So I was interested in vintage computing and now finally I have decided to do something about it.
And my first system (mainly because I got it cheap) is Apple Powerbook 145. It came from ebay (as most things do) and had some serious issues upon arrival. It came without a power supply and upon plugging in a correct universal adapter a strong smell of burning electronics started coming from it. I opened a thing up and found a blown reverse polarity protection diode (D16). Somebody apparently didn't know what they were doing. I removed the diode and botched in a standard diode right onto the power connector and the thing came to life.
Then when I was closing the thing up I noticed that one of the screen hinges looked a bit weird (there was a gap). I tried applying a bit of pressure to the hinge and the whole thing just collapsed. The posts that hold the screws shattered. Classic problem for these computers. Used a bit of a special metalic putty and attached the posts back and finally closed the damned thing.
So the computer is now working for the most part. To be specific the hard drive doesn't work - I can't hear it and it isn't detected by the system. The battery is apparently dead, same goes for the backup battery.
Problem is the software. I know that this is meant to be used with system 7. Problem is that it is mean to be installed. Which I can't really do since I don't have a hard drive. Is there any way of using system 7 with only a single floppy drive? Because when I eject the floppy it just starts to complain that it needs it back. I did find a copy of system 6 on the internet that runs on this machine. This one actually allows me to remove the floppy and use the system. Sadly this means constantly swapping floppies back and forth whenever I want to do anything. So... are there any workarounds to this? Ones that won't cost me 100?
The other question is... how to keep the hardware from dying? Are there any caps in there that are in need of replacement? I can't see any classic electrolytics which is good. But what about others? I also found that the monitor contrast slider is very sensitive and that the contrast drifts wildly when the whole thing is first powered up. It stabilizes after a few minutes of use though. I am guessing that this isn't normal? I've also noticed some vertical "ghosting" on the screen. Is that to be expected or do I need to do something about it?
And my first system (mainly because I got it cheap) is Apple Powerbook 145. It came from ebay (as most things do) and had some serious issues upon arrival. It came without a power supply and upon plugging in a correct universal adapter a strong smell of burning electronics started coming from it. I opened a thing up and found a blown reverse polarity protection diode (D16). Somebody apparently didn't know what they were doing. I removed the diode and botched in a standard diode right onto the power connector and the thing came to life.
Then when I was closing the thing up I noticed that one of the screen hinges looked a bit weird (there was a gap). I tried applying a bit of pressure to the hinge and the whole thing just collapsed. The posts that hold the screws shattered. Classic problem for these computers. Used a bit of a special metalic putty and attached the posts back and finally closed the damned thing.
So the computer is now working for the most part. To be specific the hard drive doesn't work - I can't hear it and it isn't detected by the system. The battery is apparently dead, same goes for the backup battery.
Problem is the software. I know that this is meant to be used with system 7. Problem is that it is mean to be installed. Which I can't really do since I don't have a hard drive. Is there any way of using system 7 with only a single floppy drive? Because when I eject the floppy it just starts to complain that it needs it back. I did find a copy of system 6 on the internet that runs on this machine. This one actually allows me to remove the floppy and use the system. Sadly this means constantly swapping floppies back and forth whenever I want to do anything. So... are there any workarounds to this? Ones that won't cost me 100?
The other question is... how to keep the hardware from dying? Are there any caps in there that are in need of replacement? I can't see any classic electrolytics which is good. But what about others? I also found that the monitor contrast slider is very sensitive and that the contrast drifts wildly when the whole thing is first powered up. It stabilizes after a few minutes of use though. I am guessing that this isn't normal? I've also noticed some vertical "ghosting" on the screen. Is that to be expected or do I need to do something about it?