Puneet Varma (Editor)

PowerBook 180

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Developer
  
Apple Computer

Type
  
Laptop

PowerBook 180

Release date
  
October 19, 1992 (180), June 1993 (180c)

Introductory price
  
US$3,870 (equivalent to $6,605 in 2016)

Discontinued
  
May 1, 1994 (180), March 1994 (180c)

Operating system
  
System 7.1–Mac OS 7.6.1

The PowerBook 180 is a portable computer released by Apple Computer, Inc. along with the PowerBook 160 in October 1992. At the time, it constituted the new top-of-the-range model replacing the previous PowerBook 170. Its case design and features are the same as that of the 170, but it shipped with the more powerful 33 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and Motorola 68882 FPU. Along with the 160, it introduced a new power saving feature which allowed the processor to run at a slower 16 MHz rate, the same speed as the original 140.

The PowerBook 180 came with a 9.5 in (240 mm) (diagonal) active matrix LCD screen, capable of displaying 4-bit grayscale, and a trackball was mounted beneath the keyboard. A 1.44 MB floppy disk drive and 80 MB 2.5-inch hard drive were also standard.

The Apple Powerbook also gave an option of possible expansion to a 120 MB hard drive. They are equipped with keyboard stands to slant the keyboard.

Like the Macintosh Portable before it, with the addition of an external color video port missing on the 170, the 180 became a full featured un-compromised portable desktop replacement, equivalent in performance to the Macintosh LC III+. It was sold until May 1994.

PowerBook 180c

In June 1993, Apple released an identical color version of this model, the PowerBook 180c (pictured below). It had an 8.4 in (210 mm) diagonal active matrix color LCD capable of displaying 256 colors and was the first PowerBook to natively display 640x480 (all previous PowerBooks had 640x400 resolution). As a result of the thicker color display, the exterior case lid was redesigned, more closely resembling that used on the PowerBook Duo series. The same modification was used on the PowerBook 165c to accommodate its thicker color display as well.

References

PowerBook 180 Wikipedia