Blast from the past!!

I was rummaging around in the attic this afternoon, and found possibly the greatest thing ever!

I always thought I'd been a PC user from day 1 but no...

I have sketchy memories of using a little black and white laptop when i was a kid, but could never remember what it was.

Well now I know...

Powerbook 100!! And its all there. The laptop, power supply and original disk drive (including the original "Power down before removing this device" label on the power cord.)

See pics attached!!

Its turns on and chimes, but the screen is blank, though lit up as if its about to show something.

My mission is now to get this llittle Powerbook up and running. I can't remember what OS it has. I know its not recent though!

If I have any luck, I'll post pics.

This really made my day. :black:

Hmm, anyone have a version of TechTool that would fit on a floppy and run in System 6.0-7.5 (not sure what os is installed but know it falls between those)

quicksilver, that is truly awesome. This is one of my favorite posts I have seen, great find, and glad to see you had a Mac in the beginning... :mac:

They have one of those monsters in my computer lab

And it even has the good old trackball... nice find!

Ahh the old PowerBook 100s. Nice little laptops if hindered a little by the 16MHz 68000 processor.

You should be able to boot this with a System 7.0.1 startup floppy disk if my memory serves me correctly. I had a PowerBook 140 which was released at the same time as the 100 (1991)—although the PowerBook 100 was designed by Sony for Apple...

Just make doubly sure the battery is OK as those are lead acid batteries if my memory is also working right!

Otherwise, what a cracking find! A lovely machine definitely to keep in your collection.

Vicky

Yeah they are lead batteries. Did loads of research on it last night.

Is there a way of getting a System 7.0.1 bootdisk legally? I clearly own the software (!!).

If anyone can offer any help/advice I would be very appreciative.

Can't wait to get this little bad boy up and running. :black:

Actually I believe you can download it legally from apple? no? otherwise ebay will be really cheap

Graphite is right, System 7.01 is freely available from Apple and so is System 7.5.3.

All you need is a system that can write the floppy disks. I'm sure all disks except the cranky old System 6 ones are 1.4MB disk images which I am certain you can write on a PC. The 800K images cannot be written on a PC as the Double Density format Macs used was very weird (spun at different speeds depending on sector...)

Vicky

Quicksilver, everymac.com has the PowerBook 100 on it's site.

The Apple Macintosh PowerBook 100, codesigned by Apple and Sony, features a 16 MHz 68HC000 processor, 4 MB of RAM, and either a 20 MB, 40 MB, or 80 MB hard drive in a compact portable case with a 9.0" monochrome passive-matrix display and an external disk drive (not pictured). Basically, the PowerBook 100 is a redesigned version of the Backlit Portable in a smaller case that only weighs five pounds, a full ten pounds lighter than its predecessor.

Click to expand...

The RAM apparently could be bumped up to eight.

According to lowendmac.com, here:
http://www.lowendmac.com/pb/100.shtml

Cost savings were achieved by eliminating the internal floppy drive (a $200 accessory), . . .

Click to expand...

My pizza-box LC, which came out in 1990, could read the lower-density floppy disks as well as the high-densities, so if you can get a new system only on lower densities, it should be able to read them. According to everymac.com, your machine came out a year later than my LC.

There's a discussion at lowendmac
http://www.lowendmac.com/mail/03/0507.html
about downloading a system for a Quadra onto PC floppies, and using the Mac's PC Exchange to transfer them.

It's possible, but it isn't easy. If your Quadra has PC Exchange (I'm think that came with System 7.1), it can mount 720 KB and 1.44 MB PC floppies. Beyond that, things get unpredictable. . . .

I would suggest upgrading to System 7.5.3, which is free from Apple. It's a more polished, more feature laden version of the Mac OS that runs about as efficiently as 7.1 does.

Click to expand...

As lil said, I'm almost positive they were 800 K floppies, not 720.

Hmm, anyone have a version of TechTool that would fit on a floppy and run in System 6.0-7.5 (not sure what os is installed but know it falls between those)

Click to expand...

If you get it running, don't be reluctant to use Norton Disk Doctor if the opportunity to acquire an old version presents itself. Norton had a system disk with Disk Doctor on it. Though little less than a virus with System X, Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk were superb with the old systems. I still use it for System 9. But do not load Norton File Saver. That program caused problems and was the beginning of Norton's slide.