10 Oct
2009
10 Oct
'09
4:33 a.m.
Oh and one more thing, Sir. When I said I don't want a flame war, I didn't
mean we should stop talking. I meant that's the way I see things - if you
give me a 286 motherboard, I'll be looking for the best CPU for that board
and all the features present in modern computers: sound card, network card,
video card, tv tuner, etc.
I'm hoping to get a hint answer from you: ok, you want all those
over-the-top modifications. I think this man (or this company) can help you.
What are the prices for a 386 DX laptop? Does anyone have one of those / is
willing to sell it?
I don't need the battery to be functional, nor do I care about the CPU speed
(if it's a 386DX that's enough for me). I'll just plug it in and run many
old things on it, after upgrading it as much as possible.
I don't care about the brand, either. I need it to have basic things like a
hard drive, a floppy drive and maybe a modem (I'm not keen on serial cables
or laplink cables, really).
I am interested in as much RAM as possible, however. Even if it has 2 MB of
RAM but can be upgraded to 8-10-16-32 or whatever, it's better than a laptop
having 1 or 2 MB base memory, upgraded to 4, but impossible to upgrade
further. I also really need it to have an LCD screen. Grayscale, of
course. I'm not even thinking of a colour screen because I know LCDs were
far from colors at that time. But if it had a CRT screen (although, as far
as I know that was over with 8086 or 80286 laptops) it would be very hard to
find a replacement, should the original fail. You can get a custom made LCD
but I can't imagine there is someone left on the planet making CRTs.
I apologize if I offended you, Sir.
On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Alexandru Lovin <thypope at gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 1:10 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Would a hardware wizard be able to tell if I sent him the laptop?
Exactly. I want to know how much for all this. I'll patiently gather the
money and then pay hard cash: here, do it.
On 10 Oct 2009 at 0:41, Alexandru Lovin wrote:
Romania. Nope, save from the motherboard fixer who's probably gotten sick
of old hardware, there is no other craftsman able or willing to concoct a
custom PCB. All those that were here already ran away abroad - to Canada,
US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc.
Trouble is, I can't afford an international
call to hear them say yes
or no. Beside that, I really really really want someone to look into
the machine and tell me if a custom RAM card can be made. The thing
comes with 2 MB onboard (4 chips, apparently 4x512 KB) and it has a
custom RAM upgrade card...which of course, can't be found anywhere on
the whole Internet.
You didn't say where in the world you were located. I'm sure that
there must be someone close enough to you.
Now, the laptop also has a custom connector for a
2400bps modem that
it could host. Being a 386SX, it is most definitely 8-bit ISA or
16-bit ISA (but really nonstandard). I think it has 25 pins or so (not
sure, quoting from memory). Were there any other buses used in the
286-386SX generations except ISA? As far as I know, PCI can only be
implemented starting with a 386 DX so it's definitely not PCI.
I'm sure it's nothing as exotic as PCI for a 386SX laptop. It could
well be a version of ISA, but some devices used their own bus
implementation, so it's difficult to say.
I refuse to believe that there aren't any
people left in this world
able to design and manufacture a custom PCB. One for the memory
expansion (and not necessarily with 2 MB on it, it can have more - the
386SX I heard can access up to 16 MB, just like the 286, while the
leap to 4 GB was achieved with the 386DX) and one for something else.
The question is more of "who would want to design a board for a
little-known vintage laptop?" Given sufficient monetary impetus, you
could certainly find someone to do it, but otherwise, why would
anyone want to do it?
I think it's a better use of your time to enjoy the thing for what it
is, not what it was never intended to be.
I disagree. I find your PC philosophy wrong. You see, when someone thinks
of a system, they want it to sell in great numbers. You know the iPhone is
an Apple first and a phone second. You know you can barely understand the
guy calling you from his iPhone (we use GSM here, not CDMA, except for just
one operator). But the thing sells because you have to slide to answer. Or
unlock the keypad...sorry, touchscreen.
So, the persons who make up a product don't necessarily want it to be the
best. They want people to feel they have sufficient resources (RAM + CPU)
and enough upgrade paths (like this modem and extra memory card) to suit
most of their needs. That's why most companies cater to the village idiot -
they think those are the most numerous. I don't know if that's a fact, but
it's certainly what they think.
Most importantly, the user must not feel ripped off. Also, he must not find
the price tag restrictive. And you should know better than I do what the
prices for PCs and laptops were in 1992. Thousands of dollars. The same
performance range, by today's standards, costs much less, I would say a
quarter.
So of course they didn't mean it to have 16 MB of RAM! That would have made
the price skyrocket! Of course they didn't mean it to have an Ethernet card:
only entities with big budgets could afford networking back then. And that
USB adapter would only push things to the limits. One extra thing I'm
considering is calling esupport.com and ask them for a BIOS upgrade - the
machine actually has an IBM PC BIOS, it's the first time I've ever seen such
a BIOS.
My main machine is a dual Pentium 3 - 1.4 GHz. With 2 GB of RDRAM. Runs
Vista without problems. Windows 7 awards systems with a score from 1.0 to
7.9 and this system's CPUs got 3.3. That RDRAM got the same mark. A 386 DX
system can have PCI and that means it can have SATA. Or Gigabit Ethernet. Or
a DirectX 10 video card.
I never will understand this type of thinking: oh just use it for what it
was made. Windows 7 can run on a K6-2 CPU. I'm pretty confident it can also
run on a K6 and K5. Won't install or run on Pentium MMX - tested. The
motherboard just needs to be fully ACPI 1.0 compliant and it must host no
less than 512 MB of RAM.
But hey, why have the latest compatibility and run decently recent versions
of software? The K6-2 was made for Windows 9x or ME at most, so you should
use that. Does that make sense?
I know there are people who keep a 386 for the single task of playing their
favourite DOS games, but there's Dosbox. And it can render the games in
higher resolutions and with somewhat better methods of rendering. But it was
not made for that!
I can't find the logic. Whatever I can do, I probably want to do it on a
computer. I don't want a flame war with you, Sir, but this is me.