[geeks] Powerbooks

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 11:57:09AM -0500, Big Endian wrote:
> probably.  The 1400s are *NICE* machines, built like a tank, easy to 
> open up and replace anything that might fail (usually due to 
> *EXTREME* abuse).
> 
> What SCM and MCL?

SCM is a scheme environment.  It has a MacOS port that appears to possible
be decent.  There are other scheme ports, but they don't get maintained
very well.  The downside is that it doesn't appear to support quickdraw.

There is MacGambit though, that supports quick draw. 

Anyway, MCL is Mac Common Lisp.  

> >Well, I don't know what my budget is.  In large part that depends on how 
> >much
> >books end up costing.  I'm fairly sure that this machine isn't going to
> >actually sell for $300.  More like $400-$500 is my guess, which is 
> >certainly
> >out of my budget since my book budget is $500 with room for another $100 if
> >need be.  Looks very nice though.  Certainly has a lot of features that I
> >don't really need.  For what I need, a maxed out 540c is good enough, 
> >although
> >I suspect that I'd really regret the lack of coprocessor.
> 
> A 540C is a little old to run anything but 3.x browsers (newer ones 
> require a PPC usually)  They do have PPC 540cs but they are hard to 
> come by.

One could always backport Mozilla.  It might run decently if one took the 
galleon approach.

> >BTW, has any used the 1400cs machines?  I don't think I really want a color
> >passive screen, but I keep hearing these are far superior to the average
> >passive screen.  Any comments?
> 
> I've used passive powerbook screens before and they weren't that bad 
> (270c)  and I can only assume that they got better by the time the 
> 1400 came out.

Well, I should look into taking one for a test drive.  Passive color screens
in the [win|lin]tel world really suck.  I'm not sure I really could stand
going back to a black and white display.  I have nothing against black and
what displays, it's just on notebooks they tend to be grey and grey displays,
and I don't want that.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd