erd@lear.cs.duke.edu (Ed Darken) (08/06/90)
I'm shopping around for a portable computer. Being the Macintosh kind of guy that I am, I would prefer a Mac Portable for compatibility reasons. I'd like to hear from the Mac Portable owners out there. Is the Mac Portable useful? What hardware and software problems does it present(if any)? I'd be using it mostly for word processing (WriteNow). Thanks, Ed Darken erd@cs.duke.edu
ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) (08/07/90)
Some random comments... We have (I think) four users of Mac Portables on this campus. With at least two of them, it was a case of "love at first sight"-- as soon as they saw it, they had to have one. One of the users is the director of my department. Not long after he got it, he tossed out his VT220 terminal. He now uses NCSA Telnet to log onto the VAXcluster via our departmental LocalTalk net. Reliability: my boss seems to have had quite a few problems with the screen--he's on his third one so far, in the five or so months he's had the machine. The first two screens lost the use of a horizontal line of pixels about a quarter of the way from the bottom. I haven't heard any of our other users having this problem. Also, he's had occasional trouble with the trackball button not working. His solution is to restart the machine--a cure which seems to work, but leaves me stumped as to why. Compatibility: my boss uses Microsoft Word, MacWrite II (which I recommended to him before he decided he needed the power of Word), Wingz, and QuickMail, in addition to NCSA Telnet. At least, these are applications that I know he uses. Telnet has a bug which crashes a Portable, but I managed to fix that for him. Also, there's the problem that, if you leave the machine idle for too long and it goes to sleep, the network connections will eventually time out and break. I briefly thought of modifying Telnet so that, as long as it's running, the machine can never go to sleep, but that cure may be worse than the disease. One tip: if you're using a Portable on a LocalTalk net, make sure you're running System 6.0.5, not 6.0.4. The earlier version has a bug which means if you shut down the machine (as opposed to just putting it to sleep) with AppleTalk enabled, you could end up with a dead battery. I guess the Power Manager forgets to turn off the serial controller chip. There are a few other problems with serial port handling on the Portable which are fixed in 6.0.5, but this was the one that bit one of our other users. Disclaimer: I'm not a Portable user. I'm just a guy that the users come to when things go wrong. Lawrence D'Oliveiro fone: +64-71-562-889 Computer Services Dept fax: +64-71-384-066 University of Waikato electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz Hamilton, New Zealand 37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+12:00 Finally, a reminder for all power users: pay your electricity bills!
fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) (08/08/90)
I've had a Mac Portable since March. Absolutely reliable, no software problems, no hardware problems, it's wonderful. Solid as a brick. And about as heavy. Jeez, O'Hare is TWICE as big with that sucker on my shoulder. Looking seriously at an Outbound (9 lbs. instead of 16) +------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | Stephen Fleming | In ten years, computers will just be | | fleming@cup.portal.com | bumps in cables. --Gordon Bell | | CI$: 76354,3176 +---------------------------------------| | BIX: srfleming | My employers may disagree vehemently. | +------------------------+---------------------------------------+