I restored the WORST laptop Apple ever made

sometimes it's a fun challenge to pick up a broken vintage computer and spend the time and effort getting it fully restored but this time well this time it simply wasn't worth [Music] [Music] it at first glance this Macintosh PowerBook 150 appeared to have a pretty typical PR broken Plastics around one of the screen hinges I've seen this several times before and fixing it is usually pretty straightforward I delicately opened the lid to prevent further damage and found that the pressure from the screen had caused the keyboard to get bent so that's something else to add to the list of things to fix a pair of torque screws hold the bezel on the screw cover was missing on the right side but was easy enough to pry out on the left then I carefully popped the bezel free since it's clipped to the rear display cover and we already know the Plastics on this thing have gotten brittle with age if I'm lucky there won't be any further damage I had to remove the LCD panel in order to free the rear housing it's secured with four torque screws around its perimeter conveniently almost all the Fasteners in this machine use a T8 screwdriver I flipped the LCD onto the keyboard and the housing came right on off the threaded inserts for the right hinge are toast the plastic around them crumbled so the metal hinge has nothing to secure to and can cause the housing to pry apart this can often also cause the screw hole in the bezel to break and that's happened here too there isn't any damage to the left side but it's just as likely to have failed let's check out the rest of the machine for problems I PRI out the battery which is likely dead and found that it's beginning to swell in one corner I plugged in The PowerBook and held up the screen to find out if it would boot but I couldn't see anything on the display the brightness control worked but the contrast slider did nothing this felt to me like a problem with the LCD so I got its cables disconnected these panels have a series of capacitors on their control boards and being over 30 years old they've likely failed they're in an interesting package these are Electro IC caps mounted on their sides inside rectangular plastic casings I didn't see any obvious signs of leakage but that doesn't always happen when a cap fails so the best course of action is to replace them all anyway to reduce my chances of melting it I decided to remove the plastic frame this just involved bending back some metal tabs then I could lift it away it was simple enough to desolder the old caps under the microscope and while doing so I did get a couple whiffs of the fishy smell that indicates they've started leaking so this work was definitely warranted these kind of Parts aren't being made anymore so the next best option are tantalum caps which have to be tiny in order to span the solder pads after cleaning those pads I somehow managed to pull off getting the new caps installed I was feeling pretty good about the repair the work certainly wasn't perfect but there weren't any shorts I was reasonably confident the LCD would work again but while I had my soldering tools out I decided to disassemble the rest of the PowerBook to see if any other rework needed to be done the 100 series machines are pretty serviceable with just four screws on the bottom and one on the back by the optional modem Port this one usually has cracked plastic around it so I wasn't surprised then the top half lifts up and you can carefully reach in and release the single ribbon cable connecting it to the bottom I was happy with what I saw the motherboard shouldn't need any work since it came with tantalum capacitors from the factory which don't leak like electrolytic ones but I flipped over the top case and saw that the clock or Pam battery had started leaking it's mounted to this interconnect board that the display keyboard and track ball also attached to and it's labeled Jedi which was The PowerBook 150s internal code name at Apple those ribbon cables needed to be dis connected so I could get the board out for a closer look a pair of screws hold in the display inverter board which plugs into the interconnect and then the interconnect itself can be unscrewed and carefully Pride free since there's an adhesive gasket around the speaker with it out we can see the extent of the leakage it's actually not too bad and should be possible to clean up I got the battery clipped out and the interconnect board didn't look too horrible either there seemed to be some mild corrosion but as far as I could tell it was only on the traces for the speaker which probably explains why I didn't get a chime when the machine powered on so I temporarily plugged everything back in to see if the LCD was working again but like before nothing on screen and only the brightness control worked the hard drive was making some sad sounds and I thought it might be interfering with the computer booting so I disconnected it but nope no difference I noticed there was an electrolytic cap on the inverter board which also controls the display contrast it was probably worth replacing so I PRI it up with a spudger so I could read its values and then this happened some glue applied at the factory to hold the cap to the board had also gotten on this coil so when the cap came free it took one leg of the coil with it there wasn't enough left sticking out for me to or two and there weren't any markings on it so I could order a replacement I got the mad scientist idea of undoing just one winding of the coil this wouldn't affect its value appreciably but while soldering it back in I failed to remember the connector right next to it and ended up melting it finding replacement parts for this PowerBook is a challenge any places that bother to list them are usually out of stock and entire computers sold for parts are often unjustifiably expensive thankfully my friend Jake was able to hook me up with another machine well at least part of one but it had one I needed so I got it torn down its interconnect board looked to be in much better shape the inverter board I needed was there too so I got them both removed for closer inspection the battery had only just started to leak which meant the traces were still clean and I got it snipped out right away I quick quickly hooked it up to my original motherboard and Screen plugged in the power and the display came to life the power book was clearly trying to boot which was a very good sign that meant it was time to deal with the broken Plastics in addition to the right hinge and screw hole in the display bezel there was also a standoff for the LCD that had gotten snapped off I was able to 3D print replacements for all of these and I'll include the link in the video description installing these part involve snipping away the broken plastic then sanding the area smooth I used a piece of sandpaper in a Clos pin to save my fingers and act as a sanding block it's tedious work but the flatter the surface the better the results only the right hinge standoffs had broken but the left side is just as likely to fail so I decided to replace those as well it's important to keep these brass inserts as they get reused with the new brackets I clean the area then prepared to glue the new parts into place I've had good luck with Superglue mint for Plastics it includes an accelerator which just wipes on then I use tweezers to hold the part while applying the glue proper alignment is very important but even with the accelerator you still get a few seconds to adjust things before the glue takes hold the left bracket is different from the right in that it has a channel for the display ribbon Cable in the middle otherwise it gets glued in the same way I also took care of the broken LCD standoff along with the screw hole in the front bezel then I used my soldering iron to heat stake the brass inserts into the N brackets a normal tip works fine for this but fellow YouTuber Stefon from CNC kitchen came up with dedicated tips just for this task these are a great idea while the glue finish setting up I turned to reassembling the top case I decided to use the one from the parts machine since it was cleaner in in better shape and had a keyboard without a big dent in it I had to remove the remains of a broken screen standoff with pliers and a screwdriver but the hinges themselves looked good one of the hinge covers was missing but it was simple enough to pop one off the other top case and gingerly snap it into place time to get the display back together I got the rear housing screwed into the hinges being careful to Route the display ribbon and backlight cables through the cutouts in the new brackets then I could reconnect the panel and flip it up but not before remembering to reinstall the shielding which goes between the housing and the hinge the LCD got screwed in next and my replacement standoff in the corner seemed to be holding strong the bezel is a little fiddly to align and clip in properly but once that was done I could put in the last two screws being careful to not overtighten them the new top case came without a track ball so I transferred it over then came the the question of what to do about the hard drive in an effort to cut cost Apple had gone with an IDE Drive In The PowerBook 150 instead of the usual scuzzy this is a 120 MB unit from Quantum and with the noises it was making earlier it's on its way out annoyingly the ribbon cable covers one of the screws that secures it so you have to pry it from its adhesive on the floppy drive and flip it up but you also can't unplug the drive side of the cable without removing the drive first because another one of the screw posts blocks it whatever I got the drive out and the cable detached I removed the mounting tray so I could transfer it over to this another 3D printed bracket holding a compact flash to IDE adapter a 4 GB card is a bit excessive for this machine but should be just fine and I've done similar swaps in other PowerBook models before with good results while I was here I also fixed a little problem with the floppy Drive its door had gotten out of alignment and just needed its hinge sorted finally it was time to finish reassembly the top case hinged into place while I fished around to connect the main ribbon cable then I got the screws put back in with extra care taken to keep the Plastics around the modem Port from getting any worse I plugged the machine in to confirm everything was connected properly and while the screen still worked I realized that the mouse pointer wasn't moving okay maybe there's something wrong with the track assembly so I took the power book apart again and swapped over the unit from the original top case it's just two screws and a ribbon cable but after getting the machine together it still didn't work back in again to take a closer look the ribbon cable for the track ball is part of the keyboard so I needed to try replacing that next it's a bummer because this keyboard is in way better cosmetic shape than the original but functionality is more important for reasons we'll get into later I was able to flatten out the bends and the keyboard sufficiently and get it installed and that was thankfully enough to fix it the track ball was working now I took the opportunity to peel the labels off the power books lid then dealt with the battery I didn't want to put it back in but I also didn't want to leave the compartment open I wanted the machine to look cosmetically complete with some gentle prying it's possible to remove the cover from the pack itself and then snap it onto the laptop it's a bummer this was a design feature that Apple's later computers dropped to get an OS installed on this thing I turned like I usually do to my external blue scuzzy but it has a 25 pin connector while The PowerBook used a square Port known as HDI 30 one of these adapters is super handy to have especially since it can also handle scuzzy disc mode that doesn't really matter here as in another bit of Apple cost cutting The PowerBook 150 doesn't support that feature but no worries the blue scuzi is bootable so after plugging it in and turning the laptop on it didn't want to boot from it the blue scuzi has a pair of indicator LEDs for power and activity but they were both dark oh yeah that's right for even more cost cutting Apple removed scuzzy termination power from the 15 so I had to take the blue scuzzy out of its case so I could plug in a micro USB C cable and power it externally that got it to wake up but the power book still wouldn't boot from it there was no Drive activity apparently the scuzzy adapter itself also needs termination power in order to work so I had to replace it with this stupid big cable instead finally the blue scuzzy was working I needed to format the compact flash card so I turned to the usual tool for doing this drive setup but after thinking for for a bit it didn't detect the drive only the blue scuzzy Apple had gotten away from custom firmware when it switched to IDE drives but I tried a patched version of Drive setup anyway and it didn't pick it up either after digging for a bit I found a document that explained what was going on The PowerBook 150 has an IDE controller unlike those in other models again likely because it was cheaper so you have to use a different formatting program called internal HD format it's the only machine that requires that program the others can also use Drive setup so fine I launched it and it didn't find the CF card either what was going on Vintage Max don't really care about the whole fixed versus removable device thing when it comes to compact flash cards but I tried swapping in a different one set for fixed mode anyway that was a waste of time as the format utility still didn't pick it up after a lot more research I uncovered the reason why and it's very dumb long story short The PowerBook 150s IDE controller won't see any compact flash card as a usable device it's possible to modify one of those CF card adapters to work around this but it involves custom circuit boards and other shenanigans that frankly just aren't worth it problem is I've had a lot of laptop IDE drives die on me lately so there was only one left in my stash this 30 GB model from Hitachi I wasn't sure it would work and none of the screw holes in the driv tray lined up but I was losing patience with this project and just wanted to wrap it up once the machine booted I was greeted with what looked like a good sign it offered to format the drive to its full size I went in to type a name but found that the T key on the keyboard didn't work because of course it didn't fine the drive got formatted and I went to install system 7.1 it seemed to be working but then through an error about problems with the disc sorry I'll teach you to be sorry you breathe okay this one's because System 7 can't recognize a volume this big depending on the version you're running you're limited to either 2 or 4 gbt a workaround is to partition the drive into smaller volumes but yeah yeah the only formatting tool that works on this laptop doesn't offer that feature to say The PowerBook 150 is an underwhelming computer is a bit of an understatement it's frankly a piece of not just now but when it was new at its launch in July 1994 it was meant to be an affordable option in Apple's laptop lineup and its price point of about $1,400 us was pretty compelling problem is to hit that price too many corners had to be cut its 9 1/2 in LCD offered a resolution of 640x 480 but it was a passive Matrix panel with the typical ghosting and only displayed four Shades of Gray it was slow Too Apple was moving to adopt the new Power PC processor across its lineup and had been putting Motorola slower but still respectable 68040 CPUs in computers for several years but it went with a 33 MHz 68030 chip from the late 80s instead which made the 150 the last computer the company would ship with that processor normally booting from a blue scuzzi takes only a few seconds on other models but on this one it's no faster than the original mechanical Drive probably was while Apple had moved on when it came to its industrial design the 150 continued using the same form factor as the other 100 series models which had been in produced 3 years prior compared to The PowerBook 500 series that had launched just a couple months earlier in May of 94 the 150 looked dated right off the bat while working inside the machine I noticed a number of components with stickers that referenced Acer part numbers that's because Apple had contracted with Acer to build the 150 which was cheaper than if Apple had done it themselves the machine came with 4 MB of RAM on board and could be expanded to a total of 36 using the same kind of modules as seen in Apple's Powerbook Duo line and that's because the 150s motherboard was based on the duo architecture again to save money but this also led to other bizarre design limitations such as the port selection other than the power input the only other connections on the machine are for the optional modem scuzzy and a single serial Port there's no way to connect a monitor speakers or get this even an external keyboard or Mouse if you didn't like what the computer had built in tough luck and that's why I had to get the track ball working some people did come up with Creative Solutions to a couple of these limitations a company called sigma7 systems offered its PB serial adapter which plugged into where the modem went and offered a second serial Port it's also possible to hack in an ADB port for keyboard and mouse but you have to solder wires to the main interconnect interface on the motherboard and find somewhere on the case to install the connector with all this in mind The PowerBook 150 gives off similar Vibes to another malign Apple laptop the 12-in MacBook from 2015 that computer is Infamous for its poor performance horrible reliability with its so-called butterfly keyboard and the fact it only included a single USBC Port but as far as I'm concerned the 150 is worse if for no other reason than the fact you can at least use an external monitor keyboard and mouse with the MacBook if you wanted the ravages of time have of course presented their own problems what with failing capacitors and brittle Plastics having to do so much restoration work for such a subpar computer just adds insult to injury for a select few committed collectors having a PowerBook one 50 could be a worthwhile goal but for anyone else just looking to pick up a vintage Mac laptop to have fun with well pretty much any other model is a better choice if you liked watching me suffer I'd appreciate a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe here's another video you should check out and as always thanks for [Music] watching

Channel: This Does Not Compute

Views: 156,543

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Id: ltCdM2x9cYk

Length: 21min 3sec (1263 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024