Apparently, certain archetypes in the Mac world are fated to remain with us until the end of time. We speak not of the lovable dogcow, nor of Apple's comforting logo; we refer instead to the evil spectre of the Flaming PowerBook. This archetype first sprang into existence when Apple issued a recall due to the PowerBook 5300 battery's tendency to combust under certain conditions. Ever since the 5300's secondary use as an incendiary device "came to light," Apple's tried to live down the vivid image of some hale and hearty when-life-hands-you-lemons geek merrily roasting marshmallows over the smoldering remains of his PowerBook.

Now, while we've never seen a PowerBook on fire ourselves (the closest we've come was watching some third-party RAM catch fire on the motherboard of a Power Mac 7500), we had hoped that Apple had finally outlived the Flaming PowerBook debacle and moved on to happier times. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. According to Go2Mac, one reader watched his Lombard PowerBook actually catch fire while he was typing on it. "There was real smoke and it was quickly melting the case on the bottom," he says. Given the lack of reports of other Lombards bursting into flame, it's probably safe to assume that his experience was merely a "freak accident," but comparisons to the 5300 are unavoidable.

By the way, every single time we mention the pyrotechnic qualities of the 5300 in obvious jest, we soon find our inbox stuffed with complaints from indignant 5300 users who know that the media hype of the problem was far worse than the defect itself; the only 5300 that actually caught fire was in Apple's lab, not a user's hands. In the spirit of conciliation, may we refer our viewers to a followup article at Go2Mac? In it, a reader provides relatively spin-free facts about 1995's Great PowerBook Flame-Up. Curl up in front of a toasty fire and enjoy.