Almost a modern road warrior

First things first

In the past months, I slowly rediscovered the underlying potential of my PowerBook 5300, and I’ve been using it more and more regularly. To the point of upgrading it. I already did a ’survival experiment’ a couple of years ago, to demonstrate that, in the unlikely event of a general failure of all my modern Mac hardware, I could still get work done using only the PowerBook 5300. But recently I wanted to go a bit further, purchasing two small upgrades for the PowerBook and tailoring the set of installed software to render it a modern portable machine, almost up-to-date with current technologies and solutions.

But first, to have an idea of what sort of capabilities this machine offers, let’s take a look at its hardware profile:

PowerBook 5300 series
General Info

Introduced: August 1995
Discontinued: October 1996
Processor: PowerPC 603e
Processor Speed: 100 MHz (5300/5300cs/5300c) or 117 MHz (5300ce)
Coprocessor: Built-in FPU
Cache: 16 KB data, 16 KB instruction L1
System Bus: 33.3 MHz
Hard Drive: 500 (5300/5300cs/5300c), 750 MB (5300cs/5300c), or 1.1 GB (5300ce)
Media: 1.44 MB floppy
Original Mac OS: System 7.5.2 (PowerBook 5300 Enabler)
Maximum Mac OS: Mac OS 9.1

Memory/Graphics

Maximum RAM: 64 MB
Graphics Card: None
Graphics Memory: 512 KB or 1 MB
Built-in Display: 9.5″ DualScan gray scale passive matrix (5300), 10.4″ DualScan color passive matrix (5300cs), 10.4″ Active matrix color (5300c/5300ce) LCD
Resolutions: 640 x 480 (5300/5300cs/5300c) 800 x 600 (5300ce)
Display Connection: Mini-15

Expansion/Ports

Expansion Slots: 2 – Type II or 1 – Type III PC Card
Expansion Bays: PB 5300 Bay (90-pin)
Hard Drive Bus: ATA
Ethernet: None
Infrared: 1 – 1 Mbps
Modem: None
ADB: 1
Serial: 1
SCSI: HDI-30
USB: None
FireWire: None
Audio In: 1 – 3.5-mm analog input jack, 1 – Built-in microphone
Audio Out: 1 – 3.5-mm analog output jack, 1 – Built in speaker

History

Introduced in August 1995, the PowerBook 5300 was the first PowerPC PowerBook, and the first to include a sleep-swappable drive bay. Available in multiple screen configurations, and 2 RAM/HD configurations, many 5300s shipped DOA (This was the main cause of Apple’s reputation for faulty products in the mid 90s). An IR transceiver for wireless networking was also included. The 100 MHz 5300 8/500 sold for $2,300 U.S.. The 100 MHz 5300cs, with dual-scan color, sold for $2,900 U.S. for 8/500, and $3,700 U.S. for 16/750. The 5300c with active matrix color, sold for $3,900 U.S. for 100 MHz 8/500, and $4,700 U.S. for 100 MHz 16/750. The fully loaded 117 MHz 5300ce 32/1.1GB sold for $6,800 U.S.

[Created by Mactracker, copyright 2001 - 2008 Ian Page -- http://www.mactracker.ca]

The hardware, revamped

My PowerBook 5300 has all the specifications of the 5300ce, the later and better model, although curiously enough System Profiler reports that its processor speed is not 117 MHz, but 100 MHz. Anyway, my model has 64 MB RAM, a 1.1 GB hard drive, and when I bought it second-hand in 2002, the previous owner kindly gave me two floppy drive modules, so that I have a spare in case of failure. At that time I was wise and immediately purchased an Ethernet PCMCIA card. Wise because the PowerBook 5300 is not compatible with modern 32-bit (Cardbus) PCMCIA cards; instead, it uses the older 16-bit ones (like the Newton), and are a bit harder to find today. As regards to the system installed, although this PowerBook supports up to Mac OS 9.1, I chose to stay with Mac OS 8.1. I think it’s the best compromise between features offered and resources (memory and processor cycles) consumption.

Old PowerBooks with PC Card slots are the best to keep updated, because PCMCIA cards offer a variety of options, including USB ports (but you have to be brave and the PowerBook must support Mac OS 9), Ethernet and wireless connectivity. With the Ethernet card, my PowerBook 5300 was immediately able to be part of my home office network, exchange files with more modern Macs, and access the Internet. With the LocalTalk Bridge control panel, I could extend the possibility of accessing the home office network to all the vintage Macs, with the PowerBook 5300 being the bridge — both physically and metaphorically — between two networks, LocalTalk and EtherTalk, merged together. This way my Colour Classic could communicate with the PowerBook G4 and the iBook G3 seamlessly. All the machines could ’see’ one another easily.

As I mentioned at the beginning, recently I wanted to expand the capabilities of the PowerBook 5300. So, just for kicks, I bought a wireless card (Wavelan Silver card by Lucent Technologies) and tried to access my home office network wirelessly.

Detail of the PC Card slots of the PowerBook 5300. Above you can see the Lucent Wavelan Silver wireless card. Below (not visible, apart from the cable coming out) there's the Comet Ethernet 10/100 PC Card.

It was a bit tricky. The Wavelan Silver card only supports WEP encryption, so I had to ‘downgrade’ the WPA Personal protection of my home network first. Then, the software to manage the 802.11b card is nowhere near the intuitiveness of the AirPort interface under Mac OS X. But it worked, and I was able to surf the Web at an acceptable pace.

The second purchase was a (somewhat rare to find) VST Zip 100 drive module. The 5300 series, as mentioned in the profile above, were the first PowerBooks to include a swappable drive bay. This means that the floppy drive is removable and another device can take its place. The only alternative in the 5300 was indeed the VST Zip 100 drive. (The PowerBook 1400 and 3400 also had the option of a CD-ROM module; later PowerBook G3s had even more options, including DVD-ROM modules and even a second battery).

Detail of the VST Zip 100 Drive module inserted in the PowerBook 5300 expansion bay. The Iomega driver (ver. 6.0.7) correctly recognises the Zip drive and Zip disks.

Since I already own a Iomega Zip 100 USB drive that I can use with my iBook G3 and my PowerBook G4s, file exchange has got even quicker. Plus, 100 MB Zip disks offer more storage for the PowerBook 5300 than 1.44 MB floppies. If you consider that the applications and the system itself at the time of Mac OS 8 and earlier were much less bloated than now, you’ll realise that 100 Megabytes of storage (ok, 94 MB in a formatted disk) are a lot.

Software for all purposes

So, what can be done with a thoughtfully customised PowerBook 5300, a machine which is now 13 years old and runs Mac OS 8.1? More than you think. Sometimes the necessary software for a specific purpose is a bit hard to find, but not that hard if one is determined. So, to sum up, here’s what I do with my PowerBook 5300:

• Web browsing — the best options are iCab 2.99, Opera 5, Netscape Communicator 4.7 and, yes, Internet Explorer 5 (but I haven’t installed it).
• Email — usually the recommended options here are Claris Emailer and some appropriately vintage version of Eudora, but I use Mailsmith 1.1.8 (I have to thank Rich Siegel of Bare Bones Software for sending me a copy of Mailsmith 1.1.8, which can’t be obtained anymore from the Bare Bones Website. He’s been a true gentleman and helped me with my little vintage experiment. Thank you, Rich!)
• Reading RSS feeds — there are some interesting applications out there. I found Acuity 1.0b8 to be the most Mac-like. Some feeds are problematic, but most I follow are not.
• Accessing my iDisk — here’s the great thing: under Mac OS X, I’ve always found iDisk access via the Finder to be painfully, annoyingly slow. So I’ve been using Goliath 1.0.1, a WebDAV client that can provide a much faster access. I didn’t realise until recently that the good guys at webdav.org have been offering also a version for Mac OS 9 and earlier! And that’s what I use on my PowerBook 5300. And it’s (relatively) fast.
• Connecting to VPNs — a rocky road, but doable with an application called NTS TunnelBuilder.
• Controlling other machines through VNC — there are both VNC clients and VNC servers for vintage Macs. A good, simple and small VNC client running under Mac OS 8.1 is VNC Viewer. For instance, I can see the screen of my PowerBook G4 12-inch and control it with the PowerBook 5300. And with a VNC server like OS9vnc Server PPC (which, despite its name, can also be used under Mac OS 8), I can control the PowerBook 5300 from my PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X 10.5.4 using Screen Sharing (inserting the host address manually).
• Reading CD-ROM images created with Toast — Toast 3.0.1 does the trick.
• Word Processing & Text Editing — the options here and endless: from WriteNow to WordPerfect, from Nisus Writer to Word, and then of course the ever-present BBEdit (version 4.6).
• Spreadsheet — Microsoft Excel. Undeniably good at what it does.
• Reading PDF documents — under Mac OS 8.1 I think the perfect tool is Acrobat Reader 4.05.
• Image editing — old versions of Photoshop are OK but probably overkill. I stick with Graphic Converter 4.
• And more… — other applications installed include ClarisWorks 4, FileMaker 3, Norton Utilities 3.1 (the perfect version before this stuff became crappy), Aldus Pagemaker, and so on and so forth.

I manily work with text documents and the occasional HTML coding and image editing, so I generally don’t need ultra-powerful machines. With my PowerBook 5300 configured this way, it still can be used to reach the end of the work day productively. Yes, a 13-year-old machine, with 64 MB RAM and a 100 MHz processor. Yes, the infamous PowerBook many consider one of the worst Apple produced.

(The next upgrade will be a working battery, so that I really can use it wire-free!)

Tip from the past: Quick reprint

This is taken from MacUser, Vol. 9 No. 16, August 6, 1993 issue. At that time, MacUser magazine used to keep a Help section titled Hints and Tips, where Peter Jackson compiled readers’ tricks and shortcuts. This tip is from Graham Tyers, of Oakham, and is intended for those who reprint documents regularly.

When you print a document using background printing, make a copy of the spool file that appears in the Print Monitor Documents folder in the System Folder. To print this document again, option-drag it into the Print Monitor Documents folder and it will print instantly, although you may have to click OK in a dialog box, depending on your printer. This method will print documents from hefty applications in a fraction of the time taken to launch the application and then spool the file. The down-side is that the spool files take up a lot of space, especially if pictures or other graphics are included.

LiteSwitch

Since I use both modern Mac OS X equipped Macs, and classic 68k machines, one of the crucial things to be productive in both environments is to try to maintain consistency when using the keyboard. I already have to fight with different keyboard layouts and different key placements (in this regard, I practically type on at least four different keyboards), so, whenever possible, I’d like to find the same keyboard shortcuts. The Macintosh UI has been fairly reliable and coherent through the years. The shortcuts for common operations like Cut Copy and Paste remain unchanged, even the key combination for taking a screenshot (Command-Shift-3) has been the same from System 6 to the latest version of Mac OS X.

What I was missing is the very handy Command-Tab shortcut, to cycle through the current active applications and pass from one to the other. Using Mac OS X for many hours a day, it’s practically hard-coded in my fingers. On a classic Mac, you have to use the mouse and click on the application menu on the far right of the menubar. Thankfully, there’s a nifty control panel called LiteSwitch which brings this handy feature to vintage Macs. It works in exactly the same way as in Mac OS X, and it’s also customisable (you can select the preferred modifier-keys combination: Alt-Tab, Command-Tab or Ctrl-Tab. You can quit an application pressing Q or X while it’s highlighted, and you can even hide it by pressing W or H. And it works really well — it’s very responsive on my PowerBook 5300 with Mac OS 8.1. Definitely recommended.

A pretty good Lisa emulator

Probably I’m the last to find out, considering that a lot of time has passed since I checked the status of various emulators out there, but I just stumbled onto a very well made emulator for the Lisa. Development is a bit stuck at the moment, but the last version of the emulator, LisaEm 1.26 (2007.12.13) is quite stable and usable. It supports various platforms, and for Mac OS X (10.3.9 to 10.5.x) there’s a handy dmg file containing the documentation, the source code, and the pre-packaged application, so that it’s ready to run. Unlike other emulators, a ROM image is not required to start using the virtual Lisa, but of course you’ll need the Lisa Office System Software, otherwise everything will be pretty much unusable.

The emulator reads Disk Copy 4.2 image files, and you can find both system and application disks at The Mothership. Download the five .sit files containing the disk images for the 3.1 version of the Office System Software, and follow the instructions in the LisaEm documentation to install the software in the virtual machine.

What’s wonderful is the visual impact of this emulator — everything is faithfully emulated: the software and the hardware (even acoustically, you hear the actual sounds of a functioning Lisa). Here’s a screenshot after installing the Office System Software (click to enlarge):

LisaEm 1.26 - What appears on the screen after installing System Office 7/7

That’s right: an image of a true Lisa in front of you. If you insert a virtual floppy, you’ll see a real floppy inside the drive. If you turn the Lisa off, the power light (in the lower right corner) will turn off too. All feels very real and enjoyable.

Adding a keyboard layout to my PowerBook 100

The other afternoon, my PowerBook 100 resurrected from the dead, in a way that has even a creepy flavour, if you like. As I wrote in the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army forums:

After trying resetting the PMU countless times, disassembling the PowerBook 4 times, checking the checkable — and re-checking, I was pretty sure it was all a matter of battery. “The lead-acid battery has drained beyond repair and unless I find another one, this good old PowerBook won’t power up”, this I said to myself the other day. As a last resort (and because there’s always hope) I left the PowerBook 100 connected to the power adapter and with the battery inserted, hoping it could recharge a little.

Well, today I went out and returned home after a few hours, quite worried because there was a sudden, violent rainstorm and I was concerned for all the Macs left sleeping, the AirPort Express bases, etc. I rushed to my studio and heard a strange whirring sound… it was coming from the PowerBook internal speaker… I remembered that whirr very well… I opened the PowerBook, turned it on and bling!

Looking at my alarm clock on the nightstand, I noticed that the thunderstorm caused a temporary black-out while I was away. I don’t know but, could that power interruption / resumption have provided the “boost of life” to the PowerBook? In any case, it’s alive, and I’m amazed.

Since its internal hard drive had failed a few months ago, I’ve been trying to find another one. Not exactly easy, since this model of PowerBook needs a 2.5” SCSI hard drive with a smaller footprint than other ones. The one that came with my PowerBook is a 40-Megabyte Conner CP2045 manufactured in 1990, and I was lucky enough to find an identical one on eBay recently. What to do with a hard-drive-less PowerBook 100? Why, you use temporary alternatives: the external floppy drive, but most of all you create a RAM disk. The PowerBook 100 has a nice feature: a ‘persistent’ RAM disk. It means that when you turn the PowerBook off, you don’t lose the contents of the RAM disk (provided, of course, the 3 button lithium backup batteries on the back aren’t drained). So I devoted 3 of the 6 MB of RAM to a RAM disk and installed a minimal version of System 6.0.8 (the System Folder is only 750 KB — almost unbelievable), but I was missing the Italian keyboard layout: in the Keyboard control panel the only option was US.

I had downloaded some keyboard layouts from the Web time ago, but simply copying the Italian layout and pasting it inside the System Folder didn’t accomplish anything. A bit of research, and I found the right tip in the 68000 Mac FAQ:

Q: How to add keyboard layouts?
A: Info-mac has some localized keyboard layouts. With System 6, open the System file and the KCHR resource within it with ResEdit. Open the keyboard layout you want to add and the KCHR resource within it as another window. Copy and paste the KCHR layout to the System file’s KCHR resource list and save changes. Select the layout from the Keyboard Control Panel. With System 7 and up you can just drag ‘n drop the layout on top of the System Folder.

And it worked very well. It was so good to do some little ResEdit-ing again! I miss something like ResEdit in Mac OS X.

By the way, the Info-Mac mirror cited in the 68000 Mac FAQ is still working and ftp.funet.fi is a real repository of delightful things, not only for Macs. Keyboard layouts can be found there, too.

On a final note, it’s worth mentioning that the notorious key combination for taking screenshots, Command-Shift-3, was already implemented under System 6. There was no ‘camera click’ sound, and the image files generated were in PICT format.

Tip from the past: System error codes explained

At least the most frequent.

Taken from Personal Computer World, May 1996 issue. Written by Chris Cain.

One of the most annoying things about the MacOS is its lack of proper error messages. How many times has your Mac crashed with “an error of type X”, without telling you exactly what “X” means? To help you out of some of these situations here’s a list of the most common error numbers and their official meanings, as listed by Apple in its Technical Info Library. If you have access to the World Wide Web you can get a more complete list from Apple’s web site (www.apple.com). There are some errors that even the Apple technical documents don’t explain, specifically Type 11. If I find out what these mean I’ll let you know.

• ID 01 = Bus Error
  A type 01 error usually occurs when the computer tries to access memory that doesn’t exist: you can get this error on almost any Macintosh. In my experience, assigning extra RAM to an application, using its Get Info dialogue, can help prevent it.
• ID 02 = Address Error
  The Motorola 68000 microprocessor can access memory in increments of one byte (8 bits), or one word (16 bits), or one long word (32 bits). This microprocessor can access a byte of information at either an odd or an even memory address. But it mustaccess one word or one long word at an evenmemory address. So, when the microprocessor attempts to read or write a word (or long word) at an oddaddress, you see this error. Since that’s a 50/50 proposition when running random code, this one shows up quite often.
• ID 03 = Illegal Instruction
  The computer has a specific vocabulary of machine language instructions it can understand. If it tries to execute an instruction that isn’t in its vocabulary, you see this error code. It’s less likely than error 02 but is nevertheless common.
• ID 04 = Zero Divide Error
  This error results if the microprocessor divides two numbers, and the divisor is zero. Sometimes a programmer puts these in as debugging aids and forgets to take them out.

Spotlight is overrated

Spotlight is undoubtedly a powerful search technology, but I don’t know how much faster it is compared to the erstwhile Find command. In my home network I have temporarily added my old PowerBook 5300 with Mac OS 8.1, and since I needed to transfer some files from the PowerBook G4 Titanium, I mounted the entire volume on the 5300’s desktop, connecting the two Macs via Ethernet (not directly, but through a switch). I was looking for a file on the TiBook volume, but instead of searching it on the TiBook with Spotlight, I wanted to try one little thing: searching it via the Find command on the PowerBook 5300. The TiBook volume is 40 GB, and of course the Find command in Mac OS 8.1 doesn’t know about indexing — it’s search-as-you-go, so to speak. Well, search took 5 seconds. I say I’m quite impressed.

Back in the nick of time

Let’s start with a photo:

Macintosh 128K rear label

Just to understand where I come from. Well, this wasn’t exactly the first Mac I used — those were a SE (with two floppy drives, no hard drive) and a Plus. This Original Macintosh 128K was given to me as a gift, but “as is”, that is, it’s not functioning. All the parts inside are OK, save for the Power/Sweep Board (part 661-76214, see picture below), which needs to be desoldered from the CRT monitor, and replaced with a working one. The person who donated this Mac to me has generously given me a new one. Too bad I haven’t got a soldering iron. At the moment this Mac is lying disassembled in ‘the Vault’. The case is in incredible shape, and I also managed to acquire a mouse (the keyboard was included in the gift, although it’s the Macintosh Plus keyboard with a numeric keypad — but I’m not picky!).

Macintosh 128K-512K exploded view

This blog, whose tagline is “The Platinum Days”, wants to be a personal space where I occasionally post my ramblings about the pre-Mac OS X era. The vintage angle here doesn’t want to be just a corner for nostalgia or a collectors’ club where one talks about “the good old times”. Rather, the focus is utility, and what vintage Macs can still do today. Like vintage cars, they can still hit the road, sometimes with unsurpassed elegance.