[6116]

So I got the above mentioned Powerbook from a friend of mine just for writing and what have you, and I was going to buy an ethernet card for it so it could talk to my desktop. I just have a few questions about it.

1)What does the cs stand for?
2)Why does the til list it as discontinued? Most other computers of the time aren't listed as such.
3)Is there anything fun that I can do with the infared thing?
4)It's a little sluggish and running OS 8.1. I was thinking of downgrading to 7.5.5 to pick up the speed a bit. Is there anything important that 8.1 gives me that 7.5.5 doesn't?

Thanks

[rjenkinson]

1. colour screen (or, if you're american, color screen)

2. the 5300 series is no longer manufactured by apple. if other older machines from the same period of time aren't listed, they should be.

3. you can run appletalk through the IR port, i think. basic network stuff like file syncronization and printing. don't expect to do anything intensive... so no games.

4. the 5300 is a slow machine, no matter what OS you're running. 8.1 might take more memory, but it does offer you better networking and HFS+. you also get the platinum theme.

-r.

I would not downgrade to OS 7.5.5. There were some serious issues with stability under all versions of system 7 on this machine. I had my hard drive go corrupt several times when running 7.6.

Trim up your system folder and go light with the apps you use. 100MHz 603e isn't as fast as it might sound!

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

The cs model had a passive matrix color (or colour) screen, so it can get a little hard on the eyes.

The 5300 was victim of a lot of design problems, one of the worst being that the power suppy connector on the logic board gets wiggly very quickly. So be careful. Apple has a special Repair Extension Program for those machines, where they replace a great deal of the plastics and the trackpad and the logic board and keep the top from cracking off.

The 100Mhz is really slow. If you aren't used to using OS 8.1, then I'd downgrade to 7.6.1 (NOT 7.6) and run that. The RAM overhead is smaller, and there isn't as much going on behind the scenes. And get enough RAM to turn off Virtual Memory in the Memory control panel. The HD in those machines were really slow, so VM slows the machine down a lot.

If you can get a 48M RAM chip, get it.

I still use my 5300 every day, with a 6G MCE drive (by Toshiba). It has an active matrix screen which is still beautiful. It's been back for the REA program three times, but only because I could spare it and I was paranoid. A friend gave it to me when he finished his dissertation, and I'm using it for mine now (along with an ibook, one for analysis and one for writing).

I've run 7.6.1 on plenty of older powerbooks (5xx, 1400, 2300, 2xx, and 5300/190s) and I've never had a problem. But you'll have to boot from CD and reinitialize the HD and update the drivers, etc. to do that. Going backwards isn't easy, but it's usually the FIRST THING I DO when I get an early machine like that.

Come on, the 5300cs had a DUAL SCAN passive display, I'll have you know :-) A friend of mine jokingly use to say that his 5300cs's display had the optional security feature (namely that it was dual scan passive matrix), so that nobody could see what was on his screen from the side (like on an airplane, etc.).

I have a 5300ce that I still use quite a bit too, although I've left the world of pokey OS 8.1 performance long behind. MkLinux runs wonderfully on it's (slightly faster) 117MHz processor, and 800X600 resolution is very nice for xwindows.

MkLinux is the ultimate upgrade.

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

My 1400s, both of them, had dual scan passive matrix color screens, and my head would be POUNDING after using them for just a few hours at a time. Not so for the active matrix models.

The 5300ce is a nice machine, still. The screens I've seen were beautiful.

[6116]

All right, here's another dumb question related to the 5300cs. I have a G4 with an Orange Micro SCSI/Serial card. Can I set up these two to talk to each other with a serial cord and turning appletalk on? I know there's got to be something else I've got to do, but all the docs I can find on Appletalk talk about Ethernet too. Thanks.

[drewman]

Go to the Appletalk control panel and select the applicable serial port, hook the two machines together using a LocalTalk cable NOT a serial cable. Or use two phone net adapters and phone wire.

Start up filesharing on one of the machines, choose AppleShare in the chooser and select the other machine.

drewman

Yes, just plug both machines together with the serial port, go to the AppleTalk control panal on both machines and set it for printer (modem) port. You'll have to have the File sharing set up on one of the machines.

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[6116]

Well, I tried it and it didn't work. After looking around on Orange Micro's site, I found this:

�* The Grappler+ SCSI /Serial board does not support AppleTalk or GeoPort devices.

Oh well. I might have to shell out for the ethernet card after all.

Rather than getting a PCMCIA ethernet card (unless you can get one cheap), I'd suggest looking for a Focous Inhansements Video/Ethernet combo internal NuBus expansion card for 190/5300. I've had one of these things installed in my 5300ce for about two years now and they work pretty well. I had to remove the standard 8-bit video out board that came standard on my machine, but I think the other models left the expansion slot empty. You get a 10BaseT ethernet and a DB-15 video connector on one dongle that connects to the expansion port on the back of the PowerBook. It looks kind of funny, but it works great. I can have 16-bit video-out and Ethernet at the same time with my model (they also made 8-bit video and plain 10BaseT Ethernet version). Small Dog Electronics (http://www.smalldog.com) had these avilable a while ago for something like $40.

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif