The challenges and solutions in retro computing never cease to amaze me, and today's project is no different. Today's goal was getting working storage in this AST Premium Exec 386 laptop. And fortunately, somewhat against the odds, I found one! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!
So, anyway, the issue I had with this laptop is that the original 20MB 3.5" IDE hard drive had died. I thought "no problem, I'll pop on eBay and get one." Except they are scarce and expensive. I picked up two 120MB drives and one 40MB drive. None of them worked.
In the past, I had also tried a CF card. I could get the CF cards to a point where they were accessible, but when I go to boot, I get a blinking cursor.. and sometimes a "non system disk or disk error" a few minutes later. Tried multiple CF cards, same result.
Has anyone ever worked with GEOS, GeoWorks, New Deal Office, or Breadbox Ensemble on a PC? Well, I decided to load it up on one of my 486 systems today and take it for a spin... including getting online! Let's talk about what I discovered in a 🧵 here!
I decided to install Breadbox Ensemble 4.1.3, which was originally released in 2009. Keep in mind that this would be late in the cycle for, say, a 486 PC, that does give some perspective! Install was text based an a cinch!
After installation, we get to configure a bit. I bumped up the video to 800x600x256, configured use of a DOS mouse driver, and set up my Panasonic dot matrix printer.
Yesterday, I talked about a few systems I had that were not Intel/AMD/Cyrix based. Well, here's another one: my Gateway 2000 tower has a UMC processor in it! I haven't powered it on in a hot minute, so let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here!
As we saw from the intro photo, this system has a UMC Green CPU US5-SUPER33 in it. And, indeed, it is super! It's almost as fast as a 486 DX2/50! These CPUs were subject to a legal dispute, and thus were not sold in the USA
On power up, we can see that this processor is detected as a U486SX by AMI BIOS. Not all motherboards supported this CPU. But my Shuttle-HOT-433 board does!
I thought I'd power up and inventory my systems that don't have CPUs made by Intel/AMD/Cyrix, but are x86 compatible. I do have a few! Let's have a quick look at them in a 🧵 here!
Let's start with the system on the far left, the tower. It happens to be an ITX Llama system, built around the Vortex86EX CPU. It's similar in performance to a 486 or Pentium system. I did make a custom BIOS build to play the Nokia tune 😂
Oh, I should give some specs. 128MB RAM, ATI Rage Pro 128 AGP card, 120 GB SD card for storage, Crystal audio, and an RDC Ethernet card as you will see from my Windows screenshot here. This is a quirky system.. a bit buggy... and I HAD to use QEMM for memory management
I thought I'd take some time today and "assemble" the new additions to my Compaq LTE 5000 series fleet! Each machine got a battery, hard drive, and either a floppy or CD-ROM drive. Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here!
First, I started with the batteries. The cells have been removed, so we just have plastic shells. They all needed a cleaning, but this one was THE WORST. Some Goo Gone took care of it, and some elbow grease. Also, I was one battery short, so I pulled one from my spares!
One of the laptops had a screw that wasn't tight and blocked the battery, so I had to take it apart and tighten it. I also replaced the CPU cover on this laptop since it was in bad shape.. this is the laptop where we discovered previously that Goof Off is bad for plastics.