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PowerBook 180: It's ALIVE!!!

ghall

ghall

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 27, 2006
3,771
1
Rhode Island
Today I brought an old PowerBook 180 back from the dead. Okay, it wasn't really dead it just didn't have a power adapter, and bringing it to life was only a stroke of luck on my part. I just happened to have a power adapter that is compatible with the PB180, so I plugged it in and pressed the power button and watched the baby roar to life.

It brought a warm feeling to my heart when I heard the start up chime. The old Macs may have been fugly, but they sure had a certain charm that can't be beat.

Anyway, I'm having some trouble getting the video up on YouTube but I will post as soon as I get it working.
 
dpaanlka said:
I'm not sure that it was all that ugly when it was new.
Click to expand...

No, it was actually quite cool. The palm rest below the keyboard of the PowerBook 100 series was a real innovation, which everybody else copied almost immediately. I still have my 140 in the closet.
 
IJ Reilly said:
No, it was actually quite cool. The palm rest below the keyboard of the PowerBook 100 series was a real innovation, which everybody else copied almost immediately. I still have my 140 in the closet.
Click to expand...

FWIW, there's a lot of similarities between my old Powerbook 150 and my MacBook Pro. The palm-rest, mouse position, and keyboard are similar. I really liked that computer, especially the little feet on the back to prop it up.

Unfortunately, mine's dead, there's something wrong with the internal power-supply.
 
Congratulations!

ghall said:
Today I brought an old PowerBook 180 back from the dead. Okay, it wasn't really dead it just didn't have a power adapter, and bringing it to life was only a stroke of luck on my part. I just happened to have a power adapter that is compatible with the PB180, so I plugged it in and pressed the power button and watched the baby roar to life.

It brought a warm feeling to my heart when I heard the start up chime. The old Macs may have been fugly, but they sure had a certain charm that can't be beat.

Anyway, I'm having some trouble getting the video up on YouTube but I will post as soon as I get it working.
Click to expand...

Congratulations on getting it to work! I actually have a PB 180 myself. I don't use it, but it still works.
 
I still have my PB 170, and it still works too. The power adapter was a problem on mine too, but like you I dug up a ps for a portable printer that had an almost identical power output and plug. I loved that series.
 
Great machine. I still have and use my PB 170 regularly. I loved that form factor, and as IJ mentioned - it set a design standard for the time.
 
I have a Powerbook 180 as well. I enjoyed using Microsoft Word 5.1... it was like a journey through time. Al though I can turn on and use my Powerbook 180 when the battery is charged and in the computer, and the the notebook is plugged in, whenever I unplug it, it doesn't turn on again... I am wondering if this may be a problem with the battery...
 
This makes me want to fire up my old Mac SE and SE/30. My first Mac was a Mac Plus with a 30 meg external HD (long gone, replaced with a APS 270 meg external, on my bookshelf, but still in excellent shape.) I've got all the original software, including all the stuff I bought or borrowed for it. Games, Word 4.0, Word 5.1, Excel 1.5 and Excel 2.2, Crystal Quest, MS Flight Simulator, the original version of The Sims, World Tour Golf (I think it was called) and tons of other stuff - most with the original factory floppies. I also made copies of all of them, but of course I'll have to see if they haven't deteriorated. All the programs were copied to the external HD, so it will be fun to dust everything off, and take a trip down memory lane.

I still have several original mice, keyboards and one Imagewriter II dot matrix printer, which should still work.

Yikes! What have I started? Now I'll be playing for a few weeks...:)
 
I had a 165c, haha a second boot was required to activate the colour screen which blurred really badly.
Trackballs were awesome too.
 
Powerbook 180

My old (and first) Mac still works. Is there, though, any way to connect it to a wireless network? I'm guessing there isn't, since there's neither a USB nor ethernet port, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks for any info or tips!
 
maximoo said:
My old (and first) Mac still works. Is there, though, any way to connect it to a wireless network? I'm guessing there isn't, since there's neither a USB nor ethernet port, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks for any info or tips!
Click to expand...

There might be some ethernet adapters for it out there somewhere, but no wireless.
 
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