In the early 90s, I bought my first laptop for college: a slightly used PowerBook 170 that I got for a steal. I loved that machine. It served me well for almost five years, surviving RAM and hard drive upgrades without ever letting me down.
A couple years ago, I decided it was time to restore it to its original glory. Thanks to a donor PowerBook 180 I found on eBay—dead screen, blown motherboard, but just the right parts cosmetically pristine, this machine now looks better than the day I bought it. Even the little back door that covers the ports is intact, which is surprisingly hard to find.
Restoring a 30-year-old hard drive is a bit beyond my pay grade, so I dropped in a Raspberry Pi Zero and BlueSCSI to emulate one instead. It lives in the battery bay, which perfectly preserves the stock look. (Yes, that’s gaffer’s tape. I haven’t gotten around to 3D printing a proper bracket yet.)
Having this machine running again has brought me so much joy. I’ve played some old games and even installed Ssheven, an SSH client for 68030 Macs. I wish I’d taken pictures throughout the restoration process, but this was a weekend relaxation project during my working years—documentation wasn’t the priority.
Laptops have gotten thinner, faster, and screens are incomparably better—but Apple had the fundamental form factor figured out almost thirty-five years ago.