Man, I normally balk at Apple nostalgia but those early PowerBook designs are pure sex. I wasn't very fond of the iBook designs and the G4 redesign was... sketchy, at best. The PowerBook was such a statement piece by comparison - everything about it just feels like it's ready for business, and the build was superb. Almost makes me wish Apple had the confidence to split their laptop offerings into "art workstation" models and "professional-ass UNIX machines" a-la PowerBook.
I remember using laptops before the PowerBook. The keyboards were always pushed all the way forward with a large gap between the keyboard and the hinge for the screen. The laptops were thick and there was often an inch or more height difference between the keyboard and the desk.
I thought if only they pushed the keyboard back the would be a palm rest.
Apple’s PowerBook was the first computer that I knew of moved the keyboard back. And Apple had the first nicely integrated mouse.
When the ThinkPad was introduced a year or two later, it copied the keyboard placement on some (all?) of its keyboards. And I preferred the TrackPoint to Apple’s trackballs and trackpads. Although over time and many improvements I came to like the trackpad more.
It accommodated left-handed users (like me) with a relocatable trackball, something Asus hasn't thought of in the ZenBook Pro, or I might have considered one.
Relatively slim and light for the time, a relatively crappy passive-matrix display, but that meant it was usably slim and light and didn't need 5kg of lead-acid battery.
Okay, that is helpful context. The first portable computer I actually owned was a first-gen Macbook in 2006; these earlier machines I used only briefly or observed from afar, so I don't have nearly as much of a picture of how the timeline of them fit together.
Though of course, it makes sense despite Thinkpads existing in one form or another since 1991, they've also evolved a lot over three decades.
The original PowerBook design was actually made by IBM, so it's hard to say they "copied" the design. Plus, great artists don't copy in the first place...
There is a nostalgia about early Powerbooks, as they brought a lot of practical design choices people take for granted today.
IBMs Thinkpad line was driven more by market pressure from Compaq much later. Again, far from perfect.. but arguably an order of magnitude better than other options at the time.
Most relatively great platforms remain around years later. =)
I bought a pricy 1999 PowerBook G3 to run Linux, and it was an excellent little computer. At the time there wasn't much out there with the same build quality. 1024x768 display, built-in Ethernet, and a SCSI port! I mapped a couple of Mac-special keys near the touch pad to mouse2 and mouse3 and it was perfectly usable with X11.
Used it for 5 or more years before switching to a ThinkPad.
The G4 redesign predates Mac OS X, the “professional-ass UNIX machines” you’re celebrating all ran classic MacOS. Not to disabuse you of your preferred nostalgia, but they were all “art workstations”. If I could pinpoint the introduction of a “professional-ass UNIX machine” made by Apple, it would probably be the original unibody MBPs before they were shrunk and soldered in the first gen Retina models.
It's true that the G4 processor was introduced in 1999, before OS X was even in beta. But I think OS X was the default installation on all Macs from 10.2 in around 2002 at the latest.
The aluminium Powerbooks and iBook G4s were introduced during 2003 and ran OS X exclusively. You can get them to boot OS9, but only via hacks that haven't become available until recent years. And of course, no x86 machine ever ran OS 9 in any form, so setting Apple's transition to "UNIX machines" with unibodies in 2008 - two years after the Intel shift, and five years after that's the only OS Apple actually shipped - seems a bit strange.
> It's true that the G4 processor was introduced in 1999, before OS X was even in beta.
While it's true the beta of OS X as a desktop OS wasn't released until September 2000 [0], OS X Server 1.0 was released into "production" (limited though it may be) in March 1999 [1], which preceded the first G4's release in August 1999 [2].
Predates Cheetah by two months, not Mac OS X. If you want to get super pedantic, Mac OS X is a continuation of NeXTSTEP which is partially based on 4.3BSD-Tahoe, but there were also the Betas including the Public Beta from September 2000 which Apple would have happily sold you for $29.95.
I don’t think there’s anything in particular about the Unibody MBP’s feature set that makes it more of a “professional-ass UNIX machine” than even say, the Pismo PowerBooks though other than about a decade’s worth of iterative improvements. They could all run Terminal, PhotoShop, PERL and AppleScript. It’s the software that defines them, and a MacBook Pro from the unibody era could also be reasonably called a “professional-ass NT machine” if you were primarily booting Windows on it.
I remember delaying an update for almost a year based on the rumors about the unibody design was coming. That MacBook then lasted almost 8 years for me!
Obviously they weren't truly licensed UNIX machines, but System 8 was quite capable in it's own right. Personally I like Apple hardware a lot more their their software, but the PowerBook at least shipped with one of the better Mac OSes.
It’s interesting to see how their devices evolved from insanely modular to putting everything on one big board. I highly doubt we’ll see it but I’d love to see a fatter MacBook Pro that is fully modular.
(I've owned and used Powerbooks and MacBooks from the beginning -- I had a Powerbook 100, the 16 mhz 68000 with a lead acid battery. Used a 140 and 170 of that era as well. And a Duo230, and a 5300, and a Duo 2300, Tibook G4, White x86 Macbook, 2012 era Air and MBP, 2015 MBPs, a work 2017 MBP, Last x86 Air, M1 Air).
Early machines had a lot of flex. The hinges creaked. The trackball gummed up. Some of their keyboards were good (the 140 and 170 especially had _really_ nice mechanical keyboards, and a good trackball as well). And some of the keyboards were mushy goo (the Duos, and the Tibook to a lesser extent. Basically the low point till the 2016 MBP). Despite the magnesium frames in the duo, the whole computer could flex enough that the battery would disconnect while in use. Also, the Duos were a royal pain to repair -- I remmeber an hour or more to disassemble to get to one little piece in the back that needed replaced -- I think it was a serial port.
The spring loaded keyboard on the G4 (and the toilet seat ibooks) was great from a maintenance POV, because you could get into the innards really easily to replace memory, drives, etc. But the keyboards on the unibody are soooo much better.
The Tibook was an inflection point where the machines started lasting me more than a couple of years. Some of that was probably usage patterns (having a desktop for the heavy lifting), and some was build quality (and possibly, some was buying a top of the line machine for the first time). But even then, the Tibook has wear that the newer machines just don't show -- the paint on the frame rubbed/chipped off at the wrist rests. The body over the dvd would flex and rub on the spinning disk. The 2012 Air was basically the platonic ideal of a laptop at the time, and it worked in its form for 5+ years, only really being put out to pasture when Xcode demanded too much from it.
The unibody MBP was probably the closest to what you'd expect from a modular MBP these days, but it took a lot more futzing because of it. The SATA drive cable rubs on the frame due to flex, giving it a lifespan of a few years, even for pampered machines.
The unibody and shift away from moving parts really did do wonders for Mac laptop durability in day to day usage.
This naturally affects the conditions these machines are available in on the used market. Any of the pre-TiBook plastic models are likely to have cracked plastic with bits that have chipped off due to growing brittle with age. PowerBook G3s are likely to have their exteriors scratched up. Fruit flavored iBooks commonly have parts missing. As you noted, TiBooks have big problems with paint chipping and had bad hinges.
Once you get into the aluminum models things improve quite a lot… the PowerBook G4s and MacBook Pro’s, both pre and post unibody can easily be found in great condition. The counterpart white plastic iBook G3s/G4s and MacBooks also fared better, but are sometimes subject to yellowing. These generally don’t have mechanical issues and usually just need to have their spinning rust swapped out for an SSD and a thermal paste change to get them running nicely again.
That said, the pre-unibody alu Powerbooks and white plastic iBooks/MacBooks are a pain in the butt to work on. So many screws. If one doesn’t have much patience for that kind of thing and doesn’t explicitly need PowerPC one of the unibody MBPs with at least a Core 2 Duo is a no brainer when selecting an old Mac to tinker with.
The power connectors got better -- from the standard DC barrel (weak) to a hybrid RCA/headphone jack thingy (stout, but rough on the cord) to the magsafe, where now it's just the cables that go bad.
The ports got better too -- I killed a couple of the old RS422 serial ports on the duo (printer/modem port), but none of the USBs have ever gotten knocked off the board. At least with the duo, the dock connector had a big physical latch separate from the massive electrical connector.
Ahh yes how could I forget MagSafe. That was a huge improvement.
I’ve seen some people modding old thinkpads to use USB-C for charging instead of those old barrel connectors that love to get loose over time and break. I wonder how practical it would be to do that for pre-MagSafe PowerBooks/MacBooks.
Trackballs are great, but the reality is they are bulky. It was probably best to switch to a touchpad. Those of us who are interested in other pointing devices can always bring one along.
