Macintosh PowerBook 145B and… some Toshibs

I was browsing around the local Avita (olx.kz) and, like last time, I accidentally found this device. At first, it didn’t interest me much – an entry-level model, from a time when Jobs’ legacy had already faded (he was kicked out in 1985, if I’m not mistaken) and Apple was slipping into the UG. I read that the hard drive there is SCSI, and of course it will not work, which means that you need to buy an emulator like ZULU SCSI and of course I have no idea how to install old versions of MacOS and that’s all.

I checked the prices on ebay ~ from $50 for a faulty machine and $150-200 for a working one. There is an opinion that any old equipment is expensive. This is not entirely true – mass-produced things do not increase in price much, look for example at the famous Ford Model T, built around 1929, they ask for it in the range of 20-25k $, or for our “Kopeyka” – also not a lot of money even for very good condition . Those. There is not much economic sense in this laptop either.

But they asked for adequate money for it, and judging by the photo, the condition was excellent. By the way, all the beautiful photos in this post were taken by the previous owner of this laptop, I am publishing them with her permission. The photos in my publications are not so good.

Characteristics of the laptop, photos of the internals and other useful information are here in this great review by Timo Biesenbach

The first turn on showed that the screen was completely black – but surprisingly the laptop made a greeting sound (chime) and rustled the disk, which gave me enthusiasm. A quick Google suggested that leaked electrolytes were to blame for the problem with the display – a common occurrence in technology of this age. A post on reddit suggested a link to repair video.

Haste is the main enemy of the restorer! I told myself and started collecting capacitors of the wrong value and size because it was too much to wait for radio stores to open. The result is that the screen stopped being dark, but instead of an image it turned out to be a mess, although there was even something moving there. I scolded myself for being in a hurry, but in fairness it must be said that such tactics (sometimes) justify themselves – quickly get the first signs of life from the device so that there is more enthusiasm for working with it further. As a result, I went the next day in Delta Chipbought the necessary parts and here is the result:

The device booted into OS 7.1, confidently launches programs (Word and Excel are installed!) from its gigantic 40 megabyte drive, and works stably. The drive reads and writes floppy disks. I didn’t even bother opening the case of the laptop itself (it looks like no one has climbed there yet – let it remain that way). And everything seemed great, the laptop was fixed, but the question is – what to do with it next?

I recently showed my combat Toshibas at DevOpsDays Almaty '24, where I was invited by colleagues from Core 24/7 Why do they appreciate it, these guys are our top devopsers in Kazakhstan.

Toshibas have already seen a lot – they can be dragged around events without fear for their safety, let people play, etc. (by the way, if you need retro computers for an event in Almaty, please contact me in PM). But it’s a pity for this Macintosh – it’s in near-ideal condition, the case has not been opened, a working hard drive, original Russian keyboard and power supply.

I'd rather restore retro computers than own them. The plans for this device are to download some information from it (by the way, that’s another challenge, there were 3 or 4 different options, here is a great article according to floppie formats of Apple computers) and can run Mathematica 2.0 and some retro games on it.

And then I want to place it in a good museum or private collection where it will bring joy to people. If you have contacts who would be interested, please let me know in a private message or forward this article to them. The Yandex Museum in Almaty would be a suitable option, I would be grateful for contacts from colleagues from there.

Peace and goodness to everyone in our troubled times.