30 Days of Old School Computing
Computing at Work with a PowerBook 170
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- 2006.09.12
Hello everyone,
Last time I talked about how I was having problems with my servers, and how one of my managers at McDonald's wanted to join me in 30 days of "old school" computing.
Well, I managed to get my servers running again, and so far I haven't had any more problems with them.
As for my manager, I don't know what the deal is. I set up the Classic II for him to use, but he has yet to come and pick it up. I'm guessing that he doesn't really want to proceed with the project.
Oh well, that's his loss, not mine. I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there that would love to join me.
Today I'm writing this at work while I'm on break. I bet you're wondering how I managed to pull this off.
I
brought in my PowerBook 170, which
still has a working battery. The wonderful thing about the
PowerBook 170 is that I can turn down the processor speed, turn off
the backlight on the screen (you can do that with color LCDs, but
you can't see them too well), open ClarisWorks (or MS Word, or Word
Perfect, or whatever you want to use), spin down the hard drive,
and be able to type for a good long while.
I'm not sure just how long I will be able to pull it off, but I'm only on a 30 minute break. The battery should be able to hold out that long.
I must say that the PowerBook is doing really well. AIM, WannaBe, MacLynx, Eudora Lite 1.3.1, even iCab 2.9.9 work great.
iCab is by no means fast, but it works when I need to visit sites that WannaBe and MacLynx simply can't handle, like online forums, and sites where I need to see pictures.
WannaBe is my browser of choice: it's super fast and works great. The only problem I have with it is I cannot use Google or any other search engine, because you can't input data. When that happens, I just use MacLynx. It works without any problems, it's just slower a and doesn't look as good (it's the best browser for compact Macs).
AIM works really well on this PowerBook. Sure, it isn't as fast as running it on a Power Mac G3 (or even a 7500), but I wouldn't expect it to be.
And yes, email works just fine using Eudora Lite 1.3.1, with one exception: It likes to encode all attachments in BinHex, so no one can open any attachment I send. Oh well, that's only a minor setback.
So far everything seems to be working great, without any major problems at all.
Wish me luck, and stay tuned more Old School Computing articles
are to come. 
Recent Vintage Mac Living articles
- If a Mac Plus can run System 7.5.5, why can't an 800 MHz G4 run Leopard?, 10.19. Apple supported the Mac Plus for over 10 years after its introduction. Why should Leopard cut off support for Macs released 4-6 years ago?
- 60 Mac models left behind: The ridiculously high cost of Leopard, 10.17. Mac OS X 10.5 officially doesn't support any G3 Macs, most G4 Power Macs, most titanium PowerBooks, half the G4 iMacs, early eMacs, or the first 12" G4 iBook.
- What a waste! Some schools would rather store old computers than put them to use, 09.12. Denver Public Schools is one example of a school district so ready to buy new computers that it has tens of thousands of old, usable computers sitting in storage.
- More in the Vintage Mac Living index.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04. Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more.
- Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
- Mac of the Day: Blue & White Power Mac G3, Jan. 1999 - The most colorful Power Mac introduced an innovative 'drawbridge' enclosure.
- List of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
- July 6 in LEM history: 00: 3 user accelerators - 01: SCSI and FireWire Disk Mode - Stick with the Mac - Computers for college - 05: Optimizing OS X performance - Return of the bumper snicker - 06: Can consumer MacBook replace 2 PowerBooks and a ThinkPad? - Vintage Macs with System 6 run circles around 3 GHz Windows PC - Run Windows apps without Windows
- The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops.
- More links in our archive.
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