Egg Freckles

Tue 7/3 Apple's Most Upgradable Laptop

iFixit’s Kyle Wrens might have a lot to say about the unfixable, unhackable, and untenable nature of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, but before we get too carried away about the longevity of a $2199 investment let’s remember a time when almost every component on a Macintosh portable was upgradable, prices were steep, and PowerBooks weighed twice as much!

The PowerBook G3 Series of 1998 was Apple’s most upgradable portable computer ever. It weighed 7.8 pounds, and came in three base configurations. Starting at $2,299 U.S. for 233 MHz model with no floppy drive and a 12” screen, the PowerBook G3 Series cost around $7,000 U.S. fully loaded. Codenamed “Wallstreet” the PowerBook G3 Series was the second line of Macintosh portable computers to include a PowerPC G3 processor, and the oldest Macintosh portable capable of running Mac OS X unaided¹. Compared to the svelte lines of a modern MacBook Air, the Wallstreet more closely resembles the brute profile of a urban paving stone. The PowerBook G3 Series came with one of three different processor configurations, 233, 250, and 292 MHz with a third 300 MHz configuration added later that year. Early PowerBook G3 Series computers had the option of two different system bus speeds depending on processor frequency², and three different screen sizes using either Passive or Active Matrix TFT technology³. The abundance of configurations gave customers a greater amount of choice, but all of the available options were causing havoc for Apple’s supply lines. In September of 1998, Apple streamlined the production of PowerBook G3 Series by standardizing the bus speed at 66 MHz, and dropping the number of display options down to a single 14.1” configuration.⁴

In addition to all of the available built-to-order options, the Wallstreet also offered an impressive array of expandability. The PowerBook G3 Series included two hot swappable docking bays on either side. The left hand bay could accommodate a battery, a 3.5” floppy disk, a Iomega Zip drive, a third-party magnetic optical drive, or even a secondary hard drive. The right hand bay was larger and could accommodate all of the above plus a full size 5.25” optical drive. A small internal nickel-cadmium battery allowed swapping of the main batteries while the computer “slept,” and with two batteries installed at the same time the PowerBook G3 Series could last up to seven hours on a single charge. A maximum of 4 MBs of graphics memory limited the PowerBook G3 Series’ 3D performance, but an optional PCMCIA hardware controller made the Wallstreet the first Apple portable capable of DVD playback.

In addition to two CardBus slots, and two hot swappable bays, the PowerBook G3 Series shipped with an extensive array of ports. 10BASE-T Ethernet, ADB, Serial, VGA, S-Video⁵, Infrared, and Audio in and Out were all standard. Although the PowerBook G3 Series had no built-in WiFi to speak of, it did have an optional 56K Modem, and HDI-30 SCSI connector for fast 5 megabit connections⁶!

The PowerBook G3 series was a no compromise machine built with all of the expandability and build-to-order customizability of a desktop computer. Its removable processor card, user replaceable parts, and wide array of ports made it the most upgradable Macintosh Portable ever constructed. It was big, heavy, expensive, and prone to overheating. The wide variety of build-to-order options made keeping parts in stock difficult, and supporting the vast number of possible configurations frustrating. In the end PowerBook G3 Series customers got the most future proof laptop money could buy, but no matter the number of hot swappable bays, or CardBus slots, technology moved on⁷.

The Wallstreet was the last PowerBook with an Old World ROM, and this combined with a low memory ceiling of 512 MBs kept it from running later versions of Mac OS X past 10.2.8. Discontinued in May 1999, the PowerBook G3 Series would be the last Apple computer ever to use the rainbow-colored Apple logo, and the last Mac to support Apple’s 1.44 MB Superdrive. It wwas replaced by the PowerBook G3 “Bronze Keyboard,” which was 20% thinner, two pounds lighter, and easier to produce at half the price.

The MacBook Pro with Retina Display may not be upgradable, and it is certainly not future proof, but nothing in technology ever is. For those looking for a more upgradable laptop, might I suggest last year’s model. Tomorrow’s devices will always be, thinner, faster, lighter, with less bays, and fewer ports. That is the way is now, and that is the way it has always been.