Just Write: Why a PowerBook 2400c Is My Perfect Writing Machine

When is a laptop not a laptop? When it's the size of a briefcase and weighs more than a cinderblock, that's when.

Apple's recent release of the MacBook Air acknowledges that, while big screens, monster batteries, and multiple accessory bays are swell things, they can turn a laptop computer into a tabletop computer in a hurry.

What is most interesting about the new Air is that it's simply Apple's reentry into a field that was pioneered by Macintosh in the first place.

Apple's Light Notebook History

Apple PowerBook 100

Perhaps stung by criticisms of the first "luggable" Mac portables, Apple salvoed back with the PowerBook 100. By removing everything they could get away with, including a floppy drive, and miniaturizing everything else as ruthlessly as possible, the PowerBook 100 was a wispy little thing for the time. Weighing only a hair over five pounds and with the same footprint as a sheet of paper, the new machine was a breakthrough in portable computing; a true "go anywhere" computer.

Time went by, and PowerBooks added features, and grew fat as well, but Apple never forgot that niche. For every new introduction of a regular PowerBook, it seemed there was a corresponding development in the line of PowerBook Duos, which had been launched in 1992. Culminating in the 100 MHz 603e-powered 2300c of 1995, the Duos followed the same strategy of eschewing a removable media drive or expansion bay in favor of cramming a computer into as small a case as possible. Measuring under eleven inches wide and weighing under five pounds, they managed to make the PB 100 look a little porky by comparison.

Their successor in the late 1990s was the PowerBook 2400c, code named "Comet". Also powered by a PowerPC 603e CPU - this time running at 180 MHz - the 2400c remained tiny of footprint (10.5" x 8.5") and light of weight at a shade under four-and-a-half pounds, battery included. By increasing the thickness slightly, to 1.9 inches at the deepest spot, the 2400c was able to one-up the Duo by adding a suite of ports, including SCSI, ADB, and two PCMCIA card slots, which gave it expandability the Duo couldn't match without a dock.

It's 'Just Right'

Having mucked about with a half-dozen older Mac notebooks in search of my ideal writing machine, I've settled on my 2400c for a number of reasons:

First is the keyboard. While small, the scaled-down Duo keyboard is wonderfully tactile. It offers much the same feedback as the vaunted WallStreet keyboard and has a good clean layout, with keys legibly labeled in white on a charcoal background. Its only real shortcoming is the On/Off key's proximity to the delete key. Thankfully, nothing happens when you miss (of course), but more than once I've stared stupidly at an unmoving cursor as my pinkie frantically stabbed at the wrong key.

Second is how sturdy the overall package is. Built by IBM Japan, the whole thing has a solid, sturdy, compact feel to it. The screen hinges are stout, and nothing sways or wobbles no matter how frantically my fingers pound the keyboard.

The fact that it's a true laptop was a huge factor in my decision. I do most of my serious writing on the front porch in a lawn chair. No desk or table out here; the machine has to sit in my lap. The clamshell iBook and WallStreet are also both great writing machines, but they can be something of a burden when you actually have to use them as laptops. The clamshell iBook is big and heavy by comparison to the 2400c. And to those sins, WallStreet adds that big lid with its "oh-my-word-are-the-hinges-going-to-fail?" excitement and lap-scorching heat radiating from the bottom of its case.

Then there's the display. The 2400's 10.5" active matrix screen looks jewel-like: bright and clear. It offers more than enough resolution and viewable turf for writing. My second most frequently used writing machine is my clamshell iBook, and its white plastic surround glows with an eerie translucent light when I'm sitting in the shade of the front porch and it's backlit by the sunny lawn; the charcoal frame provided by the lid of the Comet is much less distracting, for whatever reason.

Limited Distractions

And oh, yes, "distraction" - the most important point of all for me. Running Mac OS 8.6 gives me just enough functionality without being distracting. I can connect to the Internet, sort of, via a WiFi card and Internet Explorer 5.1. IE 5.1 may be lousy for surfing the Web, if by "surfing the Web" you mean watching YouTube videos, but it's capable enough to let me email the finished product of a writing binge to myself.

When writing a blog post on my iBook, I'm writing within the blog software itself. It's always tempting to check my hits for the day on SiteMeter or just go do a quick check on that eBay auction to see if I'm still winning. On the 2400c, I'm writing in Word 2001. No Web, no SiteMeter, no eBay, no blogs, no distractions: just write 'til I'm done, append the file to an email, and deal with it next time I'm on the main machine. If it's a blog post, I can cut and paste it from there; if it's a column or article, I can double-check it for egregious errors on the bigger screen and forward it to where it needs to go.

So there's the answer to my quest. I was looking for a compact, lightweight, yet rugged machine with a good keyboard, usable speed in the limited applications I needed, a crisp display, and the ability to get the finished product off the laptop and on the network with a minimum of cable-stringing or network-searching gymnastics. I wanted just enough connectivity to be productive, without having so much that I'm distracted.

As it turns out, my decade-old PowerBook 2400c was just right for letting me just write.