June 7, 1993: Apple debuts the PowerBook 180c, a stable improve that brings a world of dazzling colours to the corporate’s laptop computer line.
The 180c’s large enchancment over the grayscale PowerBook 180, which launched the earlier October, is its active-matrix, 256-color display screen. Such a display screen is one thing of a novelty for laptops within the early Nineties.
PowerBook 180c: An incredible transportable Mac
The PowerBook 180c was considered one of the high-end fashions in Apple’s enormously profitable PowerBook 100 sequence. Launched in late 1991, the PowerBook rapidly grew to become a staple of Apple’s product line. It additionally proved a well-deserved industrial and important smash.
The PowerBook 180c wasn’t the primary colour PowerBook — it was overwhelmed to that title by the PowerBook 165c — nevertheless it was the primary to supply high-quality colour. The PowerBook 165c’s 8.4-inch, passive-matrix colour show may seem dim if not considered head-on below best situations. The 180c, in the meantime, boasted a backlit, active-matrix show that offered high-quality colour from whichever angle you checked out it.
Briefly, this was the primary nice colour show on a Mac laptop computer. The 180c additionally featured a barely larger decision than the PowerBook 165c, being the primary PowerBook to natively run at 640×480 pixels, fairly than the 165c’s 640×400.
PowerBook 180c specs
The PowerBook 180c additionally boasted spectacular specs. It got here with a zippy 33 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and 6882 math coprocessor. It packed 4MB of RAM (expandable to 14MB utilizing an extra RAM card). Regardless of its chunky case design, the laptop computer proved comfy to make use of.
The laptop computer additionally featured a bunch of ports. You bought a plug for Apple Desktop Bus providers, two RS-422 serial ports, a SCSI port, microphone and speaker jacks — even a bay for a modem. As well as, customers may output to exterior screens utilizing a 256-color video connector. For all these causes and extra, the PowerBook 180c remained in nice demand for its total lifespan.
… with a few downsides
The PowerBook 180c got here with an important colour display screen that supplied a critical improve over its predecessor, the PowerBook 180 (pictured right here). The brand new mannequin’s battery life? Not so sizzling.
Sadly, the PowerBook 180c suffered from two downsides. First, the show was barely smaller than the 10-inch show of the unique PowerBook 180 — and really a fraction smaller than the 9-inch PowerBook 165c. Most customers agreed that the smaller dimension was a good tradeoff for high-quality colour, nevertheless it nonetheless meant the pc’s show wasn’t superior to its predecessor in each single approach.
The larger drawback? Pathetic battery life. Operating each a 33 MHz CPU and colour graphics restricted how lengthy you possibly can use the laptop computer on a single cost. In accordance with Apple’s personal figures, it lasted between one and two hours — however moderately intense utilization may minimize that right down to lower than an hour.
The PowerBook 180c value $3,719 for the fundamental mannequin, whereas the absolutely kitted-out model value $4,079. That’s between $8,230 and $9,030 in at this time’s cash. Apple finally discontinued the laptop computer in March 1994.
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