Apple PowerBook

The PowerBook 3400 is an Apple notebook series. Moreover, the PowerBook 3400 is a line of Macintosh laptop computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple from 1997 to 1998. The PowerBook 3400 was the fifth laptop series part of the PowerBook series. Although it was discontinued in 1998, the PowerBook 3400 was succeeded by several other PowerBook series such as PowerBook Duo series, and PowerBook DuoDock. The PowerBook 3400 was the direct successor of Apple PowerBook 100, Apple PowerBook 500, Apple PowerBook 5300, Apple PowerBook 1400, and Apple PowerBook 2400.

Announced in February 1997 the PowerBook 3400 was significantly improved than the controversial PowerBook 5300, featuring 240 MHz processor, integrated FPU, Bus Speed – 40 MHz, Register Width – 32-bit, Data Bus Width – 64-bit, Address Bus Width – 32-bit. The PowerBook 3400 was by far a stand-alone product, since Apple deliver within the PowerBook 3400 series up to thee configurations (distinguished primarily by their processor speed), 3400/180, 3400/200, and 3400/240. The 3400/180 model was usually sold with only a built-in modem and a floppy drive. The entire PowerBook 3400 series was delivered with a built-in modem/Ethernet combination port and hot-swappable 1.4 MB floppy disk and CD drives.

The only other difference between them was the size of the hard drive, ranging from 1.3 to 3.0 GB depending on the model. The PowerBook 3400 was discontinued in early 1998, with no immediate replacement — the model that followed it was the much larger PowerBook G3 series. Its successor, the PowerBook G3 series would ultimately go on to replace and consolidate not only the PowerBook 1400, but also the PowerBook 2400 and PowerBook 3400.

Depending on the location the PowerBook 3400 series included several different PowerBook 3400 notebook models, available on specific regions (North and South America, Europe, Middle East, South Africa, and Asia-Pacific region) and were not available worldwide.
The PowerBook series was developed specifically for the professional market. However, it was only recognized as a competitive product in the second half of its life when it received numerous awards, such as the 2001 Industrial Design Excellence Awards “Gold” status. In 1999, the series was supplemented by the low-end iBook series. The PowerBook and iBook series were discontinued and replaced by the MacBook Pro and MacBook series respectively by 2006.

In September 1989, Apple announced the Macintosh Portable, also known as Laguna, Riveria, Malibu, Esprit, Guiness. (Backlit configuration: Aruba, Love Shack, Mulligan), the first Macintosh computer to be easily portable. The Macintosh Portable was a milestone product, discontinued in October 1991 mainly because of its price ($6500), size, and weight, which made simple portability near impossible. The Macintosh Portable was terminated when Apple announced the PowerBook 100 series.

The PowerBook 3400, also known as Hooper, was the first product in line released within the PowerBook 3400 series. It was, briefly, the fastest laptop in the world, and also featured a PC card slot capable of being used as a zoomed video port, and built-in trackpad as the pointing device. The PowerBook 3400 was delivered with OS 7.6.1, and was limited to maximum OS 9.1. Moreover, Apple delivered the PowerBook 3400 with the same PowerPC 603e processor as the preceding PowerBook Duo 2300C, but at a much higher CPU clock — up to 240 MHz instead of 100 MHz, 16 MB RAM (expandable up to 144 MB RAM 16 kB data, 16 kB instruction Level 1 Cache), 16 bit 800×600 12.1″ active matrix display, 1.3/2.0/3.0 GB hard drive, 1.4 MB SuperDrive Floppy Drive, 6x CD-ROM drive, and the following Input an Output connections: ADB, one combined serial printer/modem port, HDI-20 floppy port, HDI-30 SCSI port, but added a VGA video out, as well as a stereo sound out and in, infrared port, and two PCMCIA card slots. Apple did not offer a CD-ROM drive for it which was otherwise standard for all other PowerBooks.

Apple also embedded in the PowerBook 3400 within the expansion department, 2 Type II or 1 Type III PC Card, while within the networking department the PowerBook 3400 featured 10BASE-T Ethernet. The PC card slots were designed to physically accept only 16-bit cards, though many users have managed to get a variety of CardBus cards to work with them. Using CardBus cards allows PowerBook 3400 series to be used with USB devices like printers and FireWire devices such as iPods. The PowerBook 3400 was announced in February 1997, and terminated in early 1998. The first generation of PowerBook G3 retained the same external appearance as the PowerBook 3400.11

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