Something bad - 1, Tech - 0

Problems.

I have this thing for old computers.  Particularly old Apple Powerbook laptops.  I like their distinctive look, that almost retro-techie aura.  You always knew a Powerbook when you saw it in a film, or a TV show.  (Though, lets not - ahem - talk about the Independence Day thing, OK?)

I also have a thing with collecting old Mac Powerbooks.  Or, to be honest, accumulating old Powerbooks.  I don't really have any rhyme nor reason for what I pick up.  I have a whole slew of them, most of them in some sort of operable condition.  I even use them on occasion, believe it or not.  (There is nothing as cool as plunking down a big ol' Powerbook 3400c or G3 Wallstreet, and firing it up.  But that's for another entry.)

So, back to my problems.

I recently obtained a "new" Powerbook off of eBay.  (I know, I know...)  This was a Powerbook Duo 280c.  For those of you who don't know, the Duos were the MacBook Airs of their day.  Sleek (at least for their day) subnotebook computers, with an almost complete lack of connection ports to keep everything as svelte as possible.  (Though they did have a really cool, and expensive, docking mechanism that remedied the missing ports.)  The coolest of the cool in laptop technology in the mid 1990s.

The 280c was a nice little system with good color screen and decent processor.  This particular one seemed to be in very good shape, and the seller stated that it had a Holy Grail for me, a still-functioning battery.  (The great curse with older Powerbooks is lack of working batteries.)  I was really looking forward to getting the system, and trying it out.

Alas...

The box arrived, nicely packaged, today.  I opened, and unwrapped each of the components: power supply, mini-dock, external floppy.  And, then, to the Duo itself.

Things started to go downhill when I noticed little chips of plastic collected in the bottom of the bubble wrap.  Not a good sign.  And then I looked at the battery...  Well...

When you can see the internal power cells in the battery, that's a bad thing.

I tried to do a boot - up on the system, but got nothing.  The case of the computer had actually been split open at the seam, enough to jam the screen latch.  I had to finally click the case back together, just to open the screen.  Definitely not good.

My sense is that the box was dropped somewhere in transit.  It looks like it might have taken a good whack somewhere along the way.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the seller, and then to get in touch with the delivery service.  And then go from there.

I get worked up about things like this.  They tend to sort of ruin the rest of the day.