The PowerBook 100 series is a line of laptop PCs produced by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

. In October 1991, Apple released the first three PowerBooks: the low-end

PowerBook 100 The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple Computer and introduced on October 21, 1991, at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US$2,500 with external flopp ...

, the more powerful

PowerBook 140 The PowerBook 140 was released in the first line of PowerBooks. It was the mid-range PowerBook, between the low-end 100 and the high-end 170. As with the PowerBook 170, and unlike the 100, this PowerBook featured an internal floppy drive. Code ...

, and the high-end

PowerBook 170 The PowerBook 170 was released by Apple Inc. in 1991 along with the PowerBook 100 and the PowerBook 140. Identical in form factor to the 140, it was the high end of the original PowerBook line featuring a faster 25 MHz Motorola 68030 proce ...

, the only one with an

active matrix Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. In this method of switching individual elements (pixels), each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor ''actively'' maintaining the pixel state while other pixels are ...

display. These machines caused a stir in the industry with their compact dark grey cases, use of a trackball, and the clever positioning of the keyboard which left room for palmrests on either side of the pointing device. Portable PC computers at the time tended to have the keyboard forward towards the user, with empty space behind it, so this was a surprising innovation and set the standard layout all future notebook computers would follow. The PowerBook 140 and 170 were designed first. The 100 benefited from their development and by components miniaturized by Sony after Apple sent them schematics of the Mac Portable. The 100, however, did not sell well until Apple dropped the price substantially. The 100 and 200 series PowerBooks were intended to tie into the rest of the Apple desktop products using the corporate Snow White design language incorporated into all product designs since 1986. However, unlike the Macintosh Portable which was essentially a battery-powered desktop in weight and size, the light colors and decorative recessed lines did not seem appropriate for the scaled-down designs. In addition to adopting the darker-gray color scheme which co-ordinated with the official corporate look, they also adopted a raised series of ridges mimicking the indented lines on the desktops. The innovative look not only unified their entire product line, but set Apple apart in the marketplace and had the added benefit of masking fingerprints while the ridges provided added traction with which to grip the PowerBook. These early series would be the last to use the aging Snow White look; a new look was debuted on the 190 and the 500 series. The first series of PowerBooks were hugely successful, capturing 40% of all laptop sales. But several factors hampered Apple's efforts to introduce newer models and keep ahead of competitors. One was the departure of the original PowerBook team to work at

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

. Another was that Apple's plans to move on from the

68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

and

68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with gener ...

CPUs were thwarted by overheating problems with the 68040. The 100-series PowerBook were stuck with chips that could not compete with Intel 80486-based PC laptops introduced in 1994. For several years, new PowerBook and PowerBook Duo computers were introduced which featured incremental improvements, including color screens, but by mid-decade, most other companies had copied the majority of the PowerBook's features, and Apple was unable to regain their lead. The original PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 were replaced by the

145 145 may refer to: *145 (number), a natural number *AD 145, a year in the 2nd century AD *145 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC *145 (dinghy), a two-person intermediate sailing dinghy *145 (South) Brigade *145 (New Jersey bus) 145 may refer to: * 1 ...

(updated to the 145B in 1993), 160, and

180 __NOTOC__ Year 180 ( CLXXX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rusticus and Condianus (or, less frequently, year 933 ''Ab ...

in 1992, with the 160 and 180 having video output allowing them to drive an external monitor. The PowerBook 180 had a superb-for-the-time active-matrix grayscale display, making it popular. In 1993, the PowerBook 165c was the first PowerBook with a color screen, later followed by the 180c. In 1994, the last true member of the 100-series form factor introduced was the PowerBook 150, targeted at value-minded consumers and students. The PowerBook 190, released in 1995, bears no resemblance to the rest of the PowerBook 100 series, and is in fact simply a

Motorola 68LC040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola na ...

-based version of the PowerBook 5300, and the last PowerBook model to be manufactured using a Motorola

68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

-family processor). However, like the 190, the 150 also used the 5300 IDE-based logic-board architecture. From the 100's

processor, to the 190's 68LC040 processor, the 100 series PowerBooks span the entire Apple 68K line, with the 190 even upgradable to a PowerPC processor. The PowerBook Duo spanned the

line of processors and sold through the PowerPC transition to the

PowerPC 603e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...

processor with the

2300 In contemporary history, the third millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era in the Gregorian calendar is the current millennium spanning the years 2001 to 3000 ( 21st to 30th centuries). Ongoing futures studies seek to understand what is l ...

, also based on the 5300's internal architecture. In February 2005, ''Mobile PC'' magazine named the PowerBook 100 its choice as the "#1 gadget of all time."

Technical specifications

''Listed chronologically, by release date''

Timeline

References

External links

Apple-History
{{Apple hardware before 1998

100 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

Computer-related introductions in 1991