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Second Class Macs & Road Apples

PowerBook 5300

two

Dan Knight - 1998.12.04

Second Class Macs are Apple's somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they're not really bad - simply designs that didn't meet their full potential. (On our rating scale, the more brown apples, the worse the hardware.)

The PowerBook 5300 was Apple's first PowerPC-based PowerBook. Originally designed to use LithIon batteries, Apple recalled the 5300 after some of the new batteries burst into flames on the assembly line. Not only was this an embarrassment to Apple, but the PowerBook 5300 became the butt of many jokes even though none of the troublesome batteries ever made it to market.

Switching to NiMH batteries solved the problem, but then there was the motherboard to address. A problem with the Sleep setting didn't reduce power sufficiently, reducing the maximum time in sleep mode from over a week to about four days.

On top of that, the power supply wasn't robust enough to handle everything you could put into the expansion bay. And the connector on the AC adapter could break, making it impossible to charge the batteries - or run the computer.

And as if that weren't enough, the 5300 and it's 68040-sibling, the PowerBook 190, had problems with the case, especially the hinge between the main computer and the screen. Flecks of dark gray plastic were soon called "PowerBook droppings". Over time, enough plastic would be lost that the 5300 needed to go in for service. (Thank you, Apple, for a seven year warranty on this problem!)

Some of the system bugs were solved simply by upgrading from System 7.5.2, which shipped with the computer, to 7.5.3 or later. Reports are that the 5300 is rock solid under Mac OS 8.0 and later. Also, the improved emulation of Speed Doubler really helps performance of the pedestrian IDE hard drive.

Apple had intended to design a PowerBook around the PowerPC 603 processor, but soon discovered that the on-chip cache (level 1 cache) was inadequate for decent 680x0 emulation used with older software. The 603e doubled the size of the L1 cache, making it a much better performer with old software and the right choice for the first PowerPC PowerBook. (See Macintosh CPUs, Part 2, for more details on the 603 and other PowerPC chips.)

However, Apple made a serious design compromise by designing the 5300 with no level 2 (L2) cache - and no way of adding one. Even a relatively small 256 KB L2 cache can boost performance on the order of 30%. Without that cache, the 5300 was slower than anyone expected a 100 MHz or 117 MHz machine to be. (Another blow to the already soiled reputation of the 603.) LEM

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