cleaning, reseating the battery, blowing a bunch of crap out of the ports, and zapping the PRAM, she fired right up! After what seemed like a much longer "Happy Mac" screen than usual, it presented me with a BootX chooser - I could pick from Mac OS 9.1 or Yellow Dog Linux (which still had a CD in the drive), but neither one would boot properly. OS 9.1 would bomb out at the boot screen, and YDL would fail during the boot process too. A friend at my store loaned me his OS 8.6 CD, and this morning I popped it in and presto - I was able to get this awesome portable running again!

This particular 3400 has the 200mHz 603e, a 4gb HDD (IIRC), and 48 megs of RAM.

One interesting note - on the screen-lid is a white bar-code sticker with "PROPERTY OF MOTOROLA" printed on it. The previous owner said that he'd heard that it was used for development work at Motorola in it's prior life, but didn't know much beyond that. Interesting, eh?

Finally, a question: I've got 3 different old-school PCMCIA wireless cards (two Lucent WaveLAN Bronzes, one WaveLAN Gold), but no drivers for any of them. I found a time-limited demo of a driver that worked fine, but I'm not terribly excited about paying $20 for a driver that seems like it should be a free download. Do any of you know where I might find the original, non-fee-based driver for any of those cards?

Thanks!

Huxley

 

[MacTCP]

Would the driver here work?

 

[The Macster]

Isn't the WaveLAN Gold the one that is the same inside as an Apple AirPort Card, so you can use the AirPort software and it will see it as one? (I seem to remember that there is a way to install the AirPort software on machines that don't have an AirPort slot, as by default it doesn't allow you to do that)

Nice find by the way, a 3400 would be an awesome machine to have!

 

[Huxley]

Would the driver here work?

Thanks for the tip - that site seems to be down right now (or it might be the lousy DSL at my work), but I'll check it when I get home.

I've read that the 3400 had some sort of wacky mini-PCI slot (where the combo Ethernet/Dialup port is located) - did any 3rd-party folks ever release any upgrades for that slot? Just seems interesting.

Also, if anyone here has a (larger-than-32-meg) RAM card for this type of 'Book, I'd be interested...



Huxley

 

[gobabushka]

hey you can find the drivers on http://alksoft.com or pm me and i can send u the drivers!

 

[macintoshme]

This was my first somewhat modern Mac. I loved it! Screen and keyboard were awesome. That lappy and i ... good times. Like this one time I left it on a pillow... and it revved up its fans so hi, that you could hear them screaming throughout the house... my family just shut my bedroom door ... ahh good times ... it survived.

I believe that the firmware can be modified on the bronze and silvers to make them work too.

 

[MacMan]

As far as I know the 3400 only ever had ethernet/modem cards available for that slot, though it would be interesting if other cards did exist.

The Orinoco drivers from AlkSoft (direct link to driver page) as mentioned above will work fine with the Wavelan cards, as will the Wavelan drivers from System 7 today. Given that you have OS 8.6 installed, I would recommend the Orinoco 7.2 drivers. The Wavelan Gold can use 128-bit WEP encryption but the Bronzes use no encryption (and the Silvers use 64-bit encryption).

The 3400s are great machines, and the sound out of the four speakers is incredible! I like the screen on mine - it seems so crisp compared to the various passive matrix displays on most of my other PowerBooks.

 

[tomlee59]

Enjoy that 3400 -- the screen is very good indeed. Video CDs (VCDs) play well on that 'book; it's a pleasure to be able to watch movies despite the lack of a DVD drive. The CPU can't really handle Divx, but it's powerful enough to handle VCD's MPEG-1 at full screen.

 

[Temetka]

Nice.

I really like 3400's.

Good to see you got it up and running.

 

[gobabushka]

ive never actually tried using my wavelan card on a 128-bit network, but i reflashed it to gold using the airport updater

 

[UNA_Lion]

Sorry to resurrect this ancient thread, but recently picked up a PowerBook 3400c, and am looking to get a wireless PC card for it.

Does anyone know what wireless PC cards would work on a 3400c?

 

[Byrd]

Anything that is a Orinoco Silver or Gold card, or a rebadged version works well (recall one of mine was an Avaya brand card).

 

[UNA_Lion]

Thanks. Will look into that.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[LCGuy]

I wouldn't count on it - I have never heard of an 802.11b/g/draft-n chipset with Mac OS 9 drivers. Furthermore thats a CardBus card, meaning that even if there were drivers for it, you'd need to do the 3400 CardBus modification.

 

[UNA_Lion]

Thanks for the WARNO. Will avoid that one.

Am running Mac OS 8.1 on my 3400c. Hopefully, I can still make a wireless PC card work with it. As of now, have connectivity through the LAN cable, but would be nice to free that up for my Classic II, once I get the main board back.

Of course, the 3400c has already paid for itself with the OS 8.1 - was able to back backup copies of Disk Tools 1 and 2.

 

[Byrd]

3400 CardBus modification.

I didn't think there was a modification as such (Cardbus is already enabled), apart from seeing if the card fitted OK - and most did, just some more tightly than others.

 

[LCGuy]

Generally, you need to modify either the cage, or the cards. There was a mod that someone (I think it was PowerBookMedic?) used to do in the late 90's/early 00's that basically replaced the cage with a full CardBus compatible cage.

 

[Hotdog Zanzibar]

Sorry to resurrect this ancient thread, but recently picked up a PowerBook 3400c, and am looking to get a wireless PC card for it.
Does anyone know what wireless PC cards would work on a 3400c?

I still use my 3400 regularly. Get yourself a MacWireless 11b PC Card:

http://macwireless.com/html/products/wireless_cards/11g_11b_cards/11bPCCard.php

I've had mine for years. Yes, they're a tad pricey, but there's no tweaking, hacking or driver-searching. Install the software, plug it in, and it works. Works well.