With all the hubbub about the non-upgradability and user-fixable parts of Apple’s latest products, Thomas Brand looks back to the 1998 PowerBook G3, codenamed “Wallstreet”, Apple’s most upgradable and “future proof” laptop:
In addition to all of the available built-to-order options, the Wallstreet also offered an impressive array of expandability. The PowerBook G3 Series included two hot swappable docking bays on either side. The left hand bay could accommodate a battery, a 3.5” floppy disk, a Iomega Zip drive, a third-party magnetic optical drive, or even a secondary hard drive. The right hand bay was larger and could accommodate all of the above plus a full size 5.25” optical drive. A small internal nickel-cadmium battery allowed swapping of the main batteries while the computer “slept,” and with two batteries installed at the same time the PowerBook G3 Series could last up to seven hours on a single charge. A maximum of 4 MBs of graphics memory limited the PowerBook G3 Series’ 3D performance, but an optional PCMCIA hardware controller made the Wallstreet the first Apple portable capable of DVD playback.
Sounds like the sorts of machines we now like to make fun of.