Review of the Compaq SLT / 286 laptop. Retro from the 80s
Surely a lot of people have some favorite old things. Someone just obsessed with them, and keeps the whole museums of ancient technology. And besides, it often sounds that they used to do better, the sun was brighter and the grass is greener. The quality of the old technology can be argued for years. However, this introduction, for lovers of old iron, I suggest this review of the laptop.
In 1988, Compaq launched its first personal laptop with a VGA card on board. Characteristics of the machine:
')
Funny money. For the same ridiculous $ 599, a modem capable of 2400 baud could be installed in a laptop, but without MNP. It was still possible to increase the memory, right up to 12 MB, by installing three additional modules of 4 MB and put the hard drive at 40 MB (and then at 80). It was also possible to buy a docking station into which 2 ISA cards fit. Operating time from one charge was 3 hours. (If interested, you can read the 1988 article on the New York Times )
This handsome man fell into my hands at the beginning of 2001, and he was in a dead state, with a dead hard drive and a floppy drive that reads almost nothing. Without a native power supply and battery, with a dead modem and hard drive, and, as it seemed at that time, a dead bios (I learned about Floppy Setup Diskette, I learned to use Floppy Setup Diskette a couple of months later). A hard drive with 80 MB was found to it, a 5 ”25 diskette was dug out (with which it was copied to a suitable 3” 5 configurator). Then in 2006 another SLT / 286 with a broken matrix was bought on the hammer. By swapping iron from two cars, one was assembled, but completely working, all that was needed was a battery. So, its configuration:
This laptop has an original keyboard - it is removable, and with a full PS / 2 connector. For a while, cheap noname Chinese noname was exploited instead - everything worked fine. Alas, time leaves its marks, and the plastic of the keyboard in some places has changed its color.
Inside, the laptop is amazing - the whole structure is assembled on an aluminum chassis. All blocks are shielded from each other.
If you remove the installed blocks, and unscrew the screen, then you can get to the motherboard.
One strange detail is visible here - some kind of wire and a piece of electrical tape. People who came across the old equipment with the “Dallas” on board probably already guessed what it was and where it was going. For those who do not know what Dallas is, this is NVRAM (CMOS) + RTC (Clock) + battery that powers all this when the power is off, all this is flooded with compound. Just the battery in this module dies in 10-15 years (12 years manufacturer's warranty), respectively, the laptop settings and the clock are reset every time the power is turned off, but for desktop motherboards this is still nothing, set up quickly going into the BIOS and working, and generally you can score. But brand-name + laptop played a cruel joke - the CMOS settings, when the battery is discharged, are reset even with a cold restart (not to mention a power outage). And on the computers (up to the Pentium-III), to enter the CMOS it was necessary to boot from a special diskette (then their number reached as many as three and the configurator worked under Win 3.1), and after the configuration was completed, that same cold restart went. Vicious circle. The correction of this mistake is visible in the photo, the Dallas neatly sawed the compound at the location of the battery terminals, and a wire was soldered to the NVRAM / RTC feet to the new connector.
The laptop has a very specific floppy drive with a 20-pin connector. Other hardware does not shine with standardity either, everything has Compaq connectors, except for a hard disk. More or less new (95year) samsung was installed in the basket, alas, it was necessary to put it upside down - a kind of fastening and pin placement at the native screw. In the background there is a modem for 2400baud - hayes compatible.
About the response time of the matrix, we can say that it lies in the range of 0.1-0.5 s. It affects its full passivity. The game in Wolf3D looks funny, the CPU brakes are smoothed by the matrix brakes.
Unfortunately, the native battery to the pack is now problematic. But there is an inelegant solution:
Here is such a self-made battery that can charge in this same laptop. Climbs into the battery compartment and works. Now dismantled because of uselessness, for full combat readiness it is enough to put 10 identical NiMh batteries and into battle!
The laptop is MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.0, which works quietly in standard mode.
What can you do on this laptop? You can use it to read electronic waste paper, you can torment the old Windows. You can try to understand, others can not put on it ELKS. By the way, the presence of COM allows you to use the machine as a terminal. For barbarians - you can fight them from the crowd, the benefit of the built-in handle allows you to transfer.
Parts of this laptop will soon be 20 years old (and the matrix is 21 years old), and the working capacity is completely preserved. What can I say, the thing is done soundly.
Story.
In 1988, Compaq launched its first personal laptop with a VGA card on board. Characteristics of the machine:
- 8 "5 inch black and white screen with 256 grayscale
- 80286 processor at a frequency of 12 MHz
- 20 MB hard drive
- 1.44mb floppy drive
- 640 kilobytes of memory which then will be enough for everyone
- 1 VGA, 1 COM, 1 LPT, 1 External Floppy / Streamer ports
- the price is only $ 5399.
')
Funny money. For the same ridiculous $ 599, a modem capable of 2400 baud could be installed in a laptop, but without MNP. It was still possible to increase the memory, right up to 12 MB, by installing three additional modules of 4 MB and put the hard drive at 40 MB (and then at 80). It was also possible to buy a docking station into which 2 ISA cards fit. Operating time from one charge was 3 hours. (If interested, you can read the 1988 article on the New York Times )
This handsome man fell into my hands at the beginning of 2001, and he was in a dead state, with a dead hard drive and a floppy drive that reads almost nothing. Without a native power supply and battery, with a dead modem and hard drive, and, as it seemed at that time, a dead bios (I learned about Floppy Setup Diskette, I learned to use Floppy Setup Diskette a couple of months later). A hard drive with 80 MB was found to it, a 5 ”25 diskette was dug out (with which it was copied to a suitable 3” 5 configurator). Then in 2006 another SLT / 286 with a broken matrix was bought on the hammer. By swapping iron from two cars, one was assembled, but completely working, all that was needed was a battery. So, its configuration:
- 80S286 12MHz, 80C287 8MHz
- 4MB of memory
- 520MB hard disk (the maximum that sees his BIOS)
- 1 ”44 floppy drive
- 2400 baud modem
- Native BP
- Non-native battery.
Iron.
This laptop has an original keyboard - it is removable, and with a full PS / 2 connector. For a while, cheap noname Chinese noname was exploited instead - everything worked fine. Alas, time leaves its marks, and the plastic of the keyboard in some places has changed its color.
Inside, the laptop is amazing - the whole structure is assembled on an aluminum chassis. All blocks are shielded from each other.
If you remove the installed blocks, and unscrew the screen, then you can get to the motherboard.
One strange detail is visible here - some kind of wire and a piece of electrical tape. People who came across the old equipment with the “Dallas” on board probably already guessed what it was and where it was going. For those who do not know what Dallas is, this is NVRAM (CMOS) + RTC (Clock) + battery that powers all this when the power is off, all this is flooded with compound. Just the battery in this module dies in 10-15 years (12 years manufacturer's warranty), respectively, the laptop settings and the clock are reset every time the power is turned off, but for desktop motherboards this is still nothing, set up quickly going into the BIOS and working, and generally you can score. But brand-name + laptop played a cruel joke - the CMOS settings, when the battery is discharged, are reset even with a cold restart (not to mention a power outage). And on the computers (up to the Pentium-III), to enter the CMOS it was necessary to boot from a special diskette (then their number reached as many as three and the configurator worked under Win 3.1), and after the configuration was completed, that same cold restart went. Vicious circle. The correction of this mistake is visible in the photo, the Dallas neatly sawed the compound at the location of the battery terminals, and a wire was soldered to the NVRAM / RTC feet to the new connector.
The laptop has a very specific floppy drive with a 20-pin connector. Other hardware does not shine with standardity either, everything has Compaq connectors, except for a hard disk. More or less new (95year) samsung was installed in the basket, alas, it was necessary to put it upside down - a kind of fastening and pin placement at the native screw. In the background there is a modem for 2400baud - hayes compatible.
About the response time of the matrix, we can say that it lies in the range of 0.1-0.5 s. It affects its full passivity. The game in Wolf3D looks funny, the CPU brakes are smoothed by the matrix brakes.
Unfortunately, the native battery to the pack is now problematic. But there is an inelegant solution:
Here is such a self-made battery that can charge in this same laptop. Climbs into the battery compartment and works. Now dismantled because of uselessness, for full combat readiness it is enough to put 10 identical NiMh batteries and into battle!
Soft part.
The laptop is MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.0, which works quietly in standard mode.
What can you do on this laptop? You can use it to read electronic waste paper, you can torment the old Windows. You can try to understand, others can not put on it ELKS. By the way, the presence of COM allows you to use the machine as a terminal. For barbarians - you can fight them from the crowd, the benefit of the built-in handle allows you to transfer.
Parts of this laptop will soon be 20 years old (and the matrix is 21 years old), and the working capacity is completely preserved. What can I say, the thing is done soundly.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/62397/
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