Those who follow me on Twitter will get the ‘coincidence’: just as I found a PowerBop in good condition, another model was discovered, almost the same day, but without the Bi-Bop module. I put ‘coincidence’ in quotes for a good reason: it came from the same seller as mine.
In fact, a seller on eBay was offering two ‘PowerBook 180s’ and I recognized the PowerBop in one of the models, which I bought. The other one was evidently purchased by a fan on 68KMLA. Without being a prototype in the strict sense, the PowerBop is rare, and the second model is just as rare as mine, with its modem.
In fact, I had mentioned this without being entirely certain: some of the PowerBops were sent back to the factory, and the Bi-Bop module was replaced by a floppy disk drive. But since the shell isn’t specifically adapted, it looks quite ugly aesthetically; you can see the cutout from the Bi-Bop module and the cover for the floppy drive connector.
Moreover, while the mentioned PowerBop and mine are based on a PowerBook 180, there are also variants based on the 160 and 180c, with the same casing.
The PowerBop
The floppy drive
The floppy drive
For mine, I’m running some tests, and we’ll talk about it again…
