Macintosh Portable

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Macintosh Portable is a portable computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from September 1989 to October 1991. It was the first battery-powered Macintosh, which garnered significant excitement from critics, but sales to customers were quite low. It features a fast, sharp, and expensive black and white matrix LCD screen in a hinged design that covers the keyboard when the machine is not in use. Portable is one of the earliest consumer laptops that use active matrix panels, and only the most expensive of the initial PowerBook line, the PowerBook 170, is used, because of its high cost. The cursor pointer function is handled by an internal trackball that can be erased and located on either side of the keyboard. It uses expensive SRAM in an effort to maximize battery life and provides an "instant" low power sleep mode. The machine is designed to perform high, at the expense of price and weight.

Video Macintosh Portable

Known issues

Unlike portable computers then from Apple and other manufacturers, the batteries are charged in series with the power supply to the computer. If the battery can no longer charge, then the computer can not run on AC power and therefore will not boot. The main reason for this is that the original power supply has a very low output. This is also why in many cases a special low-powered hard disk will not spin. Several popular unofficial solutions have been designed, including to use the power supply of the PowerBook Series 100 which delivers higher output. As with any automotive battery, sealed lead acid cells used in Portable fail if they are completely discharged. Batteries are no longer manufactured and it is rare to find original batteries that will hold the charge and allow the computer to start. It is possible to repack the battery with new cells, or use an alternative 6V battery. There are three acid-acid cells in the battery; each produced by Gates Energy Products (now EnerSys) and they are also used in Quantum 1 battery packs for the use of flash photography.

Despite the dramatic improvements in terms of ergonomics offered by the responsiveness, sharpness, and uniformity of active matrix panels, one of the disadvantages of Portable is poor legibility in low light situations. As a result, in February 1991, Apple introduced the Macintosh Portable backlit (model M5126). Along with the new screen, Apple changed the SRAM memory into a cheaper and power-hungry pseudo-SRAM (which reduces total RAM expansion to 8 MB) and lowers the price. The backlight feature is a welcome improvement, but unfortunately it reduces the battery life by about half. The upgrade kit is also offered for the previous model, which is plugged into the ROM expansion slot. The Portable was discontinued in October 1991.

In addition, with a thickness of 16 pounds (7.2 kilograms) and 4 inches (10 cm), Portable is a heavy and heavy portable computer. The main contributors to the weight and most of the Portable are lead-acid batteries.

Maps Macintosh Portable

Drive Configuration

There are three drive configurations available for Macintosh Portable: one floppy drive, two floppy drives or hard drives and floppy drives. The floppy drive on Macintosh Portable is 1.44 MB.

Most Portable Macintosh units come with hard drives. It was the specially designed Conner CP-3045 (known by Apple as "Hard Disk 40SC"). It holds 40 MB of data, consumes less power compared to most hard drives at the time and has proprietary SCSI connectors; adapter that allows standard SCSI drives to be used on Portable, but the price is expensive.

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Legacy

Macintosh Portable and PowerBook 100 can run Macintosh System 6.0.4 to System 7.5.5.

In May 2006, PC World rated the Macintosh Portable as the seventeenth worst technology product of all time. In contrast, MacUser magazine notes that these machines tend to remain relevant and therefore tend to have a long service life for those who buy them, reducing the total cost of ownership.

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See also

Laptops

• Outbound, compatible Mac laptop available at the same time as Portable. It's significantly smaller, cheaper, and lighter but offers a less responsive "STN LCD" touch and a less ergonomic pointer device. It is also limited to 4 MB RAM, due to the requirement that users install ROM chips from Apple machines such as Macintosh Plus.

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References

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External links

• Mac Portable profile in Low End Mac
• More images from Portable Mac
• "Macintosh Portable, 360 degree model", Russian Vintage Laptop Museum (museum)

Source of the article : Wikipedia