5 Dec
2005
5 Dec
'05
10:13 a.m.
Well, a local FreeCycler in my area is giving up a
working mac
powerbook 5300 series (trying to find out if it is the better/more
loaded 'ce' version). I'm thinking of picking it up since it also
comes with power supply and spare battery that the owner says is good.
Can anyone tell me their experiences with such a machine? I believe
it meets the 10yr rule (or is close to meeting it) as the 5300 line
was out in 1995. Does it take standard PC (PCMCIA) cards or does it
take mac variant PC cards? What is it's upgrade path? Can the OS be
upped to something more recent/stable (as I've been told it started
off with an OS 7.2.x version that was horrible)? Would Linux be a
better choice over mac OS 9.x/10.x on it? Just looking for first hand
experiences/knowledge.
Ah, the 5300. I had one for a few months which was supposed to be my backup
laptop, but I got an iBook instead and my 1400 is now my backup. I ended up
finding the 5300 a new one and the owner is very happy with it.
It takes standard 16-bit PCMCIA. NO CARDBUS! Drivers are required, however.
For my 5300 I used an EtherLink III PCMCIA card and the driver I maintain
here: http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/mac/enet3c589/
It has no real upgrade path, unlike the 1400 that can be upgraded all the way
to a G3. You can upgrade the RAM with a single proprietary stick, and there
are still occasionally used sticks or NOS sticks for sale.
The OS can be maxed to 9.1, but I don't recommend this -- too slow on the 603,
and you will need a "lot" (read: at least 32MB) of RAM. Plus, you'd need to
turn VM on even with the RAM near maximum, and this slows it down more. On
the 5300, I wouldn't exceed 8.1.
It won't ever run OS X -- not possible. The NuBus machines aren't supported
by it. For the same reason, it cannot run NetBSD -- it *may* run NuBus Linux,
but its hardware support may be spotty. When I had my 5300, I ran 8.1 (and
it had 48MB of RAM).
It's a nice little PowerBook, but be aware of its limits. The 1400 is my
favourite of that range, because it has a G3 option, a fantastic keyboard,
stackable RAM slots, CD-ROM and (1400c) a wonderful active matrix screen.
Nevertheless, the 5300 is still very capable within its operating range.
--
--------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ ---
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Maybe this world is another planet's hell. -- Aldous Huxley ----------------