Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Classic Macs in the Intel Age

PowerBook 150 Still a Winner

- 2008.03.27 - Tip Jar

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

Old PowerBooks can be a lot more useful than you might expect. Sure, they may not run recent games and high-end video editing software like Final Cut Pro, but if you just do a little Googling, you'll find lots of nice apps to make your oldie just as useful as a new MacBook.

I am a big fan of classic Apple notebooks, because they have a nice, sturdy design and are also very good word processing machines. When I first got my 1994 PowerBook 150, I was just using it occasionally to do some word processing for school in ClarisWorks.

But all of a sudden, things changed. I read the 30 Days on Vintage Macs articles here on Low End Mac, and I was stunned at how the author could use his old Macs for so many of his normal tasks that were usually performed on a modern computer.

I decided to do the same thing.

PowerBook 100 SeriesMy PowerBook 150 already had 8 MB of RAM and a 250 MB hard drive, but the battery was done for. So I got a new one off eBay, and suddenly my little Mac was useful on the go again. But I still wanted to do more with it.

I found my old ImageWriter printer and hooked it up. It worked fine. I made sure to install System 7.5 on the Mac, and I also gave it the iCab web browser and some old version of Eudora for mail. It was a little slow in iCab, but Eudora was quite fast.

I also made a small LocalTalk network between it and my "Pizza Box" Quadra 610. It worked just fine, and I was able to share the printer and the Internet connection, too.

The 150 is a great machine. Unlike most people, one thing I like about it is the screen. My PowerBook is in very good shape, and the screen is among the most crisp and nice b&w screens I have ever seen on a laptop - way better than my old PowerBook 160. Plus, the screen is big. It offers a resolution of 640x 480 - much better than other old PowerBooks with 640 x 400 black and white screens.

In conclusion, the PowerBook 150 is a great machine that makes a nice networking buddy to my Quadra and PowerBook 165c (which I rarely use these days - the trackball broke).

Forward Into the Past

But my PowerBook 150 adventure isn't over yet. On Thursday, March 27, I will pick up a Classic II and two PowerBook 100s. I hope to make a nice little vintage Mac network with the Quadra being the server, the Classic being my office machine, and the 150 being my laptop of choice for trips. Finally, my PowerBook 100 will most likely serve as a compact writing machine.

Count on me to get you another article as soon as the 100s and the Classic II are set up.

Discuss Carl Nygren's articles on Info-Mac.

Go to the index of articles by Carl Nygren.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Recent My Turn articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. 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.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.