LikesOldMacsA fun #marchintosh surprise from @csilverman 😁 what fun and thank you!!
We got to experience this unusual Mac for a few hours before (predictably) the barrel jack gave up on this 5300-based machine. HD imaging and some touch-up work on the docket! 🤞
Takeapart time! Primary goals: pull the drive to image it, and touch up the power jack.
Here's the bottom: two Phillips screws and four typical apple hex screws.
And the open-up: fortunately no interlocking plastic tabs, so it just lifted open. As expected, some delightfully well thought out jankiness.
With the paper insulator removed there are only a few visible apple items: the HD sled, display cable, and inverter board. The board on the left does a lot of work (ADB related inputs, floppy port, touchscreen magic) and the one on the right (above the CD ROM) is the main touchscreen controller.
Close ups of the two main added boards. Left is the touchscreen controller and right is the everything board as mentioned in the previous post.
The touchscreen control board has only the one ribbon cable feeding into the everything board.
The everything board takes the keyboard and trackpad ribbons in, plus a soldered connector from the sound port, and a floppy-like connector to an interconnect board with the removable media bay. The everything board then has a ribbon cable up to the display.
This is the small board that sandwiches between the floppy bay connector, the CD ROM, the everything board, and an IR transmitter. If you recall, the removable bay for Powerbooks 5300 could only accommodate a 3.5 inch device. I once tried a 3400 CD ROM module on a disassembled 5300 and it didn't work - so they are doing some magic here to get CD and floppy out of that removable bay port.
With all of that out of the way, we are down to the apple 5300 guts of the thing, plus a gorgeous custom heatsink. The power board looked ok, and the barrel jack just needed the usual resolder.
This was actually less stressful than a normal 5300 because there were no plastic tabs to dislodge. Only one broken standoff. And given the hardware and cable for the display, I'm assuming it's an active matrix 'c' model display.
Chris Vreeland@likesoldmacs 👍🏼 I have hipped so many to the ice cube tray trick, and everyone had their mind blown at the idea, same as me when someone brought it up to me 25 years ago when I started disassembling Apple stuff.