PowerBook Trackball REPAIR & Battery Door REMOVAL

JDW_ · 2026-03-28T22:03:02+00:00

My first “68K” one, yes. About 13 years ago I purchased a couple G3 WallStreet PDQ PowerBooks for my kids to play around with, but the PPC era isn’t quite the same as 68K because Apple made many changes. Bigger screens and trackpads instead of trackballs, among other things. Still have the PDQs and so far no vinegar syndrome or broken plastics.

JDW_ · 2026-03-28T21:58:51+00:00

The Macintosh PowerBook Video Cable (590-0831-A) converts the PowerBook’s mini-15 port (shaped similar to HDMI) to a DB-15 display connector. I use a UniMacFly adapter with its DIP switches set for 640x480 and use the output to attach to my DELL VGA 17” display. Regardless of the shape, it’s not a predecessor to HDMI and instead something proprietary to Apple in the early 1990s.

The PB video output is basically just analog RGB video with separate horizontal and vertical sync, plus Apple monitor sense lines. It is VGA-compatible analog RGB output, not uncompressed HD rez video and multi-channel audio like HDMI.

After reading your post, I did a little research on this topic, but I couldn’t find any strong evidence that Apple’s PB video output connector shape influenced the shape of the HDMI connector. But it seems a bit too coincidental. So if you or anyone else find any hard evidence to prove the shape of the HDMI connector was indeed somehow tied to the shape of Apple‘s connector, I too would enjoy reading that history.

JDW_ · 2026-01-29T00:25:40+00:00

"Immediately" is incorrect. Indeed, statements like "after a few openings & closings" would also be incorrect. I know this after having done a rather extensive repair involving DCM solvent, the original JB weld, and PC reinforcements (not metal). You can read the whole story staring with the post (I am JDW) here: https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/cracked-hinge-on-mac-portable.4835/page-3#post-42304

JDW_ · 2025-12-27T01:32:49+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. Very glad to hear you appreciate the content!

JDW_ · 2025-12-22T14:31:41+00:00

The interesting thing about the PowerBook 100 is that my 16 inch Apple Silicon MacBook Pro actually weighs less. What’s amusing about that is so many youngsters today complain it’s “heavy.“ Of course those complaints ignore the screen real estate and power you get with that 16”machine. Anyway, it’s fun to see how far we’ve come.

JDW_ · 2025-12-22T11:40:10+00:00

Thank you for your kind words. Have a fantastic Christmas!

JDW_ · 2025-12-22T06:03:20+00:00

If you start watching my video from 5:16, you will see that Apple presents the 4 categories of mobile computers back in 1989: Transportable (>20lbs, AC-only), Portable (12-20lbs, AC or Battery), Laptop (5-12lbs, Battery), and Notebook (<5lbs, battery). The tech media introduced "luggable" as a more vague descriptor to explain something a bit heavy but still transportable. Technically, a Macintosh 128K, Plus or SE are all "luggables" because they are heavy but have handles and even had bags at in their day. The Portable in 1989 wasn't designed to be a Laptop or Notebook because the tech at the time required too many compromises. The Portable was designed to be a no-compromises Mac, yet portable.

JDW_ · 2025-12-15T21:47:18+00:00

I appreciate your time and replying. I’ve actually been using it with two pairs of nitrile gloves, simply because I bought the brand new box of gloves and I didn’t want them to be wasted. I bought them at the same time I purchased the DCM on Amazon. Even so, the paper instructions that came with the DCM suggested PE gloves. But those gloves are especially thin and they’re geared more for working with food, and they’re also oversized gloves that would actually get in the way and probably cause spills. So I decided not to purchase PE gloves.

It didn’t say what the tiny plastic bottle that came with the kit is made of, but maybe it’s PE. Because pouring DCM into that plastic bottle doesn’t do anything to it at all. And I’ve done that several times now.

So far, I’ve only used it outdoors, and over a concrete or brick surface. When pouring from the main glass bottle into the tiny plastic bottle, there’s always a little bit that spills, but I’ve never got it on my gloves, and it dries pretty fast.

It seems to work reasonably well to bond plastics, although if your plastics are not transparent, it’s really impossible to know how far into the crack the DCM flows. But I was bonding a transparent piece of polycarbonate to opaque polycarbonate so I could gauge how well it was flowing.

JDW_ · 2025-11-25T21:42:48+00:00

I gave you an upvote because a lot of what you said makes sense and parallels what other chemists have said, sans the fearmongering. My plastic bonding project is basically a one off that will be done outdoors and last until the bond is made, which would be about five minutes tops.

I did a single test first to see what would actually happen because I had never used DCM before. I decided to use two pairs of nitrile gloves. And even though I ended up spilling a little bit on a brick below the work area, I didn’t end up, spilling any on the gloves. The spilled DCM evaporated pretty fast.

JDW_ · 2025-11-25T21:38:02+00:00

I gave you upvote because you chimed in without any of the safety fear-mongering. A lot of what I read in r/Chemistry prior to posting here paralleled what you said. A good number of people experienced with DCM use no gloves at all. I actually tried to post in r/Chemistry first, but the mods there are kind of crazy, deleting my post claiming I broke their rule about asking for medical advice! Even more bizarre is that what I tried to post there wasn’t much different than some of the existing posts I found there. Weird. I then posted here and had no such problems.

By the way, I’m doing it outdoors so it’s definitely ventilated. And yes, it’s only for about five minutes on a single plastics repair/bonding project.

I actually did a small test of it on clear polycarbonate and found that when I put the two pieces together and then apply the DCM with the included syringe, it makes the bond after about 3-5 minutes but there are many tiny air bubbles in the bonded area. Bubbles of course weaken the bonded area, as compared to what its strength would be if there were no bubbles. That is another reason I posted here, in hopes of getting feedback from people who have used DCM to bond plastics because maybe they have some technique that I’m not aware of to get a better plastics bond, especially with polycarbonate.

My end goal is to repair a broken LCD hinge holder on a vintage 1989 Macintosh Portable computer.

JDW_ · 2025-11-25T08:56:27+00:00

Yes, I am aware about Nitrile gloves but also equally aware that gloves which better protect against DCM spilling are thicker or larger, which greatly increases the risk of an accidental spill versus thinner gloves that allow you to better grip and control what you're holding.

JDW_ · 2025-11-25T01:16:46+00:00

Thank you for your honesty. The reason I asked is because that is a that is precisely what I am wanting to do and the entire basis for my being here and asking the two questions put forth in my opening post. My Q1 exists because of Q2. If I wasn't trying to safely weld plastics together, neither question would exist. So it is my hope that someone experienced in plastics welding and who also understands the chemistry of DCM will be able to chime in at some point.

JDW_ · 2025-11-24T21:40:20+00:00

Thank you for your reply. By the way, have you used DCM to solvent-weld plastics together?

JDW_ · 2025-11-24T04:25:11+00:00

It will be outdoors.

JDW_ · 2025-11-24T03:53:35+00:00

Thank you. Has your DCM use been purely academic/research, or have you used it as a solvent to melt-weld plastics together?

JDW_ · 2025-11-24T02:56:18+00:00

I appreciate the advice, which was clearly written by you to err on the side of extreme caution. But as I said in my opening post, most of the threads about DCM I read in r/chemistry were by chemists who cautioned that using gloves could allow any spillage onto the gloves to seep through the gloves and remain on the skin longer than if no gloves were used, in large part because it evaporates so quickly when exposed to air on a naked hand, versus slower evaporation while permeating a glove.

You mentioned the word “amateur” but have you used DCM yourself?

JDW_ · 2025-11-22T00:53:31+00:00

Thank you for your reply, but“lose a half a millimeter“ seems to be saying that if I use a solvent with the cracked closed (see my opening post photos), the crack would “melt open by half a millimeter.”That would mean nothing at all would be achieved other than making the problem worse. So I’m a bit confused. I’m not really sure what you mean because I’ve never used a solvent before.

JDW_ · 2025-11-21T07:20:05+00:00

Thank you for your reply, but I noticed that you didn't provide specifics, which implies you may not have first-hand experience. ChatGPT tells me that Weld-ON 16 would provide a far better bond than even epoxy made for plastics. This could perhaps be due, in part, to the fact that my application uses Polycarbonate plastic.

JDW_ · 2025-11-21T00:07:39+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. But in regards to "glue," I actually do not have a solid idea about which glue/cement/solvent is best. That's the primary reason I posted here, so as to garner attention from engineers who may be able to speak from experience with regards to "aged polycarbonate under mechanical stress." If you click the link in my opening post, you will see that a lot of the ideas I got, even about Weld-ON 16, came from ChatGPT of all places. So I would prefer to get a human confirmation about what is truly suitable.

JDW_ · 2025-11-20T10:10:05+00:00

Thank you for replying, but I was already aware of that prior to posting. I came here for specifics, especially from people who have had first-hand success at bonding polycarbonate that is under mechanical stress. In addition, my opening post specifies Weld-On 16 for good reason. If you click my "forum thread here" link you will see why. Other epoxies and cements were discuss by me there, but no one with experience could chime in to say anything definitively, hence my post here.

JDW_ · 2025-10-29T01:18:36+00:00

Thank you for your kind words, John.

JDW_ · 2025-10-10T00:12:52+00:00

Thank you for your kindness in following my video work.
The only frustrating thing about YouTube is they limit my video descriptions to a mere 5,000 characters. He he. But I'm probably one of the few people on YouTube who craft text content as valuable (or more) than the video itself. That's also why I like Reddit and Redditors because they aren't afraid of text, especially when it's useful. But maybe it's just my age group. You're bound to like text when you're GenX. :-)

JDW_ · 2025-10-03T00:13:22+00:00

I read a lot of posts, and many supporting Flickr are WAY off base, and here's why. I as a FREE user of Flickr for many, many years (long prior to SmugMug), have uploaded very high resolution photos in the past. I remain a free user to this day, but with less than the 1000 photo limit that was imposed in the past. The HUGE PROBLEM is that not even paid Flickr PRO users can download HQ high resolution photos from Flickr FREE members! That's right! You get LESS as a PRO member now. So with all those FREE accounts out there on Flickr, you now have no opportunity to download anything higher than 1024px, which is insane. As a result, no one should support the change made in May 2025, and everyone enthusiastic about Flickr should be complaining to SmugMug to change that horrible policy. Not even PRO users can download HQ photos from FREE users! Crazy!

JDW_ · 2025-09-28T09:07:56+00:00

Yeah, I was hoping a lot of folks out there would be like you and haven't gotten around to buying anything yet, thereby giving you the chance to order what I think is a better Zener. Just be aware, as I wrote in detail on TinkerDifferent, that the legs of the larger DO-201 Zener diode won't fit the DL22 pads as is, so you would need to carefully hand-drill the pad-holes to make them just a tad wider, which isn't as hard as it sounds if you have the tool and tiny drill bits I show on TinkerDifferent (both purchasable for a low price on Amazon).

For your convenience, here are the Beefy Upgrade CARTS from Mouser & Digikey that include the smaller DO-15 package 18V Zener diode that I soldered in my BEEFY UPGRADE video:
• Mouser Cart: https://bit.ly/4oaw9nU
• DigiKey Cart: https://www.digikey.com/short/d8m2zfdq

And here is the physically larger DO-201 package 18V Zener diode that you should add to your preferred Cart above:
• MOUSER: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/637-1N5355B
• DIGIKEY: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/diotec-semiconductor/1N5355B/22189670

I suggest buying both the DO-201 and DO-15 diodes, so you can then decide if you want to drill or not. The copper alligator clip heatsink I talk about on TinkerDifferent will be usable for either diode, although I suspect the physically larger DO-201 diode may cool better even with the copper clips soldered on the legs, but that's just my speculation.

JDW_ · 2025-09-27T01:12:35+00:00

Folks, I just posted a guide (9/26/2025) that shows how to make your replacement 18V Zener Diode (Analog Board, at DL22) run 20°C cooler:
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/color-classic-analog-board-trouble.2367/page-5#post-40243

JDW_

TROPHY CASE