Firewire/USB on 'Book Duo

. . . there was never any OS support from Apple for firewire, USB, or CardBus under the 2300c's NuBus I/O architecture, but it could probably be coaxed into supporting a PCMCIA modem, if there had ever been a PCMCIA dock released, as had been planned/announced. Check out the "T-REX" thread here for info on PCMCIA hack possibilities.

ISTR some talk of a .jp NuBus USB card that'd work on the Mac in one of the forums somewhere, but it's a VERY hazy recollection. IIRC, there was a link to another forum from the old 'fritter, the old MLA, or both sites.

If you can turn up one of the LinkCom Pocket Modems (serial) you could probably hack it as an internal, But it's such a handy package it hardly pays to do so. There's a piccie of the box and cable sets in one of my photo galleries somewhere. Keep an eye out for an update, I'll probably try to take some shots, you're the second person to ask about an internal 56k hack possibility for the Duos recently.

jt

The only expansion options any of the PowerBooks in the Duo line ever had were RAM, HD, Serial, and modem. With Ram your limited to 56MB on your 2300. The HD can practically go as high as you can afford, and I think Apple was the only company to produce internal modems for the Duos, which IINM only got as high as 14.4Kbps. Through the serial port you can hook up an older model 56K modem, or other legacy serial device. The "modern day connection" you speak of sounds like PCI, or PCMCIA which all of the Duos lack, so unfortunately your kinda stuck.

Oh, btw. There are Mini-Docks you can purchase on eBay made by Newer, E-Machine, and others that would allow a little more expansion, such as ethernet, SCSI, DB15 Video, and ADB, but nothing as modern or elegant as simple USB/FW.

Here's a site I Googled listing a huge variety of docks available for the Duos back in the day. If your lucky you might find them on eBay.

http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo/docks.html

Both USB and FW require a PCI based Mac. As others have mentioned, there has been a devilishly persistant rumor of a 16 bit USB PC card, but in the several years since I first heard the rumor I've not once seen any actual evidence of its existence.

As for FW, I can pretty confidently state that there has never been a FW-nubus bridge chip, nor will there ever be such an animal.

Sorry.

Dan K

If there is ever a way to get USB/FW into a PB Duo, you'll know right away, because the Duo line will skyrocket in value and you'll probably see a mass following much like there is for the 2400 in Japan.

but one of the main reasons I would like NuBus USB is so I can put in a Bluetooth module, and then perhaps use AppleScript via Bluetooth? I can dream, can't I...

Back the wagon up a little bit, there... I think even the oldest macs (OK, not the less than 1MB ones) could use BlueTooth. You don't need USB to do that. There's plenty of simple serial-BlueTooth modules out there. Check out http://www.40hz.org/, where Eckhart has gotten a hack put together for BlueTooth INSIDE his Newton. There's no reason a tiny little BlueTooth box that plugs into the Mac Plus (and higher)'s serial port couldn't be made.

Then again, there's no BlueTooth stack for classic MacOS at all, much less that'll run on System 7 or System 6--But the hardware would be a piece of cake! The software might not even be that bad, if you wrote it as a CommToolBox tool, and I bet you could get a jumpstart on it from reading the Blunt source... Aww, dangit! Now I want to sync my 'newt to my SE/40 (Mmm. Turbo040) via BlueTooth.