Ok I'm not sure how many of you know about my Duo situation, so I will remind all of you. I bought two Duo's from a fellow MLA'er a couple of months ago. I got a 270c, (Gambit) that was tricked out with 32mgs of ram and a huge 500mg hard drive. This was *snicker* the working Duo. The other was a Duo 280 that had no hd, and unknown specs. I didn't know the specs because I didn't have another hard drive to put into it. I also got a (rare) Ethernet Micro Dock, a Floppy Dock, a Duo Dock II with a 300mg hd installed, a type II battery, and a type III battery with AC Adapter. So over all nice haul.

Well, since the day I got these little guys I have wanted to get the 280 working and perhaps get a color screen for it so that it could run Marathon . I tried running it on the 270c and woh boy... you don't want to play it like that. It lagged terribly. Anyways, I could never open the 270c up because I don't have the proper size torx driver.

...Then Duo was used for a while then was set aside because I didn't have a use for it.

Now today, I go upstairs to get a screwdriver head for the screwdriver, so that I could try to get the little plastic thingy off my heatsink on my g4, and I see a little hex head glittering in the box! "Could it be?" I wondered, so I grabbed it and took it downstairs. I flipped the Duo over and stuck the bit into the screw. Holy Mother of a LISA it worked! The G4 then got pushed back as I excitedly grabbed the other Duo and begain playing Dr. Frankinstein....

Now I am sorry, I dont have a digi cam so there is no pictures with this one, but wow it was cool I had a ring of parts around me.

First thing first; I wanted to see the specs of that 280. So I pulled out the hd from the 270c and popped it into the 280. It booted right up and it only had a 16mg card I was kinda dissapointed. Next I proceed to rip both Duo's apart down to the chasis and motherboard. I installed the 500mg hd into the 280, and removed it's screen. Next I attached the screen from the 270c to the 280, and took out the 270c's 32mg ram module and popped it into the 280. Now I dont know if many of you guys have taken a Duo apart without a manual but, all that I listed above took about 35 minutes to do, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds.

I got the case all back together and plugged in the AC adapter.... and... BONG! It booted! I was so happy. It is now a Duo 275. (or 280c if you prefer cause it is about, if not the same thing, but mine is home made) I now have what I like to call: The Ultima Duo. It is a beast of a 68k laptop even if it doesnt have all the fancy ports and such. It's specs are as follows:

Duo 275c "Ultima"
33Mhz 68LC040
32mgs of ram
500mg HD
Color Active Matrix Display
Mac OS 7.6.1

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Christophillis- Portable Squadren Commander
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Total 68k Macs Liberated: 6.02x10^23
Or just 6

I also like the name

(/me starts singing the MLAgazine song)

Have fun playing Marathon on the go with your Duo 275c

With all those docks and spare Duo parts, you should be able to Duo for years to come. Hmmm... I wonder if that remaining HD-less Duo would boot in the Dock II from the Dock-HD?

G4From128k

Recently, on my quest for a Duo 270c, I bought for $20 what seemingly was that and a Duo Dock with the wrong (the not-tall-enough monochrome) cover. I kept trying to boot it from a System 7.1 floppy with Duo Enabler 1.0 and it kept complaining that I need a newer System Software. So I got a bit suspicious and took it apart - and found out that it actually had a 280/280c motherboard inside!

Taking a Duo apart is no picnic, but proper tools (namely, the Torx T-8) make it a lot easier. I believe the LCD for 270c and 280c are pretty much the same, except for the "Duo 270c" logo on the plastics.

It's amazing to see the performance difference between a 68030 270c and 68040 280c... no wonder Motorola and Apple fooled a lot of people with the "66/33 MHz" marketing gimmick... so even this early in the game, performance isn't all about MHz but also architecture (040's CPU cache)

The "M7777(2)" in my signature below are the Duo 270c and 280c I've liberated Unlike your "275c", though, I swapped the casing and plastics to make the 280c look genuine.. (yeah, it's boring )

You are right! The preformance increase is HUGE over that 68030. It is like a whole different machine. On a side note...

My type III battery is doing funky stuff. When I put it in it says that it is charging, only for about 1 min. And then the battery icon is still completly empty. It has absolutly no charge, and it doesnt seem to want to charge in the Duo. I tried charging it in both the 270c and the 280 and neither would work. About 2 months ago it would behave fine and charge all the way up. I could get about 2.5 hours on a charge. Now though it doesnt even hold one. Does anyone know what is going on with it?

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Christophillis- Portable Squadren Commander
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Total 68k Macs Liberated: 6.02x10^23
Or just 6

I've run into a very similar if not the same battery charging problem as well. The Duo will not fast charge a battery unless it can sustain ~11 volts or higher. Looks like you have a shorted cell or two preventing the battery to attain the necessary voltage. NiMH's main problem is its high discharge rate, so if you leave it stored for too long, some or all of the cells become shorted.

I've temporarily revived such batteries by hooking up a 12-15V DC source that can supply 0.5 to 1.0 amps of current. I'd alligator clip the leads to voltmeter probes so I can watch the voltage as the DC source attemps to "zap" the shorted cells. Once the voltage reaches 12.5-13.0 volts, you can put it in the Duo to see fast charge will begin. If not, the battery is a rebuild candidate.

If you have the charger module that attaches to the power supply, you may want to use that to see if it can revive your battery. It does a batter job than the charging circuitry inside the Duo.

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Christophillis- Portable Squadren Commander
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Total 68k Macs Liberated: 6.02x10^23
Or just 6

Yes, I've tried all these in attemping to revive the various Duo batteries I've picked up.

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