Found in trash, only worth a good laugh?

[KerryrreK]

I saw a post on here about an old comp so I thought I'd post mine on here too. A few months ago my mom found laptop in a trash can at her work.....well wait...okay...that may be illegal, so lets just say I bought this "new" laptop. Well anyway, I just thought I would post the specs here so you guys can have a good laugh if your interested.

Compaq SLT/286

80C286 Processor at 12 mHz

no numeric processor

BIOS revision H.7 07/26/89 Family 286B

Video controller revision D.3 9/27/88 Family 286B

"Enhanced" keyboard (it has a cable attached so you can remove it from the laptop and set the keyboard in your lap I guess

640 Kb system RAM as base memory
no extended memory
LPT port
2400 baud modem with 2400 baud command set Revision 8/15/89-3.01E
Two COM ports
Diskette Drive A: 1.44 MB 3.5 inch
Fixed disk type 2 (20 Megs)
Video mode 03 (80 column text, monochrome)
Compaq graphics controller

It sure is beefy by todays laptop standards, but it does have a flip up monitor (monochrome) and removable keyboard. It's running DOS 6.2 and has a built in modem that I guess works. It also has a word program and printing cababilities. Pretty neat overall, frayed power cable and very low battery life make it essentially permanently deskbound though.

So what do you guys think of that? an old 80's Compaq laptop, that still works great! I use it to play old D&D games, I have Pools of Radiance and Gateway to the Savage Frontier on there now, both work fine but are in black and white due to monitor. It also has a built in learning program for DOS and some telnet style internet application, I wish I could use it for telnet but I have no clue how that would work. Anyone have a crappier comp than this?

Kerry

[ThePerfectCore]

I used to have a laptop like that.

It was pretty fritzy, though. The battery wouldn't last very long, and it had a huge-assed power transformer thingy. I used it to keep plain text journal entries on, until it finally got too old for its own good - copied all the text files to my good machine, and tossed the piece of trash in a pond.

[Chris]

12MHz, lol bet my calculator is nearly as fast as that :-)

[RoadWarrior]

Nice old beasts they are, I've got an XT based laptop (8088) and some 386s and 486s and I use the XT for text bashing sometimes, and playing text adventures, and the Game of Moria (You might like that one Kerry) and they're useful to diplay documentation on when you're figuring out something new on your main machine.

I love the XT for portable text bashing because the keyboard is like full size, full travel, I hate most laptop keyboards. It too is tied to the wall these days due to battery deathage. When I can be bothered, I'll order some cells from somewhere like allelectronics and rebuild that batt packs for some of my lappies.

They are also real cool to use as console terminals on linux boxes.

Road Warrior

[Neo Demi]

i have a 286-6mhz chip and the board for it. im gonna try computer fairs and scrapyards to find other old machines toplay around with. i have an isa soundcard for it, but i dont have graphic and it doesnt come with onboard graphics :(
anyone know where i would get an isa graphics card?
maybe ill overclock it if i ever get it going. prob is it doesnt even have onboard ide or floppy, but i can get an io card thingy from my old 486 as well as a psu and a case.
wonder what the 3d mark score for the 286 would be.

[scrapyards can be goldmines for computer parts if you know where to look in amongst the piles of cars and washing machines]

[Th0r]

I would like to find a server case.

[cwb27]

Originally posted by Excelsior
I would like to find a server case.

I have a full size AT server case in my basement somewhere, everything is 5 1/2" bays. I'd post a pic, but I don't have a digicam and the webcam pics just suck.

[Master Mitch]

A few years ago I acquired a Compaq Portable III, which is what we used to call a "luggable." Detachable keyboard, built-in (but tiltable!) screen, removable ISA expansion thing on the back (with two full-length slots)... stuff like that. It has a 286, 4-colors-as-long-as-they're-orange gas-plasma CGA display, early IDE drive that doesn't work, and a 5.25" floppy-- though it accepted a 3.5" floppy during my experimentation.

An interesting machine that I don't use any more, though I once needed a modem really badly... and extracted the very heavy ISA one that came with it. The heaviest modem ever, I swear-- all socketed chips, and a decent-sized transformer-looking thing on it. Windows had no trouble with the modem, and I established a TCP/IP connection at 2400 baud. :cool:

[ThePerfectCore]

What version of Windows, Mitch?

[Neo Demi]

it amazing how far technologys came, the xp core is smaller than a 286, and a whole modem can be put on a chip if its needed.
found an old floppy cable yesterday, and its quite wierd. anyone know what the slots on it that look like a small isa type connector are?

[durrem]

Originally posted by Neo Demi
it amazing how far technologys came, the xp core is smaller than a 286, and a whole modem can be put on a chip if its needed.
found an old floppy cable yesterday, and its quite wierd. anyone know what the slots on it that look like a small isa type connector are?

That's just where the 5.25 drives plug into. They didn't have a pin array layout like hdds and 3.5s. You just kind of slipped that "isa type" thingie around the protruding bit on the drive.

[Master Mitch]

Originally posted by ThePerfectCore
What version of Windows, Mitch?

98SE. I plugged the lowly 8-bit ISA card into mighty K6-2 500 @ 550 (hey, it was summer 2000) not knowing what to expect-- especially considering that I'd never used that modem before.

Booted up fine, of course. I can't specifically recall how the initial installation was accomplished-- as in, whether are not I had to ask for a hardware scan-- but Windows happily reported that it had found a communication port. After installing that, Windows then gleefully informed me that it had found a modem on a com port.

Having a TCP/IP connection at 2400 baud wasn't fantastically useful, but I felt a large amount... anachronistic pride... that establishing it had gone so smoothly.