After tinkering for a few hours last night I have finally managed to build one complete PowerBook 100 out of two partially complete ones. The complete unit has a good screen (replaced the screen that was missing a column of pixels down the left hand side), 4MB of RAM, an 80MB 2.5″ SCSI hard drive with Mac OS 7.1, three batteries (none of which work), an external floppy drive (working well) and two functional fold-down feet (each unit had one foot broken, thankfully on opposite sides).

The PowerBook 100 is an impressive design – three screws (Phillips head – yay!) hold the whole unit together, the screen hinge seems bulletproof (neither showed wear or damage), the motherboard is easy to swap out and the RAM and CPU cards are easy to access. In terms of expansion, the PowerBook 100 is limited (I noticed what looks like and internal modem connector – that seems to be the extent of expansion) but it has an ADB port (unlike the PB150), a serial port and a SCSI port (as well as the special external floppy drive port).

It was a lot of fun rebuilding this – now I need to find some old software and starting putting it to use.