My New Laptop

[microsoft windows]

I got my hands on this computer about a month ago.



It's a Compaq LTE Elite 4/40CX. As the name suggests, it's got a 40Mhz 80486 inside it. It's also got 12MB of RAM and a 320MB hard disk. Looking at it, I think it dates from late 1994 to mid-1995. I've updated all the software on it and have gotten it on the wireless network and on the Internet. I've nicknamed it the "Pterodactyl"--the Portable Dinosaur.


http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6289/dscn0027j.jpg
The keyboard's got a Thinkpad-style layout, except for individual keys for Print Screen and a few others. It's a shorter-travel rubber dome but still heftier than most other laptop keyboards these days. Kind of reminds me of the Mighty Mouse keyboards.


Here's a close-up of the trackball. Its buttons are on the other side of the monitor. It's easier to use than I first anticipated, and tracks quite well.


Overall, the laptop's in great shape and the screen's got no dead pixels and has good brightness.


Of course I had to install this.

[Pylon]

You can do better. My 1993 PC World says that a number of laptops had clicky keyboards, with one with keys that were close to the Model M.

[kill will]

1995 1996 were some great years

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

'94 was better... That's when both me and my M4-1 were born... 4 days apart.

[microsoft windows]

That's when my M5-2 was made.

[D-EJ915]

Those white Compaqs were pretty awesome, I've got a half-working 386 model but the keyboard is terrible on it, likely to toss it to be honest unless someone wants it for shipping.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Define half-working? And I would take it if you don't want it... PM me if you are gonna throw it away.

[stuiees]

omg afterdark! lol, i remember that screensaver prog

[microsoft windows]

I got the After Dark files if you want them. Just PC me and I can send them to you. But you'll need an older system to run the screensavers properly. They go too fast on newer computers (about 1997 to date).

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

I got the After Dark files if you want them. Just PC me and I can send them to you. But you'll need an older system to run the screensavers properly. They go too fast on newer computers (about 1997 to date).

He really means you need something older than a Pentium II in order to run them at proper speeds.

[thebilgerat]

1994 I was still rocking this:



Had an '030 accelerator with 8M ram.  Ran Final Writer, Civ AGA and The Chaos Engine like a champ

[ricercar]

In 1994 I had upgraded my SE/30 to 33MHz, 32MB RAM, and dual 80 MB SCSI drives.

Approximately 1994 I bought my first IBM Model M, for my work PC, for $14 USD.

[Shawn Stanford]

'94?

Crikey...

I think I had purchased my first 486 class machine for home. But, I think I also had a 386 machine as a secondary. IIRC, the 386 machine was home-built, had about a meg or RAM, a 5 or 10 meg HDD and a 5.25 floppy drive scavenged from a Tandy computer. The 300, maybe?

Ugh. Good riddance to all that...

[zmurf]

@thebilgerat:
I'm still rocking my A1200.. .
http://picasaweb.google.com/k.peter.mattsson/Amiga1200Extreme#

[microsoft windows]

In 1994 I had upgraded my SE/30 to 33MHz, 32MB RAM, and dual 80 MB SCSI drives.

Approximately 1994 I bought my first IBM Model M, for my work PC, for $14 USD.

Do you still have that Model M?

[ricercar]

Do you still have that Model M?

Yes, but the second one I bought a week later has become my parts *****, starting with all the free caps I gave away my first month here.

[chimera15]

Those white Compaqs were pretty awesome, I've got a half-working 386 model but the keyboard is terrible on it, likely to toss it to be honest unless someone wants it for shipping.

386 laptops that work are extremely rare.  Don't toss it.

In 94/95 I had a b/w 386 compaq laptop which died on me.  Since I bought it through Fry's and had a replacement warranty they replaced it with a zenith 486 that ran on off the shelf AA batteries.  I still have that one.  It's pretty cool for it's battery feature.  I wish more laptops still did that.

[D-EJ915]

Mine has a docking station with half-height and full-height 5 1/4" drive bays with floppy and IDE connectors, the screen looks great but mine doesn't seem to want to read a floppy from either of the built-in drives I have (in the laptop itself not the base station)

[thebilgerat]

@thebilgerat:
I'm still rocking my A1200.. .
http://picasaweb.google.com/k.peter.mattsson/Amiga1200Extreme#

Good looking machine!  My 1200 is gone, but I do have an A2000 rev 4.3 that I muck about with.  Whenever I do though I tend to get cranky and bitter about the outcome of Commodore.

EDIT:  It is crazy how much that gear goes for these days, esp. AGA machines or the accel cards.

[zmurf]

Good looking machine!  My 1200 is gone, but I do have an A2000 rev 4.3 that I muck about with.  Whenever I do though I tend to get cranky and bitter about the outcome of Commodore.

EDIT:  It is crazy how much that gear goes for these days, esp. AGA machines or the accel cards.

Yepp.. it's almost outrageous sometimes.

Myself I'm waiting for the Natami.
http://www.natami.net/

It will probably be quite expansive... but it will be nice to have a new classic Amiga compatible machine that isn't a bunch of hardware hacks to get USB, high resolution and so on, and with new components. I have problems with my machines that some components starting to give up... and it's easier to buy a new machine then resoldering all capacitaters.

[NamelessPFG]

*still sulks a bit for not having ever owned an Amiga, much less one of the AGA models*

At least if I do get my hands on one, my NEC MultiSync XV29 Plus won't complain about 15 KHz horizontal sync. That monitor's still in dire need of calibration beyond what the OSD allows (geometry's way off, lower-left corner convergence isn't perfect), but it's the only one I can find around here that goes that low. (No, I haven't found any Commodore monitors at all, nor the computers they went with.)

[iMav]

@thebilgerat:
I'm still rocking my A1200.. .
http://picasaweb.google.com/k.peter.mattsson/Amiga1200Extreme#

Have you been following the Amiga X1000 at all??

[zmurf]

Have you been following the Amiga X1000 at all??

Much so. I also own a µAmigaOne, which I'm about to sell since I never use it. My main interest in Amiga is those features that requires the original chip sets and MC680x0 compatibility, which the AmigaOS4.x machines such as AmigaOnes and SAMs lack since they aren't really Amigas. Hence the name AmigaOne X1000, not Amiga X1000.

Even though the AmigaOS4.x is an evolution of the original Workbench 3.1 and there is quite good API level compatibility there is no hardware compability . Except for emulation... that is horribly slow and I can as well use WinUAE if I want to emulate.

I use my Amigas to play Amiga games, watch Amiga demos and program hardware close assembler code. Which of non I can do on an AmigaOs4.x, MorphOS, AROS or any other next generation Amiga clone that doesn't reimplement the Amiga hardware. (Of those three I actually like the AROS project best since it's the only next gen Amiga clone system that doesn't force me to buy new, over prices and outdated hardware. The biggest problem with for example the AmigaOne X1000 is that the hardware already was outdated when it first where presented almost a year ago.)

I do think that the FPGA projects Natami, Minimig and FPGA Arcade is really interesting since they all are able to reimplement the Amiga hardware. Especially the "Natami" and the "FPGA Arcade with Minimig AGA core" is interesting since they will be able to run AGA software. Hopefully the real Minimig will come with an upgrade that will let it run the Minimig AGA core... something that only the FPGA Arcade is able to do for the moment.

[iMav]

The Amiga story is one of incompetent marketing and a platform that was simply way ahead of its time.  I remember seeing a friend running his multi-line BBS in the background while playing a game and doing some graphics work as well.  All with 1MB of ram.  Ridiculous.

The "new" Amiga platform is based on pretty dated PPC hardware and simply has been passed up by modern OSs.  They won't be able to recapture the magic...but at least the faithful are being catered to.  (even if the delays and missteps are huge).

[zmurf]

The Amiga story is one of incompetent marketing and a platform that was simply way ahead of its time.  I remember seeing a friend running his multi-line BBS in the background while playing a game and doing some graphics work as well.  All with 1MB of ram.  Ridiculous.

The "new" Amiga platform is based on pretty dated PPC hardware and simply has been passed up by modern OSs.  They won't be able to recapture the magic...but at least the faithful are being catered to.  (even if the delays and missteps are huge).

true, true...

Also it seems totally unnecessary to produce a new hardware platform or keep to an alternative hardware platform if you still aren't going to keep hardware compatibility. Many NG Amiga users out there seems to think that it's for some reason is important to run the new Amiga operating systems such as AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS on different hardware then standard x86 hardware. But I can't see that an alternative hardware platform really adds anything. When the first Amiga was produced there weren't any alternative then to build their own hardware since the existing hardware couldn't do what they wanted to. But now the standard PC hardware does everything as good or better then any alternative hardware.