Is the PowerBook 5300 the worst Macintosh Laptop of All Time?

 As I've mentioned in a previous post, I got a large number of laptops from a friend in April.  I've been slowly working through the stack, sorting, categorizing and organizing.

There are several types of PowerBooks that I've never seen or worked on before, including PowerBook 500 series and PowerBook 190 and 5300 series machines.  I didn't even have a Power Adapter for the 190 / 5300 series machines, so although there were 9 total machines in the lot, I could not do power on testing.  I was able to find an original Power Adapter on eBay for a reasonable price, and so I purchased it knowing that having the ability to work on and test the machines (even one at a time) would justify the expense.  Also, I was hoping to reverse engineer it a bit to see how to make a cheaper power adapter from parts since these are of a type and vintage that's getting harder to find.

When the power supply arrived, I started doing intake on these machines.  It was exciting to go through all the machines and see how many would start and what kind of condition they were in.  To make a long story short I was able to get 3 working PowerBook 5300s and one working PowerBook 190 out of this lot.  There are also several more functional screens and some housing parts, but not enough parts to build another working computer.

It's been fun to work with these machines.  I find that the "last of" machines are often as interesting as the "first of".  In this case the PowerBook 190 is the last of the 68K Macintosh PowerBooks, and the 5300 is the first PowerPC based PowerBook.  The 190 didn't have an active matrix LCD so that makes for a compromised experience, but I've quite enjoyed working on the 5300s as these are all Active Matrix screens.  I know the 5300 has a reputation for being the worst Macintosh Laptop computer ever released, but I really enjoyed working with them, perhaps because of my lowered expectations.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about these machines is how easy it is to service them.  These really were designed with service in mind, and it doesn't take that long to strip one down to parts.  For two of the four machines, I had to do a main logic board swap because the metal frames had been broken and it really didn't take that much time.

The PowerBook 190 / 5300 machines use a standard 24V supply with less than 2A draw.  They also use a small barrel jack which is center positive.  The barrel jack has a 3.8 mm OD, which appears to be a standard size but it's recessed into the body of the laptop in a hole that has only a 6.6 mm diameter. All of the field replaceable barrel jacks that I can find online have an 8 or 9 mm housing for the wires that will not fit inside the recessed hole on the Macintosh.  I have not been able to find an off the shelf connector that will work.  I looked through my stash of saved adapters and cut off adapter ends, and I found only one over-molded connector with the right jack dimensions, but I had to shave down the outside of the connector with a razor knife before it would fit in the recessed hole.  Let me know if you are aware of another work around, or a source of inexpensive 190/5300 compatible power adapters?

The next unresolved challenge is the battery compartment.  I certainly don't want to put used batteries back into the machine, but all of these machines have a gaping hole were the battery is supposed to go in.  One of the things that I like about the PowerBook 1xx series is that the battery door can be removed from the cells and replaced on the machine to create a finished look without batteries present in the machine.  This battery pack lacks that feature.  I did test the one 3400 series battery that I have and it fits in the case.  I think the best solution here would be to 3D scan the housing of that battery and 3D print an empty shell of this size to fit, just like the "Weight Saving Device" for later machines.  Unfortunately, I do not have access to a 3D scanner.  Any other ideas?  Let me know in the comments below, and in the meantime, it's off to the 68KMLA forums for me to do some reading!