Accessing Operating System in PowerBook Duo 280c

[Ih8reno]

Well, per @MikeatOSX's link, updating the SCSI driver removes Empower's lock. So it may be recoverable in its current state - which would be cool since it is always fun to see what's on these old things. I purchased my Duo from a pawnshop and it was registered to DreamWorks and had some password protected files that i could never manage to open. Sadly i think i lost them when i upgraded the disk (note to self, check that old 750 MB for mysterious files

Would be great but without any access to the machine I don't know how I would do such a thing.

 

[barbu]

Would be great but without any access to the machine I don't know how I would do such a thing.

Assuming it could be booted from an external source, updating the driver should be straight forward (assuming such an update file could be located).

 

[barbu]

 

[Ih8reno]

Looks awfully familiar

 

[whodatrr]

All I have to say is that this machine was way ahead of its time. Still, to this day, I'm waiting for a machine with discrete graphics in the dock. Anyone? Bueller?

I guess the Surface Book is headed there, but the Duo was the first!!!

Had a Duo for about 6 months... a long time ago. Get that sucker doing stuff!!!!

 

[barbu]

You should have it back next weekend!

By the way, for anyone else interested in this issue, even when booting from a floppy, that Magma crap would pop up as soon as the internal HD mounted. I ended up solving it by creating a custom boot floppy that contained the Lacie Silverlining tool. This enabled me to update the disk driver and reinitialize the drive. After that, it booted right up from the CD-ROM.

 

[weckart]

All I have to say is that this machine was way ahead of its time. Still, to this day, I'm waiting for a machine with discrete graphics in the dock. Anyone? Bueller?

I guess the Surface Book is headed there, but the Duo was the first!!!

Had a Duo for about 6 months... a long time ago. Get that sucker doing stuff!!!!

Quite a few of the early Compaqs had roomy dock stations that turned laptops into desktops. I have three of these stations and these have ISA/PCI slots into which you could add a graphics card if wanted. I also have a sizeable early Toshiba laptop, which has two empty ISA slots inside. These predated the Duo, by the way. Upgradability was not a dirty word then but not surprising when laptops cost several thousand dollars each.