This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

The PowerBook 170 is the highest-powered of the first generation of
PowerBooks, released in October 1991. In fact, my machine is, strictly
speaking, a
PowerBook 140, complete with LCD screen,
but it received a processor-board upgrade a couple of years later.
The '170 is a perfectly passable MIDI computer, limited only by the
8MB maximum RAM.
OMS allows it to do MIDI
reliably on one of its two serial ports. For
those of us who detest garish colour and "cool icons", the screen is
fine for MIDI applications, although greyscale would be nice. At the
current second-hand price (around $500) this is an ideal MIDI machine.