Looking for Macintosh parts...

[mark at buttery.org (Mark J. Dulcey)]

kgleason at ma.ultranet.com wrote:

> I have been given an early present...a Macintosh PowerBook 5300cs (Used). Only one problem, no OS nor CDROM. Does anyone know where I can get the required components/software to get this fella going? Is Macintosh still selling these components? Who is?

First, the CD-ROM. The 5300 has a SCSI port, so you can use just about 
any external SCSI drive. You'll need an HDI-30 adapter, though; the 5300 
has a weird socket, not the usual Mac DB-25 or either of the 
industry-standard SCSI connectors (50 pin Centronics or the high density 
SCSI-2 connector). Fortunately, HDI-30 adapters are still available.

The 5300 was originally shipped with System 7.5.2. The Mac OS versions 
through 7.5.5 are free (their cost was bundled with the computer), so if 
you can find someone with a copy, you can install it without cost. 
(There are updates from 7.5.1 to 7.5.3 and from 7.5.3 to 7.5.5, that you 
can probably still download from Apple, so if you find a CD with one of 
the earlier members of the 7.5 series, you can upgrade it.) According to 
the Apple web site, OS versions through 9 work; presumably 9.1 and 9.2 
do also, but they're not mentioned on the specs page. OS X won't run on 
the 5300 (nor on any PowerMac without a G3 or G4 processor), and it has 
a RAM ceiling of 64MB in any case.

The Linux and Unix picture for the 5300, alas, is less bright. The 
LinuxPPC kernel won't run on it, according to both linuxppc.com and 
yellowdoglinux.com. You can, however, run MkLinux (mklinux.org), but 
it's a less mature system. As for BSD Unix, neither OpenBSD nor NetBSD 
works on the 5300, and FreeBSD doesn't have a PowerPC port at all.