14 Jan
2005
14 Jan
'05
4:53 p.m.
Hello, cctech!
I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop
that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was
doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on
this computer.
I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way.
No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display -
text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically
looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk
- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or
something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart.
After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/%
&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug
non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has
about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so
that may be wrong) and the disk seems to be of JVC manufacture.
What does the plasma shakiness/garbledness mean?
What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine,
or do i have to put the POS back together?
Is the floppy drive 1.44M?
Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and
when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format -
what is it? Text processing? Database?
If I get the data off this machine, very cool things will come my way -
at least an LSI-11, and maybe a lot more!! *giggle like schoolgirl* So
any help is greatly appreciated!
MTIA,
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
14 Jan
14 Jan
12:14 p.m.
Hello, cctech!
I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop
that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was
doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on
this computer.
I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way.
No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display -
text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically
looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk
- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or
something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart.
After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/%
&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug
Tore,
You need to locate another working 3100 and put the hd in it and
transfer contents to more modern computer via parallel cable file
transfer utility (like laplink)
3100 is very old laptop (very heavy) and best to be upgraded to newer
notebook and always back up data.
That hd itself is also high failure rate. Very careful with it and
as you have discovered it's non-standard hd too!
Cheers,
Wizard
15 Jan
15 Jan
5:34 a.m.
jpero(a)sympatico.ca wrote:
A lot of these laptops have a VGA connector on them, Try attaching
a monitor to it and see if that works Ok. Sometimes you have to type
some keys on the keyboard to switch to the VGA port, but you will
need to search for a manual for that laptop to find out what it is.
Hello, cctech!
I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop
that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was
doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on
this computer.
I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way.
No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display -
text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically
looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk
- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or
something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart.
After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/%
&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug
Tore,
You need to locate another working 3100 and put the hd in it and
transfer contents to more modern computer via parallel cable file
transfer utility (like laplink)
3100 is very old laptop (very heavy) and best to be upgraded to newer
notebook and always back up data.
That hd itself is also high failure rate. Very careful with it and
as you have discovered it's non-standard hd too!
Cheers,
Wizard
14 Jan
14 Jan
6:04 p.m.
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend
regarding a laptop
that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was
doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on
this computer.
I assume this thing runs Windows? Any idea what version?
Boot from floppy (why not just try 1.44M?)? DOS. Run kermit.
Transfer /*.* via serial port. Go get lunch, dinner, sleep, it'll
be done in the morning. Beats working on it. Time best spent
reading or watching TV than working out faster methods.
If the screen is unstable w/DOS then it's likely unretrievable
hardware failure.
Is the screen usable when you access the ROM BIOS setup?
&(/¤/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen
cable plug
non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has
about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so
that may be wrong)
??? isn't this an LCD laptop? I can't imagine the interface
to the screen is anything but proprietary.
15 Jan
15 Jan
1:41 a.m.
Tom Jennings wrote:
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
Every laptop I've ever stripped had a different lead count on the LCD
ribbon cable. The ribbon is not only the video signal, but
power/adjustment for the backlight and LCD.
Doc
&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the
screen cable plug
non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has
about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so
that may be wrong)
??? isn't this an LCD laptop? I can't imagine the interface
to the screen is anything but proprietar
y. 
14 Jan
14 Jan
7:15 p.m.
Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called
FrameWorks? If and
when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format -
what is it? Text processing? Database?
This will be Framework - probably Framework II or III (there was a Framework
IV, but that style of program was essentially obsoleted by the improving
Windows applications).
FW was A-Ts "all-in-one" database/WP/spreadsheet and a very nice program to
use.
It's a pity that none of the Windows office applications had such an visible
"frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor.
There are downloadable import filters for FW files for MS office that should
still be hiding somewhere on Microsoft's site. If truly desperate you can
take advantage of the fact that the .FW2/.FW3 files are mostly text and use
a good text editor to recover things.
Andy
--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05
15 Jan
15 Jan
4:08 a.m.
Andy Holt wrote:
It's a pity that none of the Windows office
applications had such an visible
"frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor.
Uh, OLE? :-) I've been embedding information into Office documents for over a
decade...
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
23 Jan
23 Jan
4:29 a.m.
If anyone's interested, I've got a copy of Framework II sitting here in it's
box with binder full of manual and disks.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Andy Holt
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:16 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop
Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called
FrameWorks? If and
when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format -
what is it? Text processing? Database?
This will be Framework - probably Framework II or III (there was a Framework
IV, but that style of program was essentially obsoleted by the improving
Windows applications).
FW was A-Ts "all-in-one" database/WP/spreadsheet and a very nice program to
use.
It's a pity that none of the Windows office applications had such an visible
"frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor.
There are downloadable import filters for FW files for MS office that should
still be hiding somewhere on Microsoft's site. If truly desperate you can
take advantage of the fact that the .FW2/.FW3 files are mostly text and use
a good text editor to recover things.
Andy
--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05
14 Jan
14 Jan
9:49 p.m.
At 07:53 AM 1/15/05 +0100, you wrote:
Hello, cctech!
I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop
that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was
doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on
this computer.
I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way.
No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display -
text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically
looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk
- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or
something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart.
After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/%
&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug
non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has
about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so
that may be wrong) and the disk seems to be of JVC manufacture.
What does the plasma shakiness/garbledness mean?
What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine,
or do i have to put the POS back together?
Is the floppy drive 1.44M?
Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a
CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used
in the Compaq Portable III and a couple of other machines. Of course if
the problem in your 3100 is not the plasma panel, but the video on the
motherboard this will not help.
The hard disk sounds like a type I have seen in several other laptops of
that era (Zenith comes to mind). I bought one loose once not knowing what
it originally came from intending to put it in a Zenith, but could never
get it working properly.
From some of the 1st T3100s had 720KB floppy drives,
but all the ones I've
actually dealt with had 1.44MB.
Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and
when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format -
what is it? Text processing? Database?
If I get the data off this machine, very cool things will come my way -
at least an LSI-11, and maybe a lot more!! *giggle like schoolgirl* So
any help is greatly appreciated!
From memory it was one of those integrated packages
that included a word
processor, spreadsheet and possibly more. If they are just
word processor
documents something should be able to read it, even if it's just the file
viewer in XTGold (which can save text as ASCII).
15 Jan
15 Jan
2:33 a.m.
On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote:
Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm
pretty sure they have a
CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used
in the Compaq Portable III and a couple of other machines. Of course if
the problem in your 3100 is not the plasma panel, but the video on the
motherboard this will not help.
The problem seems analog - my worry was not the
legibility of the
screen, I could probably semi-blind-copy the documents, but if this was
indicative of an impending PSU BBQ party. It seemed like one of those
parts that would be very anal about voltage variations...
I have a VGA monitor, no CGAs around, but I also have a 9-pin to 15-pin
male-male cable - but aren't the voltages different?
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
2:46 a.m.
On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote:
> Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a
> CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used
Tore,
Correct. This is CGA output. Monitors now don't support CGA due to
timings and pin layout is totally different. Get another working
T3100 or find a working CGA monitor which is awfully hard to find.
But easier to find another T3100 even it has bad HD too. ask around.
I had no problem disassembling their older T3100 laptops. Key is to
remember to remove first four screws (bottom) that holds keyboard at
front edge and tilt keyboard up and out, carefully disconnect couple
delicate ribbon cables, then rest of disassembly is easy.
The specs is 286 12mhz, 1MB. Either 10MB or 20MB HD, usually have
1.44MB if your has "e" Very few got extra memory added.
1. Nobody runs any favor of windows even 3.11 on this limited
resources like T3100 so don't quip up about windows. It is DOS
machine.
2. Winders between even old 95 and 3.11 is totally different that
getting both connected by network (ethernet) is a challege on 3.11
because you have to install and manually write up a script to run the
ethernet stuff before starting 3.11. This is why I said laplink or
microsoft's data transfer utility (found on dos starting from 6.x).
3. Data recovery means you do NOT write anything to the HD which
means you must find another machine that works and move the HD to
working one or have someone repair that notebook first.
Then run laplink 5.x off the floppy only on both machines with data
transfer parallel cable connected to both machines and suck the data
to good machine even pentium machine will do.
4. Used pentium notebooks is plenty and parts easy to get from ebay.
I particularly like solo 2300 series and inexpensive.
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
Cheers,
Wizard
2:46 a.m.
On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote:
> Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a
> CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used
Tore,
Correct. This is CGA output. Monitors now don't support CGA due to
timings and pin layout is totally different. Get another working
T3100 or find a working CGA monitor which is awfully hard to find.
But easier to find another T3100 even it has bad HD too. ask around.
I had no problem disassembling their older T3100 laptops. Key is to
remember to remove first four screws (bottom) that holds keyboard at
front edge and tilt keyboard up and out, carefully disconnect couple
delicate ribbon cables, then rest of disassembly is easy.
The specs is 286 12mhz, 1MB. Either 10MB or 20MB HD, usually have
1.44MB if your has "e" Very few got extra memory added.
1. Nobody runs any favor of windows even 3.11 on this limited
resources like T3100 so don't quip up about windows. It is DOS
machine.
2. Winders between even old 95 and 3.11 is totally different that
getting both connected by network (ethernet) is a challege on 3.11
because you have to install and manually write up a script to run the
ethernet stuff before starting 3.11. This is why I said laplink or
microsoft's data transfer utility (found on dos starting from 6.x).
3. Data recovery means you do NOT write anything to the HD which
means you must find another machine that works and move the HD to
working one or have someone repair that notebook first.
Then run laplink 5.x off the floppy only on both machines with data
transfer parallel cable connected to both machines and suck the data
to good machine even pentium machine will do.
4. Used pentium notebooks is plenty and parts easy to get from ebay.
I particularly like solo 2300 series and inexpensive.
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
Cheers,
Wizard
4:09 a.m.
Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
I have a VGA monitor, no CGAs around, but I also have
a 9-pin to 15-pin
male-male cable - but aren't the voltages different?
Voltages aside, the technologies are completely different; it won't work. I
would follow the "boot-a-floppy-and-transfer-via-kermit" method. Or use a
DOS-based program like FastLynx or even the built-in transfer in DOS 6.x's
intersvr/interlnk programs.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
9:33 a.m.
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called
FrameWorks? If and
when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format -
what is it? Text processing? Database?
It's a suite: word processor, database, spreadsheet, and allowed you to
move data from one application to the other with ease. I have the manuals
for the first version but no software apparently.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
16 Jan
16 Jan
5:51 a.m.
Tore,
I agree with the guys that you need to not boot that machine anymore as it
could screw up the remaining data on the hard drive. I would remove the hard
drive and put in into a known good PC as a Secondary Master or Slave. If the
laptop drive has 22 pins across ( for a total of 44 pins for top and
bottom ) then you can get an adapter to plug it into a standard IDE cable
and it also provides the proper power connector for standard PC power. If
you can't find an adapter, Email me and I'll mail you one ( they are dirt
cheap at computer swap meets ). Then just transfer the whole drive's
contents ( can't be very much ) into a folder on the PC ( you could copy and
paste the whole drive ) and then chuck the laptop and the old drive. This
would be the fastest, most safe and least hassle solution.
Regards, Steven C
17 Jan
17 Jan
4:59 a.m.
Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine,
or do i have to put the POS back together?
On my T1000ex the hard drive is just a plain ordinary 20M 2.5" drive.
It has a funny daughterboard connection thing with the plug that fits
into the laptop. You can remove this and just use an ordinary 44-pin to
40 + 4-pin lead.
Gordon.
7274
days inactive
7282
days old
15 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
andyh＠andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk -
cannings＠earthlink.net -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
dr.ido＠bigpond.net.au -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
jpero＠sympatico.ca -
kth＠srv.net -
mokuba＠gmail.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
toresbe＠ifi.uio.no -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
vcf＠siconic.com