With all the hullabaloo last week overthe fresh MacBook , it seems only proper and proper that today Think Retro turns its attention to Apple ’s original superlight laptop computer , the PowerBook Duo .
The Duo is well in my top five best-loved Apple computers of all time because the whole concept is just so intensely pleasing . allow me explain .
PowerBook Duos were pocket-sized , light , capable laptop data processor . in reality , I need to caveat all of that ! It was still nearly an in and a half thick , and at 4.2 pounds , it nevertheless weighed more than two of the new MacBooks . And even though the last exemplar got one of the spangly new PowerPC processor , they were definitely both slow even by the measure of the day and they did n’t even have a floppy drive far less a CD - ROM or Ethernet . But the material joy and genius of the PowerBook Duo is that you could either impound one to a small portable dock or , best of all , slide it into a big desktop bob , and by adding port , extra storage and features , it transform into a extremely useable background system .
The papa of these docking systems was the Duo Dock , a big lawsuit the sizing of a traditional desktop computer . The musical theme was that you ’d have a monitor on top of it , and a keyboard , mouse , printer and web for good attached to it , all just sitting waiting for you to slue the PowerBook Duo in . Once you did , your Duo was immediately connected not just to all this material but also to the Dock ’s internal floppy drive , NuBus enlargement slots , and a 2d hard phonograph recording , as well as optional features that gave it more processing grunt : a float Point Unit , grade 2 stash and more VRAM to force self-aggrandizing monitors with more coloration . The Duo Dock would also , of course , rouse the Duo ’s internal assault and battery .
When you were done , you just ejected the PowerBook Duo — and I do have in mind “ ejected ” . Pressing the eject clit on the front would move you to pull through work , shut down the PowerBook , then physically push it out of the front of the Duo Dock just as if the whole laptop was an oversized floppy disk . Indeed , gloriously , just as there were slots next to floppy drives into which you could insert a straightened gem clip to force - boot out a recalcitrant phonograph record , so too was there a manual eject button for the laptop itself on the Duo Dock !
In fact , really you should n’t really cogitate of it as a laptop at all . What the couplet organisation really was was a background political machine that gave you the selection of taking the crucial bits with you when you bewilder up from your desk , and I intend there ’s something very appealing about that idea even today . You could debate , of course of study , that what you were need with you with the PowerBook Duo was a compromise need by the limitations of the technology of the sidereal day , and that today our portable computers do n’t need to have the same compromises thanks to advances both in wireless engineering and in the powerandpower demands of modern processor .
Still — and this is likely just my age — I find there ’s something just kind of right and enduringly exciting about this PowerBook and its Duo Dock . There ’s a bit in Douglas Adams’sThe Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxywhere the exotic Ford Prefect and Earth mankind Arthur Dent regain themselves on a particular place ship having been throw backward in prison term by a million years or more . “ To [ their eyes ] , the most remarkable affair about the ship ’s bridgework was not the fifty animal foot diameter hemispherical dome which brood it , [ and nor ] was it the bewildering array of instrument that crowded the retentive circumferential rampart around them . To Arthur this was exactly what starship were traditionally supposed to look like , and to Ford it looked soundly antiquated . ”
I often think of that line when I ’m mount lyrical about old tech . As a termination , presumptively , of this poppycock being the technology I first really see , understood and interacted with , it usually seems that these old ways of doing things , and that these previous computers ’ bulky , swooping forms are just somehow correct and inevitable . Even though a MacBook has immensely more big businessman than the PowerBook Duo , and does n’t demand the crutch of off - plank coprocessors and so on , I will forever miss the dorky excitement of clunking an entire laptop computer into a desktop case , and ejecting it like a VHS cassette when I ’m done . It ’s what computing equipment aresupposedto be like !
I have a few Duos , and get me tell you that while I love them to bits , one thing you notice is that Apple ’s fit and finish has , shall we say , improved markedly since their introduction in the other ’ 90s . The whole keyboard plate deforms when you type on its squashy trivial keys , the blind has a comical amount of wobble , and everywhere on the bodywork are spotty gap and assembly line that do n’t quite meet up . And while I ’m about it , what the hell was Apple think invest the Escape Francis Scott Key right under my thumb next to the space bar ?
There are , though , still some adorable little mite . Take , for example , how the swing - down groundwork at the back twofold as covers for the ports .
And you also have to get laid the major power brick . Not only did it have the flick - out arms for cable’s length direction that Apple still uses to this day , but there were also some metal middleman on one side of it .
These were so you could click this PowerBook Duo Battery Recharger into place , which had two slots for charging up the removable stamp battery packs that powered the laptop . The batteries themselves come with cases , so you could charge a few of them up on this and then safely convey them about , ready to pop into the Duo when another ran out ; I calculate there are more than a few folk who wish they had that option today .
Yes , I adore the span . It really is , even by today ’s standards , a compact little motorcar , and while it weighs twice what the young MacBook does , it ’s only three - quarters the weight of my 2008 MacBook Pro . And if Apple reinvented it for the twenty-first one C — with an extraneous , Thunderbolt - connected GPU , and “ Fusion Drive 2 ” which pairs an external , cloud - cognisant operose platter with the “ new Duo ’s ” PCIe SSD , all roll up in a 30 - in Retina screen door , not unlike a Thunderbolt Display , into which you slot the Duo — you could expect to see my kidneys on eBay faster than you could say “ exclude up and take my money ” .
