New toys in the house
Jim Shorney
From the radio club auction last weekend, a Compaq 1200t laptop, 600
MHz Celery. Beat up and dirty, but looks like the battery may have some
life left. For 20 bucks, what the heck.
Also, a Compaq Aero 4/25 sub-notebook, for the paltry sum of $1.00. DOS
6.2, Win 3.1. Very retro. This thing is sooo kewt, I just *have* to find
a use for it. Both machines needed JB-Weld enhancements to broken case
parts. But they do work.
Coming in hopefully tomorrow, three "10 year old" Thinkpads. Unknown
models, condition, processor, etc. But the price is right - free. We'll
see what lands.
-Jim (laptops a-plenty)
----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
shingouz
Jim wrote:
> Also, a Compaq Aero 4/25 sub-notebook, for the paltry sum of $1.00. DOS
> 6.2, Win 3.1. Very retro. This thing is sooo kewt, I just *have* to find
> a use for it. Both machines needed JB-Weld enhancements to broken case
> parts. But they do work.
Oooo... an Aero! Cute things and they can do all kinds of neat stuff with the
proper software. If you have the full 20MB of ram in it, you really need to up
the BIOS to the latest version, the SP1992 IIRC. Without the latest BIOS, the
computer can see the full amount of ram only sporadically.
For more information you might want to consult this place as a beginning:
http://www.zenspider.com/~pwilk/aero_stuff.html
Ulrich Hansens website also has a lot of good information on the small laptops
but as of right now, I cannot connect to his server. Uli runs it off his own
*DSL with a dynamic DNS so the uptime is not always perfect.
http://ulihansen.kicks-ass.net/
I know I have the HMM for the Aero here somewhere as a PDF but finding it can
take a week or two.
And before I forget, replace the BIOS battery right now
before you use the laptop again, it has a habit of hosing the BIOS if the
battery voltage goes too low. The battery is a normal 1220 so that is not a
problem. When cracking the case open, you need to remove the display bezel
first, then remove the top of the case. The top does not come off with the
bezel still in place.
If the main battery is dead as I suspect it is, remove it and run the
box straight off the power brick and under no circumstances use a "replacement"
power supply on the damn thing. It is known to blow a cap on the planar
destroying the laptop if the power supply is not the correct one. If you are
lucky with the dead main battery you only hose the BIOS. Reflashing it
obviously requires some serious tinkering with a prommer.
Pity the mailing list is underground again, it was pretty active a while ago.
--
shingouz the other aeronaut, 2x 4/33c and 1x 4/25
Jim Shorney
> Oooo... an Aero! Cute things and they can do all kinds of neat stuff with the
> proper software. If you have the full 20MB of ram in it, you really need to up
> the BIOS to the latest version, the SP1992 IIRC. Without the latest BIOS, the
> computer can see the full amount of ram only sporadically.
It's only got the base RAM on the system board, 4 meg IIRC. I didn't get
the floppy drive with it, so patches and updates are on the back burner
until I get the ambition to hook up a null modem cable and do the serial
port thing. Floppy drives are a bit pricey on ePay, so I'm holding off
on that. I'm thinking it will make a nice little portable APRS
digipeater box (radio talk again). The battery is toast, as expected. I
did get the automotive adapter with it, so if it won't run from 12 volts
natively (many laptops actually will if you aren't concerned about
charging a battery) I can use that.
> For more information you might want to consult this place as a beginning:
Already prowled the net and found some good info. Thanks for the links.
> I know I have the HMM for the Aero here somewhere as a PDF but finding it can
> take a week or two.
That would be handy. No hurry, though.
> And before I forget, replace the BIOS battery right now
> before you use the laptop again, it has a habit of hosing the BIOS if the
> battery voltage goes too low.
I will take that under advisement. Already did that on the 1200t, same
battery. it was very dead.
> If the main battery is dead as I suspect it is, remove it and run the
> box straight off the power brick and under no circumstances use a "replacement"
> power supply on the damn thing.
I can make a power supply for virtually anything, often better than
original. But I did get the standard brick with it as well, so no
worries there.
The other toys arrived Monday - four Thinkpad 760 series:
760EL, 56M RAM, HD blank (Norton recovered a Win98 load)
760CD, 40M RAM, HD blank (Norton couldn't find a DOS partition, further
investigation is required)
760XD (XGA), beat up, broken case, no extra RAM, powers up to a white
screen but acts like it's trying to boot. HD blank (Norton recovered a
NTWS 4 SP6 FAT load. Applied my special tools disk, whacked the Admin
password, "I'm in!")
760XD (XGA), 64M RAM (now at 80, soon 104), functional Win98 load. The
NTWS hard drive is in it now. Base drivers installed, but none of the
fancy stuff. This is the nice one. Keyboard is worn, as is typical of
this vintage of 760s. I'm anxious to play with the video capture stuff
in this one, after I figure out what to do for cables. Snarfing files
from a PCCBBS mirror at this moment.
Also got two AC power bricks and four bad batteries. Only two floppy
drives in the lot, and no CD drive, but I have a CD drive in my 760E. I
need to make a backup image of my 20G drive with 98se/Linux in the 760E,
then I'll drop it into the XD and see how Linux runs. I'm not really
looking forward to rejiggering X11 for the XGA display, but it should be
worth the trouble if I can get it to work right.
Fun stuff....
-Jim (this is conflicting with my radio time...)