Duo 2300c

randas said:

Anybody here have a Duo 2300c? I was thinking about getting one for school for note takeing exct. I had a old Duo 270 and I found it nice and compact. Has anybody ever installed os9 on a 2300c? everymac says it supports it. And how about duo batteries, I read they were nimh based.. is it possible to rebuild them?

And what do you think of the DuoDock II? I was gonna try get one of those too..

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I have one. Used it daily until it stopped recognizing batteries. (This was only a couple years ago.)

It runs OS 9 just fine, but you should have the memory maxed to 48 MB first.

It is possible to rebuild Duo batteries, using store-bought AA NiMH batteries. (In fact, if you go get 2300mAh AAs, you can get much longer battery life than an original Apple battery.) I did that and use it with my 280c just fine, but my 2300c truly doesn't know when a battery is plugged in anymore, so it has to be used plugged in now. See this link for more info.

As for a DuoDock? Depends on what you want to use it for... I have a DuoDock, DuoDock Mini (the one that just clicks on the back of the Duo,) and a Duo Floppy Adapter. I find that the Mini is the most useful, as it lets me use the internal display at the same time as an external, and I don't need an external keyboard or mouse. But if you would be using it almost exclusively as a 'desktop' computer when docked, go for the big'un.

randas said:

Thanks very much for the battery information! Your 2300c didnt die from the rebuilt battery did it?

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Nope, the battery was redone after the 2300 was dead.

randas said:

What 9.xx of os9 did you use? Everymac says max version 9.0

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9.1 is the normal max. There are some hacks out there to force NuBus PPCs to use 9.2, but I didn't try those. But, even with the max memory, 9 is a little slow. I found 8.6 to be the most usable OS on it. I'd only use 9 if you have a piece of software that requires 9. And if all of your software works fine in 7.5, you'll find it much faster than 8. (But it's not as 'friendly'. I like being able to do other things while copying files.)

randas said:

Dose the DuoDock charge the battery when it's docked? I have a mini Dock from my 270.. however I would like the DuoDock II mainly for coolness factor, pop it in the bay when I get home to charge the battery The only thing I would be doing with it at home would be printing things I typed up during the day.

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Yes, it does charge it. Yes, the big dock is cool. (Heck, Seinfeld had one for a few years as a 'prop' on his show. It replaced a Classic.)

randas said:

How do you find the keyboard? My 270's keyboard was horrible, you had to press really hard on they keys for them to register. But I have a suspicion the previous owner spilled something on it.. inside its all sticky..

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It's the same keyboard, and yes, it does take a little more pressure to register a hit than on newer Mac keyboards. If you don't like the 270's keyboard, you won't like the 2300's. Another thing to watch out for is 'trackpad drift'. Go hunt down an old system extension called 'Trackpad Climate Control'. Without it, the trackpad becomes very flaky when in high-humidity environments (like when taking it from a cold car to a warm house.)

randas said:

I know these machines arent very powerfull but because they are so compact I think they would be purfect for bringing to school. Besides I have my iBook for home.

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Yup, I thought mine was a great little machine. I even carried a StyleWriter 1200 in the car, powered from an inverter, to print receipts while in the car.

Well, I have a 2300c for school. It has 56 MB of RAM and a 1.1 GB hard drive, and I'm running Mac OS 8.6 on it. It is a great little system. I have both Mathematica and Theorist on mine for use in the library while studying. And AppleWorks 6.2.8 runs great on it.

ehurtley said:

And if all of your software works fine in 7.5, you'll find it much faster than 8.

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You do realize that 7.5 is actually slower because most of the OS has to run in emulation... right?

Mac OS 8.5 was the first version optimized for PowerPC processors, and as the 2300c is running a PowerPC 603e at 100 MHz with no additional cache, it runs any 68k code slower than a 280c would.


I, personally, don't see any reason to run Mac OS 9 on any of my systems. I can do pretty much anything I could do in 9 in 8.6... and 8.6 doesn't take up as much system resources. I even run iTunes 1.0 in 8.6 (though not on my 2300c, but I do have it on my 3400c which is also running 8.6). I did have to modify it because the system requirement of 9.0.4 was artificial (it runs great in 8.6) and not due to any 8.6 short comings.

RacerX said:

Well, I have a 2300c for school. It has 56 MB of RAM and a 1.1 GB hard drive, and I'm running Mac OS 8.6 on it. It is a great little system. I have both Mathematica and Theorist on mine for use in the library while studying. And AppleWorks 6.2.8 runs great on it.

You do realize that 7.5 is actually slower because most of the OS has to run in emulation... right?

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Not quite right. Lots of 7.5 was in emulation, but the core bits were native. (They had to be. 68k emulation was software. There had to be some PPC code to boot!)

RacerX said:

Mac OS 8.5 was the first version optimized for PowerPC processors, and as the 2300c is running a PowerPC 603e at 100 MHz with no additional cache, it runs any 68k code slower than a 280c would.

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Again, almost right. 8.5 was the first version to be essentially devoid of 68k code, but even it still had some. (Heck, I believe even 9.2.2 still has a little bit of 68k code in it,) and 8.0 was the first to be largely written in PPC code. (Again, not 100%, but much moreso than 7.5.) But 8.5 (and, to a lesser extent, 8.0,) have so much bloat that even a more-emulation 7.5 ends up faster on slow PPCs. 7.6 is probably the best bet for 100MHz or less PPCs, but 7.6 is hard to find.

RacerX said:

I, personally, don't see any reason to run Mac OS 9 on any of my systems. I can do pretty much anything I could do in 9 in 8.6... and 8.6 doesn't take up as much system resources. I even run iTunes 1.0 in 8.6 (though not on my 2300c, but I do have it on my 3400c which is also running 8.6). I did have to modify it because the system requirement of 9.0.4 was artificial (it runs great in 8.6) and not due to any 8.6 short comings.

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Yeah, I got iTunes running on the 2300, but it barely worked. It was horribly unstable, and if I did anything else while a song was playing, it would stutter.

Yay the good old PowerBook Duos, well if you need any cheap Duo parts PM me I have over 20 Duo Docks, NewerTech Micro Docks, Drives, PB Duo 210-2300c... And I have had OS 9 on one of mine once not a problem, not very fast though.

Good Luck!

Actually... you'll find that I'm very rarely wrong on things.



Specially if I'm willing to post it.

ehurtley said:

Not quite right. Lots of 7.5 was in emulation, but the core bits were native. (They had to be. 68k emulation was software. There had to be some PPC code to boot!)

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Hardly any of System 7.x was native to PowerPC. The first major steps towards making a PowerPC optimized OS were taken in Mac OS 8.0.

Further, the emulation software was built into the ROM of PowerPC systems and was loaded into the PowerPC cache and the main memory before the rest of the operating system is read from disk.

This is the main reason that the 603/603e series processors were so bad at 68k native code. The 601/604/604e/G3/G4 processors all had a lot more on chip cache which is the best place for the emulation software to reside, the 603/603e had very little... which was why they were so much slower than any of the other PowerPC processors when comparing MHz-to-MHz. The addition of an L2 cache helped emulation... but we're talking about the 2300c, which has no additional cache.

Again, almost right. 8.5 was the first version to be essentially devoid of 68k code, but even it still had some. (Heck, I believe even 9.2.2 still has a little bit of 68k code in it,) and 8.0 was the first to be largely written in PPC code. (Again, not 100%, but much moreso than 7.5.)

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Where was I almost wrong? I said:I never said that there was no 68k code. There was 68k code in the OS to the very end (Mac OS 9.2.2), and Apple never attempted to lead people to believe otherwise.

But 8.5 (and, to a lesser extent, 8.0,) have so much bloat that even a more-emulation 7.5 ends up faster on slow PPCs. 7.6 is probably the best bet for 100MHz or less PPCs, but 7.6 is hard to find.

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Define bloat? 7.6 is missing any form of memory protection and just about any form of multitasking. Both additions make 8.0/8.1 far superior to 7.6. Add in the fact that most of the major parts of 8.5 were made native and that 8.6 is capable of running most Carbon apps designed to run in pre-Mac OS X, and I see a lot of major improvements in 8.x over 7.6.

In fact I wouldn't run 7.6 on a 68040 system. I was running 8.1 on my Quadras for years, and I have every OS Apple has released to pick from in my collection.

Mac OS 9 was the first introduction of bloat that I know of... but then again, it wasn't the priority for Apple at the time, Mac OS X development was. Mac OS 8.6 does everything that Mac OS 9.x does in half the space or less (Mac OS 8.6 generally takes up about 16 MB of RAM verses at least 32 MB for 9.0.x or as much as 64 MB for 9.1 and later).

Again, the reason that 8.6 would be better for a 603e system is that without the space in cache, the processor is forced to read from ROM or main memory for the instructions before it can work with 68k code.

Literally the only exception to this is if you are using Connectix's Speed Doubler. Because it can reside fully in main memory with the rest of the OS and provides a more effective emulator than is included in Apple's ROM (again we are talking about the 2300c, Apple greatly improved on it's emulation software in the ROM of the 7500/8500/9500 series and all other PCI based systems that followed), it speeds up most emulated tasks.


As long as we are on the subject of almost right, didn't you say...

It runs OS 9 just fine, but you should have the memory maxed to 48 MB first.

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How can you have the memory maxed to 48MB if that isn't the maximum for the 2300c?

RacerX said:

Actually... you'll find that I'm very rarely wrong on things.



Specially if I'm willing to post it.

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Well, I was going to debate you point-by-point, with references... But I can't find my old Mac programming books, or 'Inside the Mac OS' books... (I moved in 2001, and by then had long since given up programming, so I'm sure they're in a box SOMEWHERE in the basement...)

As I firmly believe I'm remembering what I posted correctly, I would appreciate some sources to verify your statements. Without sources from either of us, I advise all third-party readers to take BOTH of our arguments with a grain of salt, though.

(I do agree with the statement on using SpeedDoubler, it truly does make an incredible difference.)

RacerX said:

As long as we are on the subject of almost right, didn't you say...
How can you have the memory maxed to 48MB if that isn't the maximum for the 2300c?

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heh. Whoops. I meant 56 MB, really. :-D (Just too lazy to look it up at the time of my first post.)

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I usually consider myself a credible source on technical and historical (and specially technical history) aspects of Apple Computer.

But, if you wish to debate any of these points, we should be sure what points you are questioning... right?

Lets look at some of these points to make sure we (you, myself and all third-party readers in our audience today) are sure of what... well, to be frank, what you are not sure about.That would be an interesting position for you to take. Specially as part way through Copland development they were forced to rethink their application environment to make it more compatible with code designed for System 7. And even though Copland never saw the light of day, those changes formed the foundation of Carbon, so there was obviously a lot of work being done on it. And that is not even taking into account the aspects of Copland that were integrated into Mac OS 8 and later 8.5.

So beyond the obvious distribution of resources at Apple at the time, what or who would be a credible source for you? The fact that System 7 was never optimized for PowerPC was no secret. That was why we were all waiting for Copland. That was why when Mac OS 8 was released... and ran on 68040 systems, there was a grown of disappointment... at least by most of us that knew better at the time.

I'm sure that even reviews of both the 2300c and the 5300 series bemoaned the fact that System 7 was sluggish on these systems because of the lack of native code and the limits of the processor... specially with respect to the cache.

Was that one of the points you wanted to debate?

How about this one...Was this one of your debating points? Or was it the fact that Apple replaced this emulator (originally known as Mixed Mode Manager) in the ROM with one referred to as the Dynamic Recompilation Emulator starting with the first PCI based systems?

See, you can't argue about the change in emulator in the ROM... if you aren't aware that the emulation software resided in ROM.

So which of these points are we debating? And if you don't think that that software is in the ROM... why did the ROM size jump so dramatically with the first PowerPC based systems?

What about this one...Is that up for debate? Surely the raw speed of these processors can't be what you want to argue. Or the fact that running emulated code, these processors (running at 100 MHz) are slower than any of the last generation 68040 based systems (running at either 33 MHz or 40 MHz). These PowerBooks (the 2300c and 5300 series) were known to be slower than the original PowerMacintosh 6100/60 at pretty much everything... even being 40 MHz faster. Surely you can recall that historical footnote about these systems?

One point I would like to hear your input on would be this:That was a water shed release. Apple touted Mac OS 8.5 as "getting a whole new Mac for $99". It was a big release... I thought it was sorta hard to forget. If you had a PowerPC system, this was supposed to be the upgrade for you.

I'm still not clear on the almost right part... the only way I can be almost right, is if I'm wrong. And I'm not wrong here, so I must be right.

And you can't find references for this stuff?

And you should be able to talk on this point...This was your subject... I never said there was bloat, you did. Shouldn't you be the one backing that up?

See, the funny thing is... I was clear enough in all my points that I would guess that a Google search would be enough to back up what I said. What I find more alarming is that someone who (I assume) was active in the community during these events seems to have missed all of them.

At any rate, knowing exactly what points you are taking exception to would help in providing references.

Of course the ROM stuff was documented in the hardware developer notes of those PowerPC systems... which I have printed versions of, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple still has PDF versions in their developer site. If not, I can get my copies out of storage and scan in the pages. But I also doubt that those references would be the only ones on the subject.



I'm looking forward to a good debate... and I'm sure all our third-party readers in our audience are too. So lets pick out our points and let the games begin.

I had a Duo 270c but sold it within 2 weeks because the keyboard was horrible. I have a 280c and the keyboard is better, but not great. There is no way I'd make a Duo my main machine ... not with that keyboard.

Of course I'll give my typical push for Mac OS 7.6.1...

I use it on a Duo 2300c for note taking in class with Word 98. It's just super.

Keyboard is pretty stiff though.

See the site in my signature.

P.S. that other guy has a love affair with Mac OS 8.6... and he really hates Mac OS 7. best not to even bother... just quietly go to the site in my signature and make your own decision. In my years of experience with Duos, all the PowerPC optimization in the world doesn't help the slowness of 8.6 on that thing.

dpaanlka said:

Of course I'll give my typical push for Mac OS 7.6.1...

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Which would seem to qualify as a love affair more than anything I seem to have with 8.6. The fact that you only post in this forum to push your sites (for example, your "See the site in my signature" comment) should give everyone some idea that you are showing far more bias than I ever have.

Keyboard is pretty stiff though.

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And those who know about Duos know that you can get better keyboards (first thing I did on mine was replace the keyboard).

P.S. that other guy has a love affair with Mac OS 8.6... and he really hates Mac OS 7. best not to even bother... just quietly go to the site in my signature and make your own decision.

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Actually, if I have a love affair with any operating systems it would have to be with Rhapsody and Mac OS X, as those are the systems I use the most, those are the systems I write about the most, and I've been using them longer than most people.

I advocate operating systems that work best on whatever hardware we're discussing.

And to date, I have never said I hate Mac OS 7. In fact, your statement here is just as flawed as your earlier statement (here) saying I had a problem with your site. I would challenge you to back up either of these statements about me.

... and you could back up your earlier statements about Mac OS 8.6 while your at it (you still haven't done that).


What is troubling is that you seem to have issues with accuracy. If you are unable to accurately characterize my statements because your feelings were hurt (making you emotional on the subject), then how accurate can we take your assertion about System 7... which you seem to be as emotional about.

I'm sorry that I made you look bad... it wasn't anything personal. And you had the opportunity to keep that earlier discussion off the 8.6 topic. I like System 7 quite a lot, and was happy using it for years after Mac OS 8 was released. I just didn't think you needed to trash Mac OS 8 to point out the benefits to System 7.

But apparently this method is your main recourse.

In my years of experience with Duos, all the PowerPC optimization in the world doesn't help the slowness of 8.6 on that thing.

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Hmmmm... didn't you once say:How many years of experience could you have? I got my first Duo in 1996... you would have been 9 or 10 at the time.

I don't know if you can pull off the years of experience line as well as I can... but then again, you seem to be short on the ability to back up your comments based on technical merits.

I'm not sure why anyone would use OS 7, for anything, OS X Macs are cheaap enought for almost anyone to have

No... I just don't take you seriously. You make yourself look bad every time you write a massive, enraged, rant in response to my few sentence posts. It's really quite amusing now (i'm already excited to see what you come up with in response to this). I can just imagine you sitting in front of your computer all ticked off.

By the way I also replaced my keyboard. It still feels pretty stiff compared to say a 1400 keyboard, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was before. Nice try at discrediting me, though, RacerX.

RacerX said:

Hmmmm... didn't you once say:

"P.S. you should really stop bragging about age / experience. That sort of thing isn't impressive in an online forum format."​

How many years of experience could you have? I got my first Duo in 1996... you would have been 9 or 10 at the time.

I don't know if you can pull off the years of experience line as well as I can... but then again, you seem to be short on the ability to back up your comments based on technical merits.

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I was actually poking fun at you there. As I fully expected, you converted my quip into a few paragraphs of rant.

dpaanlka said:

I was actually poking fun at you there. As I fully expected, you converted my quip into a few paragraphs of rant.

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hehe... Yeah, I've stopped responding. On the age/experience bit, though.

At age 10, I had an IBM PC clone (Leading Edge Model 'D', great little beast for the time,) that I had already torn apart, upgraded, and figured out all the ins-and-outs of MS-DOS 3.3. By 13, I had mastered the (then brand-spankin-new) Mac Plus. It doesn't matter how young you are, if you actually have been working with something since its introduction, you can have just as much 'real-life' experience with it as someone who was an adult when it came out. (Heck, at 15, I was hired by a fairly large company to be their Mac expert. It was cool, I got a brand-spanking-new IIfx because part of my job involved copying disks to distribute site-licensed software, and the fx was the only Mac in the office with two floppy drives and a hard drive.)

In short, RacerX, lay off the age/experience and "I am holier than thou" stuff. It just makes you look like a self-centered egomaniac. Yes, this forum is full of 'kids'. Some of them are annoying, most aren't. If you don't like it, frequent a different forum, or just keep quiet. (Apparently you aren't old enough to have been taught "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.")

If someone provides documentation, I will gladly admit that I'm wrong. If they don't, but what they're saying sounds vaguely familiar, I'll acknowledge it. If someone is 100% certain about what they're saying, and I'm 100% about what I'm saying, and neither provides proof, then I'll advise people to ignore both.

P.S. If you have a serious, thought-out, and not 'I'm always right" response, I will gladly continue a discussion with you. If you're just going to preach, I'll ignore you, just like the obnoxious 'Love your savior!', street preacher downtown.

zap2 said:

I'm not sure why anyone would use OS 7, for anything, OS X Macs are cheaap enought for almost anyone to have

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One can get a refurb ibook 12" for $700. Not free, but it seems like a pretty good price for a lot more computer, and without the hassle, compared to a duo 2330c.

ehurtley said:

If they don't, but what they're saying sounds vaguely familiar, I'll acknowledge it.

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I hope this applies to me!

Although I suppose I should try and document the obvious... just for the highly experienced people.

On the other topic that seems to be going on in here: there is just something cool about a Duo 2300c. Some people just enjoy the "vintageness" of using older hardware. Plus, Duos can be had for under $30. I got my 2300c for $28. That's a far cry from $700. Works great for taking notes! Yay for notes!!!

Finally, my one last remark about age/experience. I got my first Duo merely four years after RacerX. I hope almost seven years and 4 Duos, two docks, and a bunch of accessories qualifies as "years of experience" thank you very much!

Enough with the off-topic, personal comments, folks. They have been and will continue to be deleted - repeat customers will be shown the door.
Thanks