Miscellaneous Ramblings

My First Mobile Mac: A Classic II

Guest editorial by - 2007.06.25 - Tip Jar

Jacek A. Rochacki is a member of the Polish Pismo Owner's Club in Warsaw.

Years ago, when I was using happily my Mac SE with two FDD 800 KB drives and an external SCSI 80 MB hard drive, life had changed in a good direction. I was nominated to became a visiting teacher in a certain Western European country, which involved taking up to six trips abroad per year, and it was a great help to have my computer with me as one of the instruments for playing the clever man.

The nature of my educational service required having about 100 kg of instruments, rare printed materials and books, and plenty of tools, so air travel was out of the question. My first Toyota provided me with very reliable service; my books and tools were ready for transportation. The remaining question was the computer system, especially the external hard drive, which didn't make the Mac SE an easy thing to transport.

Mac Classic II
The author's Mac Classic II.

The PowerBook 100 was then far too expensive for me, so I went for a second-hand Mac Classic II, mostly due to it's internal hard drive. I still keep this machine in perfect working condition, and it nicely amazes the children and grandchildren of my friends.

The question of transportation for the Classic II boiled down to designing and making a proper bag; such bags were available in USA, but I had no time to get my US residing friends involved. The designing was very simple, as the cuboid form of the computer determined the shape of the bag.

In order to do the job properly, I began by obtaining the best materials (in my opinion). I used rugged Cordura® for the outer shell, which I got from my colleague, who was then running small company specializing in making rucksacks.

bottom of the Mac bagI sewed the inner lining of fleece, like the one used for outdoor activities garments, and stiffened the sides with pieces of carrimate, cut accordingly to the desired shape and fixed invisibly between the outer and inner lining of this bag. In this way I also made side compartments for the keyboard and some other gear.

I took special care with the bottom of my bag. In order to make it stiff and solid enough, I cut a piece from 1 cm. thick Kevlar plate, and used it as a sort of foundation in the bottom. Then I fixed with solid screws four rubber elements, which were simple rubber stoppers that were those days used in home interiors for preventing doors from contacting walls.

And here is my first mobile computer in this bag, ready for the road.

Ready to goWhen in due time St. Peter calls me to His gates, if I were given a choice which machine to take with me to continue writing, I would be in difficult situation. I respect the speed and power of my Little Al PowerBook, I admire the close to perfectness quality of Pismo, and I enjoy the ruggedness of my Wallstreet II. But I can not exclude, that I would then pack once more my Mac Classic II into its carrying bag . . . it has been so good on long journeys.

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Charles Moore has been a freelance journalist since 1987 and began writing for Mac websites in May 1998. His The Road Warrior column was a regular feature on MacOpinion, he is news editor at Applelinks.com and a columnist at MacPrices.net. If you find his articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

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Miscellaneous Ramblings ©1999-2012 by Charles W. Moore. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
  Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2016 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
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My First Mobile Mac: A Classic II

Miscellaneous Ramblings

My First Mobile Mac: A Classic II

Guest editorial by - 2007.06.25 - Tip Jar

Jacek A. Rochacki is a member of the Polish Pismo Owner's Club in Warsaw.

Years ago, when I was using happily my Mac SE with two FDD 800 KB drives and an external SCSI 80 MB hard drive, life had changed in a good direction. I was nominated to became a visiting teacher in a certain Western European country, which involved taking up to six trips abroad per year, and it was a great help to have my computer with me as one of the instruments for playing the clever man.

The nature of my educational service required having about 100 kg of instruments, rare printed materials and books, and plenty of tools, so air travel was out of the question. My first Toyota provided me with very reliable service; my books and tools were ready for transportation. The remaining question was the computer system, especially the external hard drive, which didn't make the Mac SE an easy thing to transport.

Mac Classic II
The author's Mac Classic II.

The PowerBook 100 was then far too expensive for me, so I went for a second-hand Mac Classic II, mostly due to it's internal hard drive. I still keep this machine in perfect working condition, and it nicely amazes the children and grandchildren of my friends.

inside the author's Mac bagThe question of transportation for the Classic II boiled down to designing and making a proper bag; such bags were available in USA, but I had no time to get my US residing friends involved. The designing was very simple, as the cuboid form of the computer determined the shape of the bag.

In order to do the job properly, I began by obtaining the best materials (in my opinion). I used rugged Cordura® for the outer shell, which I got from my colleague, who was then running small company specializing in making rucksacks.

I sewed the inner lining of fleece, like the one used for outdoor activities garments, and stiffened the sides with pieces of carrimate, cut accordingly to the desired shape and fixed invisibly between the outer and inner lining of this bag. In this way I also made side compartments for the keyboard and some other gear.

I took special care with the bottom of my bag. In order to make it stiff and solid enough, I cut a piece from 1 cm. thick Kevlar plate, and used it as a sort of foundation in the bottom. Then I fixed with solid screws four rubber elements, which were simple rubber stoppers that were those days used in home interiors for preventing doors from contacting walls.

The author's Mac bag packed and ready to goAnd here is my first mobile computer in this bag, ready for the road.

When in due time St. Peter calls me to His gates, if I were given a choice which machine to take with me to continue writing, I would be in difficult situation. I respect the speed and power of my Little Al PowerBook, I admire the close to perfectness quality of Pismo, and I enjoy the ruggedness of my Wallstreet II. But I can not exclude, that I would then pack once more my Mac Classic II into its carrying bag . . . it has been so good on long journeys.

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS news feed

Charles Moore has been a freelance journalist since 1987 and began writing for Mac websites in May 1998. His The Road Warrior column was a regular feature on MacOpinion, he is news editor at Applelinks.com and a columnist at MacPrices.net. If you find his articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Links for the Day

Recent Content

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Miscellaneous Ramblings ©1999-2012 by Charles W. Moore. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
  Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2016 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
  Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0
Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
Cult of Mac
Shrine of Apple
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
The Vintage Mac Museum
Deal Brothers
DealMac
Mac2Sell
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
Macgo Blu-ray Player
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Try looking in the monthly archives. :)

Tags

802.11g 802.11n 68030 68040 Apple April Fools clamshell iBook Classic Mac OS FireWire FireWire 400 G3 humor iBook iMac iMac G3 Intel iOS iPad iPhone LaserWriter Linux Mac MacBook Air Mac clones Mac mini Mac OS 9 macOS Sierra Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Microsoft OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.7 Lion OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X 10.10 Yosemite OS X 10.11 El Capitan Performa PowerBook PowerPC Rodney O. Lain SCSI Thunderbolt USB 1.1 USB 2.0
at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

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