PowerBook 1400c/133 Help

GVPB

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Value is in the mind of the buyer. My son gave me a G3 accelerator card for that computer for Christmas one year. It is still a capable computer. Would I use it on the internet? No. Do you use the SCSI port? No. You would use a modem. But still, it is a fun laptop for a great price.

USB and firewire are nice but you can buy a G4 tower for less than any adapter and then have the bus speed and processor you need for surfing the web. If you only want to check your email, you might find some old software to get you by but Gmail will not let you configure your account on older Macs. My son had to set up my Gmail account on his newer computer before I could check my mail on a legacy mac. You will face the same problems.

If the laptop lets you type and save files to a SCSI zip drive, you can then move those files to the latest Mac using a USB zip drive, all for under $20. Just find a recycler and you are in business.

Jim

#2 I understand that you can get it online through a SCSI adaptor or something like that but what exactly do i need to buy if not SCSI then what?

Two possibilities:

a) A PCMCIA (16-bit PC Card) Ethernet adapter (must be a model with appropriate Mac drivers). Allows you to connect to a router via an Ethernet cable.

b) A PCMCIA (16-bit PC Card) Wi-Fi adapter. This web page could possibly be of interest. Would allow a wireless connection (with limited encryption, maximum WEP).

Jan

Many folks still like these PowerBooks though they are getting a bit on the old side.

I have a few in my collection and have used two types of PCMCIA adaptors.

As Jan mentions, I use a WaveLAN silver turbo card which is 802.11b for wireless though you may start running into issues with WEP encoding since this old card doesn't support newer encryptions. The only other trick for the WEP setup, you need to add 0x before your WEP password. WaveLAN driver file, apt6041i.sea under OS 9 you can run wireless with a WaveLAN silver turbo card.

The other cards I use are Global Village PowerPort Platinum which was a modem and 10T ethernet PCMCIA card. Just make sure if you get one that you get the dongle that attaches to the card and has both a telephone and RJ45 jack. Software used to still be online for these guys.

I had some odd issues with memory configurations though with these guys as well as odd issues with the G3 upgrade cards.