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PowerBook 1400 Gets Another Trip To The Fountain Of Youth - From The Road Warrior Archive

On Valentine's Day. 2000, I posted this The Road Warrior piece, discussing processor upgrades for the PowerBook 1400, which was one of the most upgradeable Apple laptops ever, and one that benefited mightily from being upgraded, vaulting it into the G3 era.

Interestingly, going on nine years later, Sonnet still sells two G3 processor upgrade products for the PowerBook 1400, offering up to 12x overall speed improvement over original system. The Sonnet Crescendo PB/G3 replaces the PowerBook's original, poky 603e processor card with a speedy 466 MHz G3 processor with high-speed Level 2 backside cache. However, the PBG3-400-1M 400 MHz G3 with 1MB/200 MHz L2 cache, and PBG3-466-1M 466 MHz G3 with 1MB/186 MHz L2 cache are currently flagged "Available While Supplies Last," so if you want one, it would be prudent to move soon. For more information, visit:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/crescendo_pb.pb.html

Also, happily, Newer Technology did cease operations for a time, but the assets and name were subsequently purchased by Other World Computing, and the NewerTech name is going strong these days, although they don;t offer any upgrades today for the PowerBook 1400.

CM

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PowerBook 1400 Gets Another Trip To The Fountain Of Youth [Originally Published February 14, 2000]

The amazing PowerBook 1400 received yet another new lease on life with Sonnet Technologies announcement at MacWorld San Francisco of its new 333 MHz/512k Crescendo G3/PB Processor Upgrade for the venerable but solid old workhorse, with a 333MHz/1MB unit to follow in the spring.

The 1400 has proved to be one of the most popular PowerBook models ever thanks to its good looks, excellent keyboard, CD-ROM support, very nice (albeit a bit small) 11.3" screen, ease of maintenance, reasonable size and weight, and especially its upgradability -- a feature Apple has attempted to defeat on the G3 Series 'Books by mounting their proprietary boot ROMS on the daughtercard with the CPU. More on that issue below.

Newer Technology and the Japanese firm Vimage (Interware) previously offered G3 upgrades for the PowerBook 1400 (Newer's were made by IBM Japan), but both firms had discontinued them by mid-1999, causing prices of used upgrade cards to soar astronomically sometimes to $hundreds more than they sold new for. Indeed, several Road Warrior readers have reported removing the G3 upgrades from their 1400s and selling the computer and card separately for a cumulative total just slightly less than the cost of a new iBook.

Upgradability has also preserved the resale value of used 1400s, which in some cases sell for more than used PowerBook 3400s -- machines that originally cost $thousands more than the 1400.
http://www.sonnettech.com/

Dave Manning of UpgradeStuff.com has waged a valiant campaign over the past year or so to try and persuade Newer to re-release a 250 MHz PB1400 upgrade, but last fall he announced that IBM Japan, which would have supplied the manufacturing, had given a final "NO" on the project.

Sonnet's Crescendo G3/PB upgrades replace the PowerBook 1400's original 117, 133, or 166 MHz 603e processor card with G3 card running at 333 MHz with 512K or 1 MB backside cache. The Sonnet cards use a specially-configured, low-power copper IBM G3 processor which can extend the PowerBook 1400's battery life of the by up to 25%. "This is win-win for the customer," said Sonnet President Robert Farnsworth. "We are providing a dramatic increase in performance and a significant extension of battery life too." That performance increase will be in the range of 3-4 times faster than a stock 1400, even better in some instances.

The Crescendo G3/PB 333/512 has an estimated U.S. street price of $389 and is to be available this month, with a probable rollout at MacWorld Tokyo this week. The 333MHz/1MB upgrade will sell for $90 more than the 512k cache unit. The high end upgrade is expected to be about 10 to 15 percent faster than the base unit on average, but performance gains should be even better than that for cache-intensive programs like PhotoShop. On the downside, the faster card will generate more heat and diminish battery life, as well as costing more.

Anyone wanting to purchase a 1400 with a G3 upgrade in mind should look for one of the 117 MHz units, which should be several hundred dollars cheaper than a 133 or 166 MHz machine.

But does upgrading a 1400 make sense? That, as they say, depends......

Some PowerBook 1400 owners think the 1400 is the best 'Book Apple ever made. It has a near-ideal form factor for a general purpose laptop, and some people, including me, prefer its clean, understated styling to that of the more flamboyant G3 Series and iBook machines (and I say that as a G3 Series WallStreet owner). The 1400 has also proved to be rugged and dependable, and has a superb keyboard.

So if you have a 1400 and love it, there's a case to be made for spending the $389/$479 on a Sonnet G3 upgrade card.

On the other hand, the 1400's internal architecture (which is based on the even older PowerBook 5300) is getting pretty long in the tooth. It has a slow, 32-bit internal bus, and supports a maximum of 64 MB of RAM, which is marginal for OS 9 -- let alone OS X. However, OS X support may be a moot point anyway. Dave Manning has pointed out that even thought there are no NuBus slots in a 1400, it's technically a NuBus machine, and therefore the prospects for running OS X on a 1400, upgraded or not, are iffy at best.

There are other PowerBook 1400 limitations. As a nod to economy, no video-out jack for an external monitor was included with the 1400. An internal expansion slot could accommodate video-out or Ethernet upgrade cards (no standard Ethernet either), but not both. Ethernet could also be supported with a PC Card, which is also the only choice for an internal modem with the 1400. However, the 1400's PC Card slots are not CardBus compliant, so USB, FireWire, and wireless networking cards are not supported. Video support in the 1400 is also sluggish by today's standards. The 1400 does have all be basic legacy PowerBook ports, including SCSI, serial, and ADB, if that is a significant consideration.

Consequently, unless you really, really like the 1400 (and there's plenty to like), if you don't already have one, you will probably be better off buying a more up-to-date PowerBook. For example, you might be able to pick up a 117 MHz 1400 for about $850. Add the cost of the 512k cache Sonnet upgrade, and you're up to $1,239. You should be able to find one of the G3 Series I 233 WallStreets for that price or less (no cache, but the 66 MHz internal bus helps cancel the difference in real world use), or a Series II 233 (with 512k cache) for a couple of $hundred more.

At $1,239 you're also just $360 shy of the price of a brand new iBook with a warranty, a bigger hard drive, USB, a bigger monitor, 66 MHz bus, Ethernet, a 56k modem, nearly three times the maximum RAM capacity, a speedy video accelerator, and the ability to support OS X. Yes, the Sonnet upgrade card is nominally a little bit faster than the iBook's 300 MHz unit, but the iBook's faster bus and faster hard drive will more than compensate.

Before we leave the topic of PowerBook upgrades, Newer Technology created some excitement earlier this month by announcing development of an iMac processor upgrade. The iMAXpowr G3 466 uses a 466MHz G3 microprocessor with 1MB of backside cache running on a 155MHz cache bus, and sells for $499 after core rebate. While no official mention has been made yet by Newer about PowerBook G3 Series upgrades, the internal architecture of these 'Books is so similar to that of the Rev. A through D iMacs that portable upgrades to come seemed a safe assumption.

It had been widely held that there would likely never be processor upgrades for either the PowerBook G3 Series or the iMac because, as I mentioned previously, Apple chose to mount these machines' boot ROMs on the processor daughtercard (presumably a deliberate measure intended to defeat third-party upgrading). Apple has consistently refused to license its ROMs to third parties, and would very much prefer you to buy your processor upgrade with an new PowerBook or iBook wrapped around it Newer's plan is to get around that obstacle by recycling ROMs from daughtercard core trade-ins.

However, Newer is reportedly having financial difficulties, which may make discussion of PowerBook G3 Series upgrades academic.



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