I have had a mostly dead PowerBook 100 lying around for ages just in case I could resurrect it. And whaddya know, I picked up a second one on trade me for about $5.00 - Woohoo!!!
Stage 1 - Pull apart both 'Books and see what is under the hood:
Found: 6MB Ram card and 2400 baud fax modem in the newest purchase. One display very dark, other very good except purple star in top quarter. One base starts up with a scratchy noise and no startup chime, other starts with a chime and a hard drive whirr but can just make out a flashing '?'.
Stage 2 - Pull working components together to make one full working unit:
Connected working base with working top, installing Ram card and modem. Booted PB100: Startup chime, bright clear screen, Ram checks ok, floppy drive clicks, hard drive spins up but still only a flashing '?'.
Stage 3 - Obtain System 7.1 install floppies, format HDD and install:
And whaddya know (again) I picked up a PB180 on trade me, this time for about $1.50, and OS 7.1 on 6 floppies came with it!!! A PB100 comes with an external floppy drive that connects to a smaller version of the square SCSI port found next to its bigger cousin at the back with the rest of the I/O. Now that you know this, !@#$, I can't get either of the external FDDs or the other super drives from the semi working PB180, the definitely dead PB520 or the other 3 rescued from dead PB150s, to successfully and consistently read floppies. I have cleaned the heads but to no avail and can only assume the heads are out of alignment or something. Have to do some more research on that particular topic as a working floppy drive is essential to my restoration. Any suggestions or links for FDD repair are greatly appreciated!!!
Stage 4 - Swap out HDD with other small scsi drives in stock:
Tried both 40MB drives from the PB100s but no joy - suspect at least a format or they may just be toast (they are approx. 22 years old!). I have 3 or so 120MB drives from the PB150s but they were made by Sony and they 'decided' to go with IDE. Now I'm down to my last 2, an 80MB from the PB180 and a 160MB from the PB520 (both SCSI). The 80MB has 7.1 on it but is only a specific install for the PB180 and wont boot the PB100. The 160MB has 7.5.5 on it and does boot the PB100 - yay, finally some success. Trimmed down the system and disabled non applicable extensions and control panels. Tried a couple of applications, Word 5.1 unexpectedly quits with error type 3 - definitely need to get a working FDD and clean install everything as I don't know the condition of the system and can't run Norton Disk Doctor without a bootable floppy as well.
Upcoming stages:
- Completely pull apart both top cases and to try the other screen only with the currently working hard ware.
- Pull apart both track ball assemblies and cobble together to get a consistently working unit.
- Repair and frankenstein (only 2 of my 7 super drive FDDs are supposed to fit in the external case, hehe!) a working external floppy drive.
- Format the now internal 160MB HDD and install with OS 7.1.
- Obtain an external USB floppy drive to connect with my Clamshell iBook, running OS 9.2.2 so I can 'sneaker-net' across installers, from Macintosh Garden, to the PB100.
- Clean up the best looking plastic casing and from both PB100s and fit to create finished unit.