Thread
PowerBook 520 and 520C
I just thought I might let everyone know about my recent actual liberation, from NAU's surplus store, two members of the 500 series of PowerBooks.
These are immense machines, they're bigger, thicker, more rounded, and have in general what feels like more horsepower than the PowerBook 180. ALthough I think much of this is just overcomplication, because they both have hinge problems of varying difficulties, and while the PowerBook 180 has some battery life, neither of these machines, despite having two nice-looking batteries each, has any life in the batteries.
Anyway, configs!
The 520: 20 megs of ram, 120-ish meg hdd.
The 520c: 36 megs of ram, 1000-ish meg hdd. Modem.
Both are running system 7.5, and both are (other than the hinges and batteries) fully working. Which really surprised me, for $10-for-both from a university surplus sales store.
Once I get home for the summer I'm probably going to reformat them a bit and put clean installs of some older software on them. I might try to find the 520/520c original install discs and drop 7.1 on them, not completely sure yet.
My other project with these machines will be to fix the hinge a bit on the 520c, and to see if I can't get any life at all out of the batteries. I may also try to source a second power adapter, because right now both 520s are sharing the same adapter.
Another interesting tidbit: These machines still had user data on them, research from the French department on this campus, I believe.
I'm pretty excited about these machines and the 180, it's nice to be able to have some 68k power with me.
These are immense machines, they're bigger, thicker, more rounded, and have in general what feels like more horsepower than the PowerBook 180. ALthough I think much of this is just overcomplication, because they both have hinge problems of varying difficulties, and while the PowerBook 180 has some battery life, neither of these machines, despite having two nice-looking batteries each, has any life in the batteries.
Anyway, configs!
The 520: 20 megs of ram, 120-ish meg hdd.
The 520c: 36 megs of ram, 1000-ish meg hdd. Modem.
Both are running system 7.5, and both are (other than the hinges and batteries) fully working. Which really surprised me, for $10-for-both from a university surplus sales store.
Once I get home for the summer I'm probably going to reformat them a bit and put clean installs of some older software on them. I might try to find the 520/520c original install discs and drop 7.1 on them, not completely sure yet.
My other project with these machines will be to fix the hinge a bit on the 520c, and to see if I can't get any life at all out of the batteries. I may also try to source a second power adapter, because right now both 520s are sharing the same adapter.
Another interesting tidbit: These machines still had user data on them, research from the French department on this campus, I believe.
I'm pretty excited about these machines and the 180, it's nice to be able to have some 68k power with me.
That's awesome that you found one with the 32mb card in it!
The hinges on both of my PBs have issues too. Not necessarily the hinges, but the bezel that covers the microphone. It catches the base of the laptop sometimes when I close it and threatens to pop off.
Both of my batteries were dead on arrival as well... I simply left the machine plugged in and ran intelligent battery recondition over and over again for a few days, and now my battery meter reports almost 5 hours with both batteries inserted, or over 7 hours with the HDD spun down. It makes me wish I had a CF adapter.
The hinges on both of my PBs have issues too. Not necessarily the hinges, but the bezel that covers the microphone. It catches the base of the laptop sometimes when I close it and threatens to pop off.
Both of my batteries were dead on arrival as well... I simply left the machine plugged in and ran intelligent battery recondition over and over again for a few days, and now my battery meter reports almost 5 hours with both batteries inserted, or over 7 hours with the HDD spun down. It makes me wish I had a CF adapter.
My 540c has one, and it opens up so many more possibilities.
A bit of an update: The batteries are coming along nicely. The 520c got 70 minutes of battery life off of Batteries 1 and 2, and the 520 is claiming it's got about 2 hours and 45 minutes on batteries 3 and 4.
Here's what I know about the batteries individually so far:
1: claims only to have a capacity of 40mAH.
2: ?
3: ?
4: Non-Apple, claims a capacity of about 1720mAH.
I'm testing 3/4 now with BatteryAmnesia.
Here's what I know about the batteries individually so far:
1: claims only to have a capacity of 40mAH.
2: ?
3: ?
4: Non-Apple, claims a capacity of about 1720mAH.
I'm testing 3/4 now with BatteryAmnesia.
Best of luck with the "intelligent" (lol) batteries.