Macintosh PowerBook® 500 Series (code named "Blackbird")

The Macintosh PowerBook® 500 Series computers are a family of portable notebook computers. The PowerBook 500 Series are full-function desktop-replacement portable computers with a number of standard notebook computer features. They use either a Motorola MC68LC040 or a MC68040 processor as the standard processor. These standard processors are upgradable to an optional Motorola MPC603e PowerPC® processor through the exchange of the standard processor daughter card with the PowerPC® PowerBook® Processor Card Upgrade daughter card.

• Company

  Apple Computer, Inc.

• Design Engineer

  Gary L. Embler

• Product Design and Development Areas

  Power supply and power control circuits

  Designed and developed portions of the power supply and power control circuits. Validated operation of the Motorola-manufactured Apple-proprietary M68HC05 system control microcontroller.

  Audio input and output circuits

  Designed and developed portions of the audio input and output circuits. This included the microphone amplifier and the loudspeaker/headphone amplifier, along with associated control circuitry.

  PC Card interface module

  Designed and developed portions of the PC card interface expansion module. Designed part of the Apple-proprietary PC card interface ASIC.

• References

  1. "PowerBook 500 series". Wikipedia. 4 April 2023. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  2. "PowerBook 500 series - Compare Models," G. Sanford, apple-history, 2015.
  3. "PowerBook 550c," G. Sanford, apple-history, 2015.
  4. "PowerBook 520 and 520c and PowerBook 540 and 540c Computers Developer Note," A. Watson, Apple Computer, Inc., 1994.