Hi folks.

I have some vintage PowerBooks lying around, one of which I believe is a 190e, with the old 68K processor and thus won't run an OS later than 8.1. Others are running OS 9.1 or 9.2.2.

I think it would be nifty to fire these puppies up even if only as Telnet clients in my Cisco study lab (I'm studying for CCNP), and I'm wondering about their networking abilities. I've got some old PCMCIA cards lying around (of especial curiosity is the Olicom OC-3221 token ring card, whose eBay seller claimed Mac compatibility except I thought only Madge made PCMCIA token-ring cards for the Mac. The card works fine in my Toshiba Tecra 8000 running Win2000 and I didn't have to load any drivers for that), so the challenge is going to be loading drivers onto the PowerBooks if that's what I have to do. I haven't found a floppy drive for any of them (the 1400c does seem to have a HDI-30 type SCSI connector, but I don't know of a Mac-compatible external floppy drive that'll connect like that).

The 1400c has an IR port as well (I don't recall if the 190e does). I've never used IR ports on anything.

So, what I'm axing here is,

1. Do I need special file transfer software like a TFTP server in order to accomplish file xfers to my OS8 and OS9 machines, or do those OSes have file transfer abilities built into them?

2. If they don't, and I need to xfer the files manually, and the machines don't have CD-ROM drives and might not even have floppy drives...well that sounds like game over, doesn't it? Or am I mising something (BESIDES buying a blamed floopy drive), like

3. PCMCIA cards that are known to work on either machine without drivers? Either Ethernet or token-ring will work; my home lab has implementations of both.

4. At a point in time when all the needed software is somehow present on the machine(s) in question, can we do a file transfer over the IR port? That would be sooooo cool.

Thanks for whatever light y'all can shed.

If you haven't already, you might want to check out MacTracker. It tells you about the various ports and networking options of these oldies much faster than Apple's Specs site can. There isn't a whole lot networkingwise you can do with the older laptops though; floppies are the best way to access them. No PCMCIA slots for miles around (hehe).

Those 3 figure PBs are cute, though, in an endearingly massive way. I've got a working PB 170 running Mac OS 7.1. Fire it up once a year, if that. But I digress...

No, you don't digress at all. I'm a retro-head. At some point I plan on having a Macintosh Portable performing some low-end server functions in my network; I shall code the server myself (like there are other options...) using MPW.

Thank you for the MacTracker info.

Anyway I tried firing up the 1400c over the weekend and it actually just wouldn't power the hell up. I know the power outlet is a working one; so what am I dealing with? What would cause a PowerBook to just not power up like at all I'm talking about?

It'll work with a non-charging battery and external power, so start with the simple things: power adapter, cord?

Yeah, tried two (2) different power adapters. Same prob.