Description

RARE, RESTORED & RECAPPED Vintage Apple Mac Macintosh PowerBook 100.

The PowerBook 100 was introduced by Apple in October 1991. It was a highly miniaturized replacement for the heavy, bulky and very finicky Macintosh Portable, and an unexpected commercial hit for Apple. It is considered to be the first truly portable computer sold by Apple…but this model was actually (mostly) designed and miniaturized by Sony. Unlike most laptops produced around the same time period, which were difficult to service, the Powerbook 100 was VERY easily serviceable. Its design was praised as being “...one of the 10 best PCs of all times.” and won many design awards.

The PowerBook 100 was introduced at the same time as the Powerbooks 140 and 170. All three laptops were the first laptop models with a trackball centered below the keyboard! The Mac Portable had its trackball installed either to the right or the left of the keyboard and almost no other laptop manufactured during the same period featured a trackball!

Unlike (the very few) other 100’s being sold which are sold “for parts or repair”, ”as is”, “untested”, “no power adapter”, “not turning on” etc.. This particular unit is in excellent cosmetic condition, cleaned, restored, detailed, recapped and FULLY functional. It is a complete SYSTEM.

Almost all (probably all) Powerbook 100s suffer from leaking capacitors on their logic board and screen - this explains the scarcity of this model in functional condition. Surface mount capacitors from the late eighties and early nineties were infamous for their tendency to leak. When they leaked, these capacitors: (1) cause the computer to stop working as intended and (2) cause corrosion on the printed circuit which ends up destroying traces and chip pins if left uncleaned. This laptop’s logic board and daughter board have had all their electrolytic capacitors replaced (“recapped”) and the printed circuit board cleaned. The computer boots up with no issues. The original, dead, SCSI hard disk has been replaced by a BlueSCSI (this is a fast and fully solid state electronic equivalent to a SCSI disk using a standard SD card for storage). The BlueSCSI has been configured to emulate a hard disk of 1.8 GB and has Mac OS 7.0.1 freshly installed on it

The full system has been thoroughly tested. Sound, internal and external SCSI ports, external floppy port, serial port, programmer's and reset switches, keyboard and trackball: all tested and working properly.

The laptop is in good cosmetic condition, except for the left riser foot which is not locking in place when opened and the case is a bit discolored (darkened) due to exposure to the sun. Included with the PowerBook is the original, recapped, power adapter, the original (dead) battery -no leaks, no bulging and no corrosion, an HDI20 floppy disk drive and two MacOS 6.0.8 floppy disks (untested). The floppy drive reads, writes, formats and ejects disks perfectly.

Note: While no Mac OS 7.0.1 floppy disks are included, images of the installation disks are available on the hard disk. These images could be used to create a fresh copy of the installation floppies.

The screen has been recapped and is quite bright with both the brightness and contrast controls working properly. The base 2MB memory has been expanded to 4MB with the included memory expansion card.

Despite this computer having been extensively tested and found to be fully functional, it IS over 30 years old technology and as such, there is no guarantee offered, or implied, for continued functioning. This lot is being sold as-is with no returns accepted.

This is a rare, thought after, collector’s item in excellent condition and fully functional. It will make a great addition to any collection. Ready to use.