The PowerBook 180 is a

portable computer A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another, as opposed to those designed to remain stationary at a single location such as desktops and workstations. These computers usually include a display a ...

released by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

along with the

PowerBook 160 The PowerBook 160 is a portable computer that was released by Apple Computer along with the PowerBook 180 on October 19, 1992 and the PowerBook 165 variants were released the following year. At the time, it constituted the mid-range model repl ...

in October 1992. At the time, it constituted the new top-of-the-range model, replacing the previous

PowerBook 170 The PowerBook 170 is a laptop computer that was released by Apple Inc. in 1991 along with the PowerBook 100 and the PowerBook 140. Identical in form factor to the 140, it was the high end of the original PowerBook line featuring a faster 25&nbs ...

. Its case design and features are the same as that of the 170, but it shipped with the more powerful 33 MHz

Motorola 68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with gener ...

CPU and

Motorola 68882 The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math ...

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.

PowerBook 180

The PowerBook 180 came with a (diagonal)

active matrix Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. It is a method of switching individual elements of a flat panel display, known as pixels. Each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor that ''actively'' maintain th ...

LCD screen A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not emi ...

capable of displaying 4-bit

grayscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a greyscale (more common in Commonwealth English) or grayscale (more common in American English) image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample (signal), s ...

at a resolution of 640×400, and a

trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse (computing), mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball t ...

was mounted beneath the

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mus ...

. A 1.44 MB

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

drive and 80 MB 2.5-inch

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

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 The Macintosh Portable is a portable computer that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from September 1989 to October 1991. It is the first battery-powered Macintosh, which garnered significant excitement from critic ...

before it, with the addition of an external color video port (missing on the 170), the 180 became a full-featured, no-compromises 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. It had an diagonal

color LCD capable of displaying 256 colors and was the first PowerBook to natively display 640×480 (all previous PowerBooks had 640×400 resolution). As a result of the thicker color display, the exterior case lid was redesigned, more closely resembling that used on the

PowerBook Duo The PowerBook Duo is a line of subnotebooks manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1992 until 1997 as a more compact companion to the PowerBook line. Improving upon the PowerBook 100's portability (its immediate predecessor and Apple's t ...

series. This modification was used on the PowerBook 165c for the same reason.

Timeline

References

External links

apple-history.com: PowerBook 180
180 68k Macintosh computers Computer-related introductions in 1992 {{compu-mobile-stub