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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... sketc

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.

mikepurvis 4y ago
What is it you particularly like? The base aesthetics to my eye look very similar to long-standing Thinkpad design language.
- Joel_Mckay 4y ago
  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. =)
- leejoramo 4y ago
  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.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    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...
    - eyesee 4y ago
      It was Sony, not IBM. They built the PowerBook 100 based on Apple’s 150 and 170 models.
      - lproven 4y ago
        You are right, it was Sony. But it was not based on the 170, as that launched in 1994, 3 years later. I think the models that influenced it were the 140 and 170, both from 1991, and much chunkier than the 100.
  - mikepurvis 4y ago
    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.
  - lproven 4y ago
    I think it's crucial to point out that while this is 100% true, it wasn't Apple's idea. It was Sony's. Apple co-designed the first PowerBook, the PB 100, with Sony. Apple's original concept for a "laptop" was no-compromise, with the first active-matrix LCD... but it was the size of a small suitcase. https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_portable.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_porta... 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. Sony took that design and turned it into this: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_powerbook100.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_power... 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. The history is mentioned here: https://lowendmac.com/1991/powerbook-100/ https://lowendmac.com/1991/powerbook-100/
eyelidlessness 4y ago
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.
- rvense 4y ago
  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.
  - npongratz 4y ago
    > 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]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4#PowerPC_7400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4#PowerPC_7400
- SllX 4y ago
  > The G4 redesign predates Mac OS X 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.
sterwill 4y ago
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.

mikepurvis 4y ago

What is it you particularly like? The base aesthetics to my eye look very similar to long-standing Thinkpad design language.

Joel_Mckay 4y ago
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. =)
leejoramo 4y ago
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.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  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...
  - eyesee 4y ago
    It was Sony, not IBM. They built the PowerBook 100 based on Apple’s 150 and 170 models.
    - lproven 4y ago
      You are right, it was Sony. But it was not based on the 170, as that launched in 1994, 3 years later. I think the models that influenced it were the 140 and 170, both from 1991, and much chunkier than the 100.
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  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.
- lproven 4y ago
  I think it's crucial to point out that while this is 100% true, it wasn't Apple's idea. It was Sony's. Apple co-designed the first PowerBook, the PB 100, with Sony. Apple's original concept for a "laptop" was no-compromise, with the first active-matrix LCD... but it was the size of a small suitcase. https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_portable.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_porta... 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. Sony took that design and turned it into this: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_powerbook100.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/specs/mac_power... 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. The history is mentioned here: https://lowendmac.com/1991/powerbook-100/ https://lowendmac.com/1991/powerbook-100/

eyelidlessness 4y ago

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.

rvense 4y ago
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.
- npongratz 4y ago
  > 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]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4#PowerPC_7400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4#PowerPC_7400
SllX 4y ago
> The G4 redesign predates Mac OS X 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.

sterwill 4y ago

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.