I believe that most of the Swedish staff know that I have a thing for really old hardware, Amigas mostly but I do fancy old PCs' too.
Background:
Some two years ago, a friend of mine had to move to a different location due to studies. As he couldn't bring all of his computer equipment with him, he told me that I could take anything that he couldn't take with him. Needless to say I came home with our car loaded with what some people would call "junk" (my mother for instance).
One of the things I got was a really old laptop.
The laptop, a Bondwell Model 8 (it does sound really ancient, doesn't it?), had a badly yellowed case. Probably caused by being exposed to the sun for too long (the sun's baaaaad for you ).
Here's a picture of the "beauty":
Doesn't look too good does it?
Then, some 8-9 days ago, me and DiDi went to a computer sale and I found a really nice old Toshiba T2100 laptop. Of course I bought it and when we arrived at my place we started fiddeling with our old laptops, as DiDi had an old 386 laptop with him too.
Anyhow, that's when I decided it would be really cool to restore this old laptop its original state.
Some specifications(disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any of the following: vomiting, nausea, ingrowing toenails or any mental illness due to the following text displayed here):
CPU: Intel 80C88 @ incredible 4.77MHz
RAM: Estimated to 0.5MB
HDD: There's none!
FDD: Super-duper-extreme-1337 720k drive (almost twice as thick as a standard 3.5 floppy drive of today)
Communication: Serial port (No RJ45 here, or BNC)
VGA: Nope, although there's a RGB port and comp. out (!!).
Some strange parallel port and some even weirder external floppy connector.
Display: Well, first thing first. If you think widescreen's something new, think again 640x200 maximum resolution. In DOS 80x25 characters.
Impressive huh?
Well, that was a lot of text. Anyhow, I went to a store and bought spray paint primer and some white spray paint along with some lacquer (uncertain if that's the right word, oh well).
Some random pictures:
My Bondwell next to my Toshiba T2100:
http://kvadd.serveftp.com/projects/Laptop_Bondwell/DSC02425.JPG
I've bought a new battery (same specifications too) for incredible 99 SEK (not even €11). And my goal is to be able to use this machine as a dumb terminal for linux using a serial connection.
It isn't impossible, but it took me a good 2-3 hours of intensive googling to find out how to do it.
And perhaps to use it at DreamHack
And please, I know that some of the pictures are plain out crap in terms of image quality
Enjoy!
Cheers
PS. There might be some spelling errors, my mouse died as I typed this so I'm pretty limited right now and haven't had the time to read it all through. DS _________________ "I'm rubber, you are glue"
Delph1: Thanks mate But it isn't hardcore just yet. But it will be, as I have some plans to overclock it as well
Meanie: Yeah, the weight's about 1.5Kg I believe I think it's incredible that the type of batteries used are still made. Since the batteries found in my laptop are almost 20 years old. _________________ "I'm rubber, you are glue"
DiDi: That's the best thing about these old computers They use a clock crystal from which they derive their clock frequency. They're fairly easy to unsolder and replace with a faster one.
I think it's possible to change the clock frequency on-the-fly using a fairly simple circuit
Thanks by the way _________________ "I'm rubber, you are glue"
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).
640x200 maximum resolution. In DOS 80x25 characters.
